WITH PHILLIP HART & MARY MORWOOD HART
AmByth—or “Forever” in Welsh—Estate is a dry-farmed, 20-acre (8-hectare) organic vineyard and cellar in Paso Robles, California. The husband-and-wife team cultivate 11 varieties of grape. They also keep bees, chickens, and cows, and grow olives.
“When we started, we decided to go super high-tech. I thought, I can be on my computer up in Orange County and can turn on the sprinkler system… We had a James Bond consultant. He was from this company of newest, hottest guys. They wanted to put probes in the ground so that we could know the moisture content remotely. We were totally into the idea.
Yet, we travel the world and we know the reality of old vineyards that are irrigated and we know that it’s possible to do otherwise. So, we said to this consulting person, ‘Why don’t we dry-farm?’
‘No, you can’t do it.’ He was right out of college and none of the universities round here—UC Davis, Berkeley, CalPoli, Sonoma State—teach alternative methods, as they’re perceived as not being economically viable.
So, while we loved the idea of dry-farmed bush vines, we were going to go conventional high-tech anyway.
That is until one day when we happened to pull into a nearby cellar we’d never seen before. The woman behind the bar was slightly ripped. I’m not kidding, she poured us the most giant glass of red wine, and Phillip and I were like ‘Oh.’ What are we going to do if we don’t like this wine? We took a sip, it was a sangiovese-cab blend and, my gosh, we loved it.
‘Where’s this from? How’s it farmed?’
‘It’s from right here—it’s dry-farmed.’
‘Who planted the vineyard?’
‘My husband did.’
We met him the next day. He’s an old-time vineyard guy who’s always dry-farmed and he said to us, ‘Look at them weeds. If them weeds can grow, vines can grow.’
So, we fired the super high-tech company—and didn’t look back.
In Paso Robles, we have a huge water shortage. My numbers may be off a little but, basically, our water table has dropped 100ft in the last 10 years, which is directly caused by vineyards. We’ve been told that there are 20,000 more acres going in in the next few years, so what is going to happen to our water table? Environmentally, it is completely unsustainable. Non-irrigated land is being transformed into majorly irrigated vineyards. And the rain isn’t replenishing what is being consumed. So, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the problem. People’s wells are going dry.
The sad thing is the huge blocks of new plantings being bought by outsiders. It’s not Mary and Phillip who’ve bought 200 acres next door to range cows. It’s somebody from Los Angeles or China, so the water drying up doesn’t mean much to them. They dry up their neighbors and move on. It’s just a financial deal.
‘If we buy 800 acres and plant 600 acres, what crop will we get in two years?’
‘How quickly will we get a return on our investment?’
And, yes, if you do the numbers, they can get it all back in about four years. After that they don’t care. It’s all gravy. And if it doesn’t work, they walk away. With dry-farming, the return is much slower but the result, as our name suggests, is forever.
We’re one of the driest farming areas in California. We get tonnes less water than Napa. We even get half the water they get just over there—on the other side of the 101. So, if we can do it, they should all be dry-farmed.
Our basic belief is that a vine is a weed. Vines love to grow. They’re survivors. They are like the cockroach of the plant kingdom, and isn’t that wonderful!”
Unlike the vast majority of vineyards in California, AmByth’s bush vines are dry-farmed.
Mary and Phillip tend their bees themselves. “Our honey is thick, deep, dark, and rich because our bees eat their own honey. We get about 40lbs of honey per hive, and we leave at least half per hive for them.”