A textBrook career change for Price

Shots from around the winery,
including winemaker Jason Price in one of the spots
you're likely to find him if you pay a visit.


Jason Price looks much more at home in a winery than at a nuclear power plant in Wilmington, Del., where he spent six years of his career. Clad in a T-shirt, buzzing around the cellar at Twin Brook Winery in Gap, Pa., he’s relaxed, smiling. Maybe pinching himself a bit; he’s a long way from punching a clock in a place where the only wine was the whine from the monitors.

“I enjoyed wines as a consumer,” Twin B rook's assistant winemaker says late Monday morning, the distinctive echo of the cellar evident throughout the 11-minute conversation that touches on different aspects of a job he’s now held full time for a year. “It’s the ultimate food science. It’s microbiology, it’s chemistry, it’s engineering when you r pump breaks. It’s so romantic. You know it just brings people together. I’ve always loved wines socially, and having the science background, I was just attracted to it.”

He talks about having had the opportunity to go into agricultural chemistry when he was in college 13 years ago. Now, “I have a chance to live that desire. It just took me a little while to get there. It was an easy transition for me. I had to wrap my head around it a little bit. There was a big difference in lifestyle. I worked shift work for a nuclear power plant for six years living in Wilmington to now living in a barn in Amish country, to where there really are no set hours. You work when the work needs to be done, and when it’s finished, you’re done.”

His tastes in wine seem to run similar to the winemakers I’ve had the chance to meet so far. Similar to mine: thumbs-up on red and thumbs-up on dry. As is his sense of humor. “This is on tape?” he asks, peering at the recorder and breaking into laughter. “I love those big bold fruity California reds, the zinfandels, the stuff we really can’t grow here yet . . .but we’re learning.” As for those fruit wines that are part of the regimen at any winery that’s anywhere near the Route 30 corridor? “I’ve gotten used to them,” he says, “but I still don’t prefer them.”

The day to day could send Price in a number of different directions. The size of the full-time staff at Twin Brook – three – dictates an all-hands-on-deck mindset. “We’re assisting a lot with inventory in the warehouse and getting the wine here and taxes, that’s the drudgery, that’s not the fun stuff,” he says in response to a question about the non-glamorous part of his routine. The best part? You can guess the answer. “It’s the winemaking, being down here and making the wine, absolutely, and even the vineyard. The vineyard is fun, picking grapes is fun for about 45 minutes,” he says, and then there's that grin again. "And then it gets a little old.”