Sweet rules at Adams County Winery

I liked John Kramb’s sense of humor from the time the co-owner of Adams County Winery
spoke into the receiver. “We are the number one winery in the state, alphabetically,” he said, a “boast” I had seen on another post after a couple had visited his winery.

And, indeed, he’s right. First on the alphabetical list, and likely among the tops on the list of state wineries that sell the most sweet and off-dry wines. “It’s a conscientious decision we made,” said John, whose other half -- Kathy – handles most of the business end while he tends to the wine. “Ninety percent of Americans drink a sweet wine. All the other wineries in the United States are trying to make nice dry wines. I like a dry wine, but I’m also a businessman. So do I go after the 10 percent of the market or 90 percent of the market? It’s a pretty easy decision.

“So basically we have introductory wines and then the wines for people who like sweet wines, which is most Americans.” John said they have expanded their line; they used to have one fruit wine, for instance, now they have several. Asked to recommend two wines on this year’s shelf, John mentioned a blackberry wine that’s soon to be bottled and a peach wine. A spiced called Adams Apple is another fruit wine on the list; it's a reflection of the fact that they are located in the heart of apple country in Adams County.

They’ll reach 10 years in business on Oct. 1. And they’ve learned as they've gone along, like never hold Saturday concerts in the evening there. Instead, theirs are 1 to 5 every Saturday afternoon during the summer months. "Number one, after 6 I shut down,” he said dryly. “And number two, we tried it for two years and we learned that the eight-mile distance from here [Orrtanna] to Gettysburg is evidently psychologically longer than we thought.”

This year, to date, has brought a little too much rain (“We’ve had to monitor our diseases in the vineyard more closely”) and not quite as much growth (“Our numbers this year are up, but not a much as in previous years. We’ve had 10 years of steady growth, but this year the growth has been slower,” he said).

Among the activities they offer at the winery is home wine-making. Hearing that brought a smile to my face, only a day or two removed from Ashby Everhart at Legends Vineyards in Maryland that a wine-making kit is what lured he and his wife into the business. Adams County will hold two classes the remainder of the year: at 1 p.m. on Aug. 10 and Oct. 18. The cost is $25 per person.

Event coordinator Gavin Green said the classes usually fill up; they cap attendance at around 25. Kramb provides instruction on the basics, ending the two-hour class by bottling wine that he made in a previous class. “It’s kind of a continuing cycle,” Green said. They recommend using the juice from the kit on the first try before branching out and actually purchasing and blending the ingredients.

Do they ever see the fruits of that labor? Green said they do. “A lot of them come back in to buy yeast, things like that,” he said. “A lot of times they’ll bring in the wine to let us see how it tastes. One guy brought in mead that he had made. It was pretty good.”