I also love being involved with agriculture. I have attended GSWGA festivals for years with my wife and worked in the industry in a PR and marketing capacity. I love New Jersey wine and have been a proponent of drinking it since the early 1990’s when I first discovered the Atlantic City-area wineries Renault and Tomasello.
Tom Cosentino, the executive director of the Garden State Wine Growers Association (GSWGA), explains why New Jersey wines are more popular that ever - and discusses why it’s the optimal time to get familiar with some of the wines, visit the wineries and taste a variety of vintages. Some New Jersey wineries also continue to make wines from Native American grapes like Concord, Catawba and Cayuga, among others. Some of the leading vinifera crops are doing especially well, such as cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, chardonnay, pinot grigio and vidal blanc. Wine enthusiasts may be surprised to learn that the sandy soil of Southern New Jersey’s Atlantic and Cape May Counties provides similar growing conditions as the famed Bordeaux region in France. However, prohibition negatively affected the wine business, and for almost 50 years - from 1933 until 1981 (when the Farm Winery Act was passed) - only about six wineries existed in the state.Ĭurrently, there are over 80 varieties of grapes growing throughout New Jersey and over 2000 acres of wine grape production. It’s also receiving an abundance of awards and gaining devoted fans in recent years.ĭating back to the Colonial times, New Jersey has always been considered a fruitful region for growing wine grapes.
Although wine lovers may not instantly think of New Jersey when deciding which varietal to sip with dinner, things are changing rapidly as the region is being recognized by experts worldwide. For wine drinkers, New Jersey may be considered an under-the-radar American region, but today, the wine business has improved dramatically in the Garden State.
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