After making wine all over the world, Nichole Bambacigno and Kevin Bednar have taken over the New Haven winery. Community volunteers are helping them harvest.
The new owners of Lincoln Peak Vineyard aren't selling cars, but it might seem that way to passersby on Route 7: The wiggling white arms of a giant inflatable tube man flail over the vines.
Marshmallow Man, as rookie vineyard owners Kevin Bednar and Nichole Bambacigno call him, is for the birds. Or, rather, for keeping them away. The jury's still out on how effective he is at his job.
On one of the last days of mid-September's stunning stretch of weather, under Marshmallow Man's sort-of-watchful eye, a group of 10 grape harvesters got to work in the lower block of the New Haven vineyard. The all-volunteer group clipped bunch after golden bunch of la crescent, careful not to leave anything for those pesky birds.
Bednar and Bambacigno supplied them with pruners, gloves, lunch and — of course — wine.
When the married couple put out a call for harvesting help on their website and social media, "We didn't think anyone would show up," Bednar said. They've worked plenty of harvests in their winemaking careers, usually with hired staff. For their first season making wine in Vermont, and at their own vineyard, things are more DIY.
But volunteers have shown up every day to help bring in the grapes. Some are family — including Bednar's parents — or family friends, glad to have the couple in Vermont after they honed their skills around the world. Others, like a visiting sommelier, are just there for the experience.
Bambacigno, 33, and Bednar, 32, bought Lincoln Peak in the spring and welcomed their second daughter a few weeks later. The couple met at mammoth E. & J. Gallo Winery in Bambacigno's hometown of Modesto, Calif. — about as far from tiny Lincoln Peak as it gets — and traveled the world learning the trade in New Zealand, Australia and Austria. Before returning to Bednar's native Vermont this year, they were head winemakers at competing wineries in New Jersey.
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