How We Plant Vineyards #2: Just Around the Corner
Living in the States, I learned the wise proverb that every act we perform is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Of course, the decision to plant a vineyard is fundamental, but the initial euphoria has a way of quickly passing, like a deep sleep, leaving us inevitably in the grip of reality.
And that’s when you need to act, that’s when the sweat starts. But you have to act thoughtfully, ask yourself questions, and seek answers. I asked myself three questions: what wine, what area, and where? I’ll start with the latter. The general guide was a map I found on the website. vinisfera.pl.#atfp_close_translate_span# Grapes need sun and the right temperature to ripen. The yellow regions marked on the map are those where the sum of “warm” days per year is sufficient. There are certainly other isolated places with local microclimates, but fundamentally, only there does cultivation make sense.
Despite living in Krakow and being in the right area, according to the map, we decided to look for land near Wrocław or Jelenia Góra. This was for several reasons. First, in Małopolska, land is expensive and fragmented, while in Lower Silesia and Lubusz, you can easily purchase a single plot of several or a dozen hectares at a relatively attractive price. Second, in the western regions, you can breathe open spaces of farmland and forests, and in the towns, the old, pre-war atmosphere remains, which, fortunately, the builders of socialism didn’t manage to spoil. Third, Joanna and I love history, and the idea of adapting an old German farm into a vineyard appealed to us. Fourth, as clichéd as it may sound, we wanted a fresh start—in other words, we wanted to get out of Krakow.
And so, for over a year, I spent dozens, if not hundreds, of hours on classifieds websites, calling real estate agents, and we became so familiar with the A4 motorway that the ladies manning the toll booths began to recognize us. We found plots that looked different in photos than in real life, places where reaching them would have meant a car’s undercarriage being torn off or, if left unattended, its rapid disappearance. At a bailiff’s auction near Wrocław, I almost bought a farmstead with the ruins of a romantic palace, which, I admit today, would have been a tragedy not only for the future of the monument itself – the surrounding farmland was flat, shady, and marshy. We traveled the length and breadth of southwestern Poland, but never once came across a place where we could have said without a second thought, “This is it.”
From time to time, during breaks from our “farm hunting,” we visited Joanna’s parents in Sanka, near Kraków. During one such visit, we decided to drive through unfamiliar corners of the area. We turned onto random roads at random, more than with a specific destination in mind, driven by curiosity about what might be lurking around the bend. Driving along one such road, we forced our way through a mysterious ravine and unexpectedly emerged onto a hill offering a panoramic view of the Beskid Mountains, with the Tatra Mountains even peeking out here and there. The view was truly captivating. But what really surprised me was what I saw behind me. Before me stood a mountain, or more precisely, a hillside—after a quick confirmation of the iPhone compass—with a perfect southwest slope. It was one of those moments when words are unnecessary, when the previous, so logically constructed arguments collapse like a house of cards in an instant. This slope was just waiting for us.
Of course, you can wish for what you want; we didn’t know who owned the slope, whether it belonged to one or more people, or even if it was for sale. We knew literally nothing, only that it was a special place. However, this was no time for lamentations. At the foot of the hill, I spotted a farmstead, and immediately my inner drive kicked into gear. My grandfather, who approached me from behind the fence, was wary. When I noticed how beautiful it was, his distrust only deepened. Things didn’t get any better after that. I only learned that the hill belonged to an artist from Krakow. To this, Joanna nonchalantly announced that her uncle lived nearby and perhaps he knew something about the owner. Well, he did. The slope was indeed for sale; it belonged to only one person, a Krakow sculptor. But if that wasn’t enough, when I heard his name, I stopped dead in my tracks. Not so long ago, I had held tango lessons in his gallery! It wasn’t just a sign from heaven, it was a genuine angelic slap in the face. What we couldn’t find hundreds of kilometers from Krakow, we found practically right on our doorstep.