A TUSCAN HEART IN HOPEWELL VALLEY
For Sergio Neri of Hopewell Valley Vineyards, winemaking is both science and art.
BY CARLO DEVITO • PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSEPH CORRADO
Article courtesy of http://www.ediblecommunities.com/

Pennington, New Jersey, is a little piece of Americana. With its many Colonial-era clapboard houses and white picket fences, it’s the town Mr. Blandings always wanted to move to. On the outskirts of this small town born during America’s Revolution lies a little slice of Tuscany.

When I first visited Hopewell Valley Vineyards many years ago, the first thing I did was to look at the vineyards. It’s impossible to miss them. They are immaculate. They are meticulous. The vineyard blocks dominate the landscape. As you enter the winery, large trellises surround you. The vineyard on the right-hand side seems to stretch to the horizon as you navigate your car down the gravel driveway. Everything is well appointed and well maintained. Everything is lined up nice and neat.

Another thing that strikes the visitor is the crushed shale sprinkled along the rows of vines. The shale— originally in the form of a rocky layer under the surface soil that had to be broken up before planting—has clearly been placed there with deliberation by someone who had a strong notion of why. As in many vineyards of France and Italy, these stones act as a natural thermal regulator. Soaking up the heat from the sun’s rays, they bake off any lingering humidity during the day, and at night the retained heat keeps the vineyard from getting too cool. It is an Old World technique.

Viewed from the deck of the Italianate winery building, or the Italian-style home nearby, the vineyard is a veritable sea of lush vegetation— large, sprawling blocks of well manicured, leafy vines. The plants are scrubbed of excess buds, shoots and leaves; they almost look like topiary. Someone put a lot of effort and love into creating this vineyard.

This is Sergio Neri’s vision. The owner of Hopewell Valley Vineyards, Neri is a third-generation grape grower and winemaker. He grew up in Lombardy, outside Milan, where he was schooled as an engineer. When he was young, his father owned a small winery called Val di Suga, in the Brunello region.

Today, he and his brother both run wineries. Sergio’s is here in Hopewell Valley, just off Route 31 in Hopewell Township, Mercer County; his brother Giorgio’s is in Tuscany, Italy. The brothers remain very close. Sergio helps his brother in the small winery in the Chianti Classico region, traveling back and forth to Italy to see family and work with Giorgio. In fact, through Hopewell Valley, you can arrange to rent the guest cottage on Giorgio’s property in Tuscany.

“He’s an engineer. He took a lot of time to evaluate, to examine, to plan,” says Violetta, Sergio’s wife, of her husband’s vision for the vineyard. Sergio consulted the Rutgers Cooperative Extension folks before making a move. The winery is seeking Farmland Preservation Program status. Its 30-kilowatt solar-energy system powers the entire complex, including the house. Sergio is now in a position to sell excess power back to the grid. The 72-acre farm, which opened its doors to the public in 2003, has 22 acres now planted to viticulture. The vineyard is filled with such classic vinifera as Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Nero and Barbera (well known in the Piedmont region of Italy). Sergio also grows such ubiquitous New Jersey favorites as Chambourcin, Vidal and Traminette. He plans to plant 20 more acres within the next few years.

“Great wines are born in the vineyard but are raised in the winery,” says Sergio. “Quality grapes along with quality winemaking techniques are the key to great wines. That’s why we are deeply committed to growing our own fruit.”

“I think wine is a very mystical, very particular sensorial experience,” says Sergio. “It’s kind of like having gourmet food. It’s interesting for our minds and our bodies, and also there’s a social aspect. It’s a science and an art at the same time.”

Violetta and Sergio live and work at the winery. They’re both there all day. She jokingly says she’s the apprentice winemaker. “Sergio spends his whole day at the winery. If he’s gone, he’ll be back in five minutes,” chuckles Violetta.

The couple met 15 years ago. Violetta, once a local real estate agent, sold him a farm; their romance blossomed much later on. Between them they have four children (three grown and moved on) and three mutts—Baco, Maya and Hunter.

There is a lot of Old World at Hopewell Valley. As one enters the tasting room for the first time, one gets the sense that this is also where the Old World meets the New. The dark stone floors are contrasted by shiny copper pipes that hold hundreds of bottles of wine in place, and the copper bar calls out, with all its nuances, of rustic charm. Originally the room behind the tasting room, lined with a big glass window, was the winemaking room, filled with tanks and hoses. But over the years, prosperity came to Hopewell Valley, and a bigger winemaking facility was needed. Thus was born a much larger addition to the building structure, and the winemaking area was transformed into a large, beautiful tasting and hospitality room.

The beauty here goes much deeper than the surface. Lest anyone suspect otherwise, Sergio knows how to make wine. From 2003 to 2010, Hopewell Valley Vineyards has taken home at least one medal from every competition it has entered, and in some cases, many, many more. In the 2009 New Jersey Wine Competition, Hopewell Valley’s 2006 Chambourcin won the coveted top prize, the Governor’s Cup. The same wine won medals for Grape, Best Hybrid, and Best Estate Wine. The wine won four other medals in competitions, including two golds (one at a Finger Lakes competition).

“It’s something that goes from seed to bottle. Every stage is important. It’s all interrelated and sequential,” said Violetta. “It’s a handson process every step of the way.”

Estate wines are where the Neris excel. Their Chambourcin and their Barbera are among the best that New Jersey and the East Coast have to offer. A medium-bodied, dry red wine, the Chambourcin, made from a winter-hardy French-American hybrid that performs particularly well in the mid-Atlantic’s cold winters and hot, humid summers, is brimming with cherries, plums and raspberries. It is approachable and scrumptious. And, with its tannins and acids, there is still a solid backbone to it. This is an elegant wine. It speaks of the love, care and affection the vine gets at Sergio’s attentive hands.

Barbera is a grape that originated in northern Italy and that Sergio is growing here. The cherries in this wine are more pronounced than in the Chambourcin, and the raspberries that come across seem to be both bright and dark. The oak aging comes across with the whiff of vanilla. The finish is long and luxurious. This is a very nice wine, with structure, tannins and acids all well balanced, and the fruit flavors linger in your mouth for some time.

“We both like to cook a lot. We cook a lot of Greek and Italian food. It’s a good way to spend time together,” says Violetta, who is Greek. “Sergio has a broad palate, and likes to try lots of wines.” Violetta admits to being devoted to only reds. They have tasted at wineries on the East Coast, California and, of course, Italy.

The wines are available at the winery, as well as at numerous restaurants and liquor stores. A few local places include Camillo’s Cafe in Princeton, Nick’s Cafe 72 in Ewing, and Leonardo’s II in Lawrence. Wegmans offers a very wide selection of their wines as does Valley Wine and Spirits in Pennington, among others.

They sell many of their 50,000 bottles per year through the tasting room. “People like coming here,” says Violetta. “Many come back again and again. We’re like their extended family. They come to enjoy a glass of fine wine in the beautiful surroundings and relax.”

Hopewell Valley Vineyards
46 Yard Road, Pennington
609-737-4465

Open seven days a week from noon to 5 pm.

What's New in Princeton & Central New Jersey?
Reprinted from the January 20, 2010, edition of U.S. 1 newspaper

Pizza, Pinot Grigio, and Piano
by Pat Tanner
Article courtesy of http://www.princetoninfo.com/

When I visited Hopewell Valley Vineyards shortly after it opened in Pennington in 2002, it became clear that proprietor Sergio Neri is a man of several talents. Winemaking is the most expected of these, since three generations of the Neri family produced wines in Tuscany. (The family still has vineyards and a winery in the Chianti area.) What I didn’t expect was that this native Italian is also a master builder and coppersmith, who designed the winery’s attractive tasting room and personally handcrafted its copper tasting bar.

Fast forward to late 2009 when I learned that the winery, which has undergone two major expansions in the intervening years, also serves up pizza from its own wood-fired brick oven every Friday night as part of its happy hour from 5 to 9 p.m. With the Italian bona fides of Neri and his wife, Violetta, it occurred to me that the pizzas might be worth checking out. Plus, live jazz is part of the Friday mix, as are some of Hopewell Valley’s 14 wines, by the glass or bottle.

Long story short, the pizzas are terrific: authentic, made with first-rate ingredients, cooked just right, and a bargain. Five varieties are on offer, ranging from a classic margherita to one generously topped with prosciutto di Parma. The unique three-cheese pizza features gorgonzola and fontina in its mix. I must admit that I was pleased but not all that surprised to find Neri producing quality pizza. However, I was surprised — although in retrospect shouldn’t have been — to learn that Sergio built the oven himself, from scratch, after extensive research on traditional, hemispheric insulated brick pizza ovens. Research that involved trips to Italy. “It makes a big difference in the pizza,” Neri swears.

Violetta Neri swears that what makes the difference in everything her husband does is his intensity. “It was passion, more than business reasons, that drove him to do it,” she says. The fixings for the pizza that aren’t imported from Italy are purchased the day they are used from a farm market in nearby Pennsylvania. In the growing season, Violetta Neri makes tomato and pesto sauces using basil and tomatoes grown on the Hopewell Valley property, jars of which are sold at the winery alongside olives and olive oil from Italy.

The vineyard and winery sit on a 75-acre farm, 45 acres of which are devoted to viticulture, just off Route 31. Vines include classic vinifera, specific Italian, and New World varieties. Neri is in the process of seeking Farmland Preservation status for his “green” facility. “We are solar powered,” he says with pride about the 30 kilowatt system that not only supplies power to his house, vineyard, and winery buildings, but also allows him to sell excess back to the power grid.

During my happy-hour experience, the biggest surprise came not in the form of pizza, but rather involved the house band that performed jazz standards. That night, who do you suppose was seated at the room’s grand piano? Sergio Neri. The man’s talents are apparently numberless. Plus, he and the band were darn good (not that I’m a music critic). Later Neri told me that more often the house band is a trio, but that night it expanded to a quintet, with added guitar and an accomplished female vocalist. He told me that when he is performing, a couple that he calls his in-house caterer makes the pizza, but that when he isn’t playing, he mans the pizza oven himself. Naturally.

The popularity of Friday happy hour was part of the motivation to expand, Neri says. He moved the winemaking and storage facilities to the new buildings and remodeled what had been the production room behind the tasting room to what is now an event space for up to 100 people, complete with stage. The room also has a pull-down screen, which makes it suitable for corporate presentations, and it serves as the site of wine classes. The schedule for the next series of three will go online in February. Attendees can sign up for the entire series or for individual classes. They are taught by Sergio Neri. Of course.

‘Happy’ times abound at Hopewell Valley Vineyards
Published: Wednesday, January 13, 2010
By R. Kurt Osenlund, Correspondent
Article courtesy of http://www.buckslocalnews.com/

Moving into a second year with their elegant entertainment space, the owners of Hopewell Valley Vineyards continue to host happy hour events and much more.

“It’s become a destination,” Hopewell Valley Vineyards co-owner Violetta Neri says of her and husband Sergio’s elegant entertainment space, which rests on the vineyards’ 25-acre sprawl and where, for roughly the last year, wine- and music-loving locals have been flocking every Friday for the establishment’s happy hour events.

“There are plenty of places people can go to be anonymous,” Sergio says, “but this is a place where people can come, meet their friends, pull some tables together, and have some fun.”

Adds Violetta, “It’s the only place in not just Pennington, but in Mercer County, that offers this kind of ambiance.”

One glance around the vast and upscale bar-meets-banquet-hall room all but confirms Violetta’s sentiment. Attached to the Hopewell Valley Vineyards wine store/gift shop (and next door to the Neris’ home), the warm and inviting space features an intimate seating area, a corner bar and brick oven, high ceilings with exposed wood beams, amber lighting, a stage equipped with a drop-down screen and sound system, and, of course, plenty of wine bottles.

Open for almost exactly one year (the first party was held on New Year’s Eve 2009), the room is the result of a full renovation of what was formerly a storage and bottling room. Ask Violetta why she and Sergio went ahead with the renovation, and she doesn’t hesitate.

“Demand,” says the part-time real estate agent and full-time wine maker, noting that the previous site for happy hour events – the gift shop – couldn’t accommodate the growing influx of patrons. “It was a very limited space – people were crammed.”

No longer. Sergio says the refurbished space has increased the location’s popularity, attracting both newcomers and regulars every week (excluding holidays). Folks come to sip wine, eat brick-oven pizza, and enjoy the music of such local acts as guitarist Eric Dabb, cabaret/jazz duo Maggie and Felix, and Sergio himself, who plays his own grand piano as part of the house band, The Hopewell Valley Vineyards Trio. In addition, on the last Saturday evening of every month, Hopewell Valley Vineyards hosts “Music Night,” a similar, yet slightly more deluxe event that requires a $10 cover charge and includes a wider menu of food items from an in-house caterer.

Violetta says the featured musicians, who appear on a rotating basis, are all “really wonderful, and the variety is great – jazz, folk, rock. We try to create a variation to please all kinds of tastes.”

And speaking of variety, the entertainment space isn’t limited to nightlife. Sergio uses it regularly for wine tastings and wine classes; people can rent it out for weddings, anniversaries and birthday parties; and businesses can use it to host corporate conferences. In fact, Violetta’s latest mission is to head out to area corporations to pitch to them the space and its provisions – something she’s no doubt used to given her real estate experience.

“Any [event] you can imagine where people gather or celebrate is being offered,” Violetta says.

Violetta was born in Greece and came to the U.S. in 1981. Sergio, who has a long history with wine, was born in Milan, Italy, and arrived stateside in 1994. Together, the couple, who married last year, are bringing some stylish European flair to the Hopewell Valley. That, and a desire to accommodate those looking to raise a glass and toast life in a chic, yet casual environment.

“We’re laid back,” Violetta says. “People come here to relax after a long week of work. They walk in, and you can see the stress drop down.”

BL CONNOISSEUR: Connoisseur Profile
By Gina Ryder
Article courtesy of http://www.bucksmedia.com/

Violetta Neri is sure that most people believe she’s an alcoholic. She routinely has a glass of wine with lunch, sometimes even with breakfast. People, she believes, think, You must have a problem! To her, it’s more of a problem with the perspective. Neri drinks wine daily, but she’s never been drunk in her life, she says. “In this country, if you don’t drink before five, it’s like you’re a goody two-shoes,” says Neri, a 50-year-old native of Greece who owns Hopewell Valley Vineyards in Pennington, NJ, with her husband, Sergio Neri, 49, a native of Italy. While others concern themselves with so-called proper behavior, the Neris focus their attention on savoring the moment, which is at least part of the reason why their perspective on daytime drinking contrasts most Americans’. A glass to them is so much more than the amount of alcohol contained within. It’s about the aroma, the color and, ultimately, the flavor, and appreciating each of those aspects as deeply and purely as possible. If a particular wine is best suited for a robust breakfast, who are they to argue? Who are we?

“I’m in a position to educate people about wine,” Sergio says simply. His imported attitude comes from three generations of winemakers who passed along their unadulterated respect for the vino. The couple married after a 15-year friendship. Seven years ago, as Sergio’s realtor, Violetta sold him a 75-acre property that their home and vineyard span today. “It is in his blood to be here,” she says. Considering their impact, it would be easy to interpret her comment in a number of ways. In addition to the typical range of tasting events, the Neris host a number of philanthropic affairs at the vineyard, including an annual fundraiser for an organization that is especially near and dear to their hearts, Pennington Autism Lifelong Services. Sergio’s son, Davide, was diagnosed with autism at age two. It’s all in a day’s work for the worldly couple. But ask Sergio for the best part, he’ll give a wink and say, “Drinking on the job.” —Gina Ryder

Wine-tasting festival draws 6,000 to Valley vineyard
By Dan Petty (Pennington Post)

What had been a barren farm field just days before on Neri's property - Hopewell Valley Vineyards - was overnight transformed into a jubilant atmosphere with live music, trinket shops and large tents, under which 18 of New Jersey's wineries offered more than 200 wines for people to sample.The festival, organized by the Garden State Wine Grower's Association, a group of the 30 New Jersey wineries, was visiting Hopewell Valley Vineyards for the second time. Other festivals will take place throughout New Jersey for the remainder of the summer.

Classes and lectures were offered on topics ranging from wine-tasting etiquette to whether New Jersey wine can rival the wine produced in California's Napa Valley.

Kathy Bullock, the festival director, said the goal of this festival was to increase awareness of New Jersey wines. The association added a fifth festival this year in Cape May, N.J., allowing the wineries to gain exposure to people across the state.

"What we're seeing is more people buying from multiple wineries," Bullock said. "We used to see people come along and find a favorite winery and just exclusively buy from that winery. Now because of the growing number of wineries in the state, the quality [of the wine] is increasing dramatically. And in doing that, we're finding that the people who bought one or two cases from one winery are now buying one or two bottles from multiple wineries."

According to Kardoner, there were 12 wineries in New Jersey in 2001. Three years later, when he applied for his winery applied for a license, he was the 22nd, just after Hopewell Valley, which was the 21st. New Jersey now has 28 wineries, according to the Wine Growers' Web site. Kardoner expects the state to have 50 wineries in two more years, adding that wineries are currently the fastest growing agricultural group in New Jersey.

A law repealed in 1982 that limited the number of wineries in New Jersey to one for every million residents hindered the wine industry's growth in the state after the government repealed prohibition in 1933.

"Because there were so few wineries, I think people were under the impression that it couldn't be done," Kardoner said. "I think people were under the impression that it couldn't be done."

Attendance at these festivals has increased dramatically in just the last five years, coinciding with the jump in new wineries being founded in New Jersey.

"When we first started in East Windsor in a farmer's market, we would probably be lucky to have 500 people there on a weekend," said Mark Kardoner, chairman for the festival committee and a winemaker in Robbinsville, N.J., at Silver Decoy Winery, which was named New Jersey's winery of the year for 2007.

Obviously something has caught on. Last year, about 5,200 people came to Hopewell Valley Vineyards for the festival. This year, organizers were expecting more than 6,000 people to come.

Lindsay Korwin, 22, a Pennington native and student at the College of New Jersey, attended the festival Sunday with two other friends from school.

"I've been meaning to try the winery," she said, referring to Hopewell Valley Vineyards. "It's a bigger deal than I expected. We're just getting tips from the wine pourers like, 'try dry first and then sweet.'"

"New Jersey is clearly better with their white wines than their red wines," said Gary Naylor, 57, of Union Beach, N.J.

"If you go to something like this, you can really get a sense of the difference between each one of the wineries."

George Taber Visits Hopewell Valley Vineyards

George M. Taber is the author of Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine, a book published by Scribner in 2005 that is the inside story of the dramatic tasting session that transformed the wine industry when California beat France for the first time in a blind tasting. George, then a young reporter for Time magazine, was the only reporter at the tasting, and he revisits the event in his book with great depth, clarity and character development.

Autographed copies of Judgement of Paris are available at Hopewell Valley Vineyards. To read more about Judgment of Paris and its author, visit judgmentofparisbook.com.