In fall 2004, Kevin began traveling to New York on weekends, staying on Dave’s sailboat at the marina in Watkins Glen on Seneca Lake. He called at just the right moment: Dave was starting a website and hoping to grow the winery. “His winery was not very big, and he always did everything himself,” Kevin says. Kevin called Dave Widen, owner of Red Newt Cellars in Hector, NY. He knew I was serious!” Kevin began taking distance-learning classes at both schools.Īt a chance meeting with a wine professor from Fresno State, Kevin learned that many students interned at wineries in Napa and Sonoma, and encouraged Kevin to pursue a similar path in upstate New York. I also had info on workshops at Cornell University. “I took out a syllabus from UC Davis, the premier wine school in the nation. The manager at Procter & Gamble who oversaw the early retirement program “looked at me funny,” Kevin says. At that time, “wine was kind of mysterious, kind of romantic-we would light candles sometimes when we had wine with dinner.” The thought of making his own wine certainly hadn’t crossed his mind back then, but the timing of the retirement offer, coupled with his new-found love for wine, seemed to be the perfect chance to pursue a growing passion. “A $3 jug was my favorite to have with spaghetti,” he remembers. Though he wasn’t sure of the endgame, he knew that he had been handed a great opportunity to invest in himself, and, he says, “really wanted to use P&G dimes to get super educated in wine-not like a sommelier but in the chemistry.”Īs a young man, Kevin would explore the meager aisles at Pennsylvania’s liquor stores, giving each bottle a fair chance. Kevin and his wife had traveled extensively around the Finger Lakes in New York, and had fallen in love with the wine, so he made the decision to apply for the stipend for wine education. Intrigued, he began to hatch a plan to use that $5,000 stipend to take a leap into the wine industry. He learned that he was eligible for an early retirement incentive that would enable him to train in a different career. Specifically, Pennsylvania wine.īy his late 40s, Kevin Durland found himself at the 30-year mark with Procter & Gamble-and then, something curious happened. Do you take it? What would you do? Kevin Durland chose wine. The state has winery/cideries and winery/distilleries, said Jennifer Eckinger, executive director of the Pennsylvania Winery Association, but so far wineries’ plans to expand from grapes to grain are just that – plans.You’re offered $5,000 to start a new career. Nimble Hill may be the first combined winery-brewery combo among the state’s 130-plus wineries. Winemaker Kevin Durland and Simmons work closely with each other. The winery and brewery are already complementing each other. Visitors inquire about odd-looking grapes, surprised to learn they are hops, which climb on trellises similar to grapevines. The effort is more visible in the vineyards. A brewery building is on the drawing board. The brewery will spend its first year or two in Toczko’s garage, just as the winery began in 2006. The brewery will grow slowly and judiciously, Toczko said. “When we call on a place, we have the winemaker, the brewmaster, and the owner offering local products.” “We have a good product, but a main sales proposition is that it is local,” he said. They are a 15-barrel farm style brewery producing beer in 12 ounce bottles, 1/6 kegs and specialty 750ML bottles. Nimble Hill Brewing Company believes that quality ingredients make a great tasting beer! Nimble Hill Winery and Vineyard owner Gary Toczko and Brewmaster Mike Simmons hope to make the Endless Mountains a brewing mecca along with other micro-breweries that have sprung up in the valley, as there had been a history of many breweries back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.
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