This week: Baby's first Island-wide publication cover story

Hey guys! If you pick up a copy of the Long Island Business News on stands right now, you will notice this busy little fox has the cover story this week. I wanted to write the real story of Long Island wine country - worry and hard work included - something I believe has been sorely underreported in the media. So I did. And that's awesome! 

LI'S Struggling Wine Country Gets Better With Age

By Gianna Volpe

It’s been 40 years since Long Island Wine Country rose from the ashes of the Island’s dying potato farm industry, and some local vineyard owners are looking to cash out.

Others are looking to transition management to the next generation – not an easy dream to sell to outside investors, or even to one’s own children.

Turning a profit by growing grapes and producing wine is challenging enough, with everything from extreme weather to insect infestations working against you. Add the high price of doing business on Long Island, where land and labor costs soar, and even the most hopeful vigneron’s head will spin.

“There’s a saying out here on Long Island,” noted certified sommelier Pascal Zugmeyer, who’s held leadership roles at several East End wineries and currently manages operations at Sannino Bella Vita Vineyard in Peconic. “‘If you want to make a million dollars in the wine business, start with two million.’”

Bad label

For sure, the winery business – on Long Island and everywhere else – is not for the faint-hearted. Some people “like the challenge,” according to Zugmeyer, and others find vineyards to be useful tax breaks. But if you don’t have “the backbone to sustain what you spend,” he noted, the wine industry will crush you like a grape.

That goes double on Long Island.

“Here on Long Island we don’t seem to have two good growing years in a row,” Zugmeyer said. “You can do very well if you’re smart, but you need to start small and take baby steps. The ones that go too fast, they crash.”

He has seen this firsthand. Before Sannino Bella Vita, Zugmeyer managed operations at Peconic Bay Winery, which closed its doors in 2013 after transferring its tasting-room operations to its Riverhead wine outlet, Empire State Cellars. According to the former manager, Peconic Bay Winery failed because of General Manager James Silver’s fiscal-management policies, including the 2011 opening of Empire State Cellars at Riverhead’s Tanger Outlets, where the rent alone cost $20,000 per month.

Silver, who now lives in California, countered that Zugmeyer wasn’t privy to the company’s complete financial situation, and said Peconic Bay Winery failed because of a “sustainability issue that’s inherent to the region.”

“I was hired to save a dying business,” Silver said. “Just because I couldn’t save it doesn’t mean I’m bad at business.”

According to Silver, the East End’s high input costs made it virtually impossible to sell Peconic Bay Winery products at a high enough price to create a sustainable business model. Even a burgeoning local tourism industry proved problematic, Silver noted, as more winery visitors increased labor costs.

“The nature of the business overall is to break even if you’re lucky,” he said. “The nature of the business in New York is to lose money. The only way the Long Island wine industry can succeed is if their bottles cost $60 to $80 each and they shed their inferior reputation.”

Kathy LeMorzellac: “It’s not hard to sell a winery because people don’t love the concept. It’s hard to sell the work that goes along with having a winery.” PHOTO: Gianna Volpe/LIBN

Family matter

Peconic Bay Winery is by no means the only Island vineyard to feel the pinch, or the only one whose owners have considered greener pastures. Pindar Vineyards, the region’s largest producer, went on the market in 2013 for $65 million, which would get a hypothetical buyer some 500 winemaking acres and operations at four different wineries, including the Southold spinoff Duck Walk Vineyards.

Meanwhile, first-generation winemakers are looking to transition operations to subsequent generations, who aren’t always ready to take the reins – or vice-versa.

Twenty-seven-year-old sommelier Gabriella Macari is absolutely ready to jump into her family’s business, but her mother – Alexandra Macari, owner of Macari Vineyards in Mattituck and Cutchogue – has her doubts.

The Macari matriarch said she loves having her four children involved in the family business, though she does occasionally worry about their future when considering the hefty investment of time and money it takes to make Long Island wine.

“Having a vineyard is a very big undertaking,” Alexandra Macari said. “Is anybody making money out here? Absolutely not. Is it something that you want to pass on when you know the burdens of paying taxes on this land and payroll of a crew of this size? You worry, no doubt about it. Can they do it? Can they afford it?”

No matter how bad a rap Long Island Wine Country might have, Gabriella Macari sees a bright future – not only as a saleswoman for her family’s vineyards, but for the Island’s wine region and the U.S. wine industry in general.

Citing a 2011 Wine Spectator study that showed the United States becoming the planet’s largest national wine consumer by 2011, Gabriella Macari said now seems an excellent time to ply the family trade.

“New York wines are better than they’ve ever been before,” she noted. “Even my friends are trying to learn more about wine. Joining the family business, having it actually be relevant and being able to educate people my own age, and a little older and younger – that’s really exciting.”

                                  The Big Picture: Wine Across the Nation

She’s not the only Island winegrower who’s enthused. According to the Long Island Wine Council, local winery tourism is up 10 percent over the last year, rewarding the faith of vintners like Ron Goerler Jr., owner of Jamesport Vineyards and a longtime Wine Council member.

Goerler said it costs between $15,000 and $18,000 to plant a single acre of grape vines, but even that hefty buy-in doesn’t mean a Long Island vintner can’t squeeze out a profit. He himself began planting Jamesport Vineyards in 1980, after his father’s $150,000 land investment, and three-and-a-half decades later he still believes the future is bright for those serious about producing wine here.

“Macari’s got kids,” he said. “I’ve got my family. You’ve got Wölffer, Paumanok … the big players of the future out here are going to be the ones with the kids and the ones with financial staying power. Anyone that’s got that generational thing.”

Staying power

For others, though, even an optimist like Goerler admits the wine industry – particularly on Long Island – can be daunting.

“For everyone else, it’s an investment,” he said. “At some point they’re going to want out, and it’s very difficult to sell a wine business.”

That has certainly been the experience of Kathy LeMorzellac. Five years after the death of Robert Palmer, her father and the founder of Riverhead’s Palmer Vineyards, LeMorzellac is still searching for someone passionate enough to continue the dream.

“It’s not hard to sell a winery because people don’t love the concept,” she noted. “It’s hard to sell the work that goes along with having a winery.”

In that way, running and simultaneously attempting to sell Palmer Vineyards “is what it is,” LeMorzellac added. The 48-acre Riverhead vineyard and winery is on the market for $5.3 million, with an additional 60 acres of vineyards in Cutchogue available for $2.6 million (55 acres for growing, LeMorzellac noted, with space left over for a new tasting room or other operational facility).

The deal is not for everyone, she admitted – “You can’t just want the business, you need to be the business” – but one thing is certain. Come hell or high water, these vineyards are here to stay.

“We won’t sell it to someone that’s going to level it,” LeMorzellac said. “Either someone is going to come here and fall in love with the place and buy it because this is what they want their life to be, or not.”

Read more: http://libn.com/2014/05/23/lis-struggling-wine-country-getting-better-with-age/#ixzz332CUucu3

The Art of Scalloping

I'm was recently asked for a copy of my Sag Harbor Express scalloping story from last year so I took a bunch of iPhone snaps of it and figured I'd toss it up on the good ol' writer's blog while I continue to not have a website like a total dope.

Enjoy!

Local bayman Joshua Clauss of Harvest Moon Oysters said, "Well done, I think you captured our romantic view of it all and I like the analogy of the good presence at party."

Brain Drain

As Housing Prices Rise, Younger People Take Off

Publication: The Southampton Press

By Gianna Volpe

  Apr 28, 2014 10:36 AM 
 Apr 28, 2014 3:41 PM

Call it what you will—“brain drain” or “birth dearth”—but a recent study by Community Housing Innovations Inc. claims young talent is becoming increasingly rare in towns like Southampton and East Hampton due to high costs of living as well as a lack of jobs and affordable housing and rentals.

Overall, Long Island lost 12 percent of its 25- to 34-year-olds between 2000 and 2010, according to the nonprofit housing agency. That stands in contrast to a 6-percent loss in northern New Jersey and a 3-percent gain in New York City. The study claims age disparity is most severe in Long Island’s wealthiest suburbs.

Housing Innovations found that higher income municipalities like Westhampton, which lost 57 percent of 25- to 34 year-olds, have lost far more young adults than lower income municipalities such as Patchogue, which registered a 4-percent gain.

Tom Ruhle, East Hampton Town’s director of housing and community development, said this marked sparsity of millennials that has already begun to show its face along the forks, threatening community vitality.

“Fire departments are having trouble recruiting and are having to hire year-round EMTs because they don’t have enough volunteers,” said Mr. Ruhle. “It raises the question of where are we going to be in 30 years if this continues.”

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Suffolk County residents are already older, on average, than people across the United States as a whole—with an average in Suffolk County of 39.8 years compared to 37.2 years nationwide. Mr. Ruhle said the Housing Innovations claim that the disparity is more severe in wealthier areas can be demonstrated when dissecting the neighborhoods in East Hampton Town.

The average resident of East Hampton Village, he said, is 55.5 years old. Amagansett and Napeague came in at 52.2 and 55.4, while in Springs the average age is only 38.2 years old.

“Our population is slowly skewing older and older ... and that’s a big picture issue that we all have to look at,” Mr. Ruhle said.
Southampton Chamber of Commerce president Micah Schlendorf said the trend is affecting local businesses, whose owners are reporting increased difficulty in finding quality employees.

“A big issue we hear from chamber members is that it’s hard for them to find talented individuals to work for them—even part-time high school students to get started working for the local businesses, maybe go to school and come back and be interested in working there later on,” Mr. Schlendorf said. “That, unfortunately, seems to be diminishing because a lot of young ones are not coming back after school is over.”
Mr. Schlendorf said he believes high real estate costs, along with stigmas attached to the idea of workforce, or affordable, housing, are to blame for Long Island’s dwindling millennial population.

Eric Alexander of Vision Long Island, an advocacy organization that seeks to help local communities adapt to a changing world, suggested that towns and villages need to be willing to accommodate many young adults’ partiality to lively, walkable downtown areas.
“If Long Island wants to take advantage of young people’s preferences, which seem to be toward more urban living, we can, if we choose, adapt our downtowns to make places amenable for young people,” said Mr. Alexander. “The challenge for the East End is a lack of flexibility in allowing for the building types needed to make activities affordable enough.”

The CHI study claims millennials will continue migrating up and off-island to lower-cost urban enclaves like Brooklyn until there is a change in status quo on the literal home front, in addition to adapting downtown spaces to fit changing lifestyle preferences.
Former Southampton Town Supervisor Patrick Heaney said he believes this to be true.

“The way the zoning laws are configured in the Town of Southampton pretty much ensure that the only type of housing that will not be greeted with public outrage, public opposition or lack of political will is a small McMansion—and that’s discouraging,” Mr. Heaney said. “Someone who just gets out of college doesn’t have the equity to buy a house or a condo, so communities need to realize that if we were to ever put flesh on the bones of the ideas in our Comprehensive Master Plan, we need to have the courage to implement the ideas that appear in these studies.”

Mr. Heaney, legislative director for the Southampton Business Alliance, said he hopes the current Town Board will adopt legislation that creates standards for multifamily housing proposals to be directed immediately to the Planning Board if proper criteria is met.

“That way there could be a rational discussion based on the need for housing rather than the topic of multifamily housing in a Town Board room, where it’s just politicized,” Mr. Heaney said. “I say that because I was there. I know how difficult it is to get affordable housing.”

Current Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst did not return a call for comment.

The Southampton Housing Authority is currently partnered with developer Georgica Green Ventures on a proposed affordable housing project called Sandy Hollow Cove, which 25-year-old Tuckahoe resident Noelle Bailly, who works in real estate, said she opposes in favor of accessory apartments in private homes.

“It’s a really small lot, so we’re basically trying to figure out who’s behind it and why it has to be on this piece of property and why they’re forcing 28 rentals and now they’re calling it workforce housing,” said Ms. Bailly, who added she does not believe there is a local “brain drain” of her age group.
To her, the loss of local young people is a natural progression, not a problem. “Kids go,” Ms. Bailly said. “They go. I’m not from here. I’m from Montana. I left Montana and somebody goes and takes my place in Montana."

Itty Bitty Busy Bones

Hi there!

Thug Child Gangsta here checkin' in with an inadequately prepared update on what's been going down in my little world of freelance journalism. 

I covered the Katy's Courage 5K on Ssturday, April 5, for both the Sag Harbor Express and Dan's Papers, which was my first time covering an event for multiple publications. 

One of my photos graced the front cover of the Express and the story I wrote about the event may or may not represent my very first for a newspaper's sports section (Can't imagine that's true)

I think I also made the front cover of the Rockland County Times that Thursday, April 10, after covering the formation of the group, "Rockland Clergy for Social Justice" and writing that here represents the first time I realized I made two different front covers in two different counties on one day.

Check it out:

GIANNA VOLPE    Bronx-based Rabbi Ari Hart of Uri L’Tzedek—Orthodox for Social Justice—voiced his support of newly formed “Rockland Clergy for Social Justice” in the packed basement of Spring Valley’s First Baptist Church on Tuesday afternoon, when the group announced its intent to petition Governor Andrew Cuomo for immediate fiscal and administrative oversight over the East Ramapo Central School District.

Other things:

I photographed the first annual Horseradish party on Saturday, April 12, for Dan's Papers and even competed in the Bloody Mary contest,  placing third of 10 despite forgetting the Worcestershire sauce and both lemon and lime. 

It was there I learned Moustache Brewery was holding its soft opening the next day and I'm pretty sure I was the only member of the Press there.

I wrote that up as a story for last week's issue of Dan's Papers, in addition to photographing the grand opening of the brewery for this week's issue.

I am really excited about the fact that I just handed in two stories to the Southampton Press - the first two I've written in a long while and will not discuss as I believe they're both being held for next week's paper. 

Also wrote two pieces for the Sag Harbor Express - one on weed-eating goats and another about well-known local chef, George Hirsch. 

Just handed in my first of two upcoming magazine features for the Express, one of which I am incredibly excited about because it's a first-person feature and I love those. 

I write the other one tonight, but now I have to go shower and get ready for work at the bar.

Such is life for this busy little Gia!

My 27th birthday is coming up in June, so if you don't know what to get me, an acountant/personal assistant/both would be incredibly helpful!

Long-time LI Farm Bureau executive director announces retirement

As seen on: Libn.com

Gergela retiring from Long Island Farm Bureau

By Gianna Volpe

When Joseph Gergela III retires in December from the Long Island Farm Bureau, local farmers will lose one of their own.

The lifelong Island farmer and longtime executive director of the Calverton-based nonprofit informed its Board of Directors of his retirement plans in March. When he steps down at the end of the year, it will be after 26 years with the LIFB – and over 50 years with type 1 diabetes, a diagnosis he received at age 7.

Gergela, now 58, has weathered numerous diabetes-related complications through the years, including multiple heart attacks and a 2012 kidney transplant from his brother. He cited health concerns as the main reason for his pending departure.

“That’s why I have to retire,” Gergela said. “The physical work of walking the halls of the New York Legislature is a challenge now. I have heart problems and circulation problems, and that wears you out.

“And trying to make time all the time, and to have your best, most charming personality day in and day out, plus the stress of what the farmers are going through … I just know it’s time,” he added.

At times during his LIFB career, you might not have known Gergela was ill. The executive director has garnered a national reputation for his political and PR chops, including management training from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, service on the National Farm Bureau and what he described as a “personal friendship and working relationship” with former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.

Locally, he’s known as the farmer’s best friend. A tireless point man and booster for the regional agricultural community, Gergela called the 2002 negotiations for the East End’s former KeySpan property, now known as Hallockville, one of the best victories of his LIFB tenure.

With many environmentalists clamoring for public park space – a plan that would have cost 300 acres of prime farmland – Gergela brokered a farm-saving deal between KeySpan and then-Gov. George Pataki.

“That was my baby,” he said. “The beauty of this, which is how I sold it to the governor, was that the farmers would buy the land with the development rights sold to the state, and the money would go into a pot to a build a state park on [Long Island] Sound.”

That $3 million is still sitting in a fund in Albany, waiting to build that park, Gergela noted.

Long Island Farm Bureau President Karen Rivera said the organization will miss Gergela’s wisdom and energy.

“Joe has been a fearless and effective advocate for Long Island agriculture,” Rivera said. “He is greatly respected not only here on Long Island, but also in Albany and Washington.”

Rivera did not mention a specific successor, but noted the LIFB Board of Directors “has formed a committee to formulate a plan for the organization moving forward.”

Whatever direction the bureau takes after he leaves his post, Gergela – who plans to retire to Boca Raton, Fla. with his wife, Donna – said the LIFB’s greatest strength will always be the Long Island agricultural community itself.

“We’re proud of our farms, our land, our crops,” he said. “It takes a lot of personal pride. You have to be really into it, or you’re not going to make it in farming.”

Read more: http://libn.com/2014/04/16/gergela-retiring-from-long-island-farm-bureau/#ixzz2zAynKxW8

Express lane to victory!

I am so unbelievably proud of The Sag Harbor Express for winning The New York Press Association's inaugural "Newspaper of the Year" award at this year's Better Newspaper Contest, which took place this weekend in Saratoga Springs.

I've been honored to write a number of compelling monthly magazine features for them in the past year, including my all-time favorite "Art of Scalloping story."

The Express apparently received a number of accolades for these magazines

(I am completely unsurprised - they are gorgeous.)

New publishers, Gavin and Kathryn (Georgie) Menu, wrote the following on the subject: 

"What a great weekend at NYPA's spring newspaper convention for The Sag Harbor Express! For those of you who don't already know, The Express collected a total of 31 awards in categories that touched every aspect of the business--editorial, advertising and design. Our magazine series, which every one of you played a huge part in, dominated the special section categories, with The Summer Book, XO, Harvest, Festival, Voyeur and Home & Garden all winning awards. 

In the end, The Sag Harbor Express was named Newspaper of the Year and received a huge ovation from over 500 of our peers, representing 178 different newspapers across New York State.

We all joke that the awards "don't mean anything," but the truth is it's tremendously rewarding to be honored in such a way in front of our peers. If nothing else, the awards validate all the hard work we put into making such outstanding newspapers and magazines.

Kudos to you all."

Passion of the Blimp

Blimpie to celebrate 50 years with 50 cent sub; chain’s founder sits down for interview with Rockland County Times

BY GIANNA VOLPE

The original Blimpie Base

The tri-state’s own submarine sandwich chain, Blimpie, turns 50 years old on Friday, April 4 when the first 200 customers of any Blimpie location can celebrate the half-century anniversary with a 50-cent Blimpie’s Best— and that’s cheaper than the 95 cents it once cost for the same sandwich during the chain’s 1964 inception, according to founder, Tony Conza.

“It was the most expensive sandwich at 95 cents and at the time we called it a ‘Super,’” Conza told The Rockland County Times of Blimpie’s very beginning, which saw he and two high school friends slap a sandwich shop together with $2,500 and the dream of bringing the cold subs of South Jersey to their hometown of Hoboken.

“The concept of a salad on a sandwich wasn’t really being done at the time,” Conza said. “It was just hero sandwiches—meatballs, ham and cheese on Italian bread—not shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes or onions.”

Blimpie forever altered that culinary landscape. From the moment the doors opened, Conza said folks were lining up to buy a ‘Blimp,’ a marketing descriptor he said was chosen to teach North Jersey folk the concept of the sandwich, inspired by Point Pleasant-based Mike’s Submarines, while associating it to the Blimpie brand.

“Back then the sandwiches weren’t known as ‘submarines’ and though we knew people in Philadelphia called them ‘hoagies,’ we wanted to teach everyone a word that was our own. We went through the As and Bs and got to blimp and said, ‘Okay, the sandwich kind of resembles an airship’ and then we just added an –ie to the end of it— that was our big market research,” he said with a laugh. “These days you spend a million dollars to come up with a name.”

Conza–author of “Success, It’s a Beautiful Thing: Lessons on Life and Business From the Founder of Blimpie International”– is no stranger when it comes to learning what it takes to build a successful business. What began as a lone sandwich shop on Seventh and Washington in Hoboken ultimately ascended to more than 2,000 locations by the new millennium, but in the beginning, Conza said there was darkness. “We were selling a lot of sandwiches but we really weren’t making money because we didn’t know what we were doing,” he said. “My partner [Peter DeCarlo] and I … went through some very difficult times. I remember one time we pulled up to the tollbooth at the Lincoln Tunnel and when I reached into my pocket, I didn’t have the 50 cents it cost at the time. I said to [DeCarlo], ‘Give me 50 cents to pay the toll,’ and he said, ‘I don’t have any money.’ Neither one of us did.”

After briefly considering getting out of the business in 1989, the year after the small public company had lost money and was selling for only 15 cents a share, Conza said he realized he had “lost the passion for Blimpie” and swiftly set a five-year/ 1,000 location goal for the company.

“Once I made that mental decision to get the passion back for Blimpie – everything changed,” Conza said of the start of an eight-year stretch of record company earnings. “In the beginning it was like being behind a Mack truck and trying to push it up a hill by myself, but eventually more and more people got on board—and the rest is history.” Sadly for local Blimpie fans, the few Blimpie locations in Rockland County have all been put to pasture in recent years. If you want to get your 50 cent Blimpie fix on Friday, you’ll have to hop over the border to Mahwah, Allendale or Westwood in nearby Jersey. For those working in New York City or Westchester, there are also several Blimpie locations to choose from, which you can find at www.blimpie.com/locator.

This story sourced from The Rockland County Times website: http://www.rocklandtimes.com/2014/04/03/passion-of-the-blimpie/