The Second Bud: Deserting the City for a Farm Winery

Martha M. Ezzard and her physician husband John are among the pioneers in the movement of professionals trading busy city careers for a return to the land. While this story about saving a family farm is distinctly Southern, it typifies the national locally grown movement which has begun to sweep the country. Locally grown foods call for wines that are a taste of the local earth--what wine aficionados call the terroir, the soils and climate that give them unique flavors not found in California or Burgundy or anywhere other than, in this case, Tiger Mountain. The Ezzards undertook their risky wine growing venture in rural North Georgia where sweet tea has long been the drink of choice. John chose some unique European vinifera that would produce quality fruit in southeastern growing conditions, while Martha worried that she would be peddling such weird wine grapes out of the back of a pickup truck. Eventually, the forlorn looking sticks in the ground produced wines that won gold and silver medals in top east coast and California competitions. What follows initially are long sweaty days of post hole digging, trellis wire stringing, and weed pulling mixed with a few chiggers and ticks--but also the thrill of sighting a giant blue heron in the dawn mist of the farm pond--of hearing the honking of geese at sunset. There are times when the city high rise still beckons, but what Martha and John learn after burning smudge pots all night in a late April freeze only to see their pink buds turn brown despite it all, is that wine grapes have a second bud -and so too, because of their shared venture, does their relationship. THE SECOND BUD is a story that reflects today's agricultural evolution in the southeast, from tobacco, logging, and truck farming to agri-tourism, outdoor recreation, vineyards, and farm wineries. Filled with small town characters, unlikely obstacles and dirt based success, this memoir is a down home version of "Under a Tuscan Sun," a couple's risk taking to revive a fifth-generation family farm in the tiny North Georgia town of Tiger by cultivating fine wine grapes. It will appeal to romantics, wannabe winemakers, and all who covet the rural life.