Our first harvest

Dear family and friends,

This September 2023 is our first harvest at Sunrise Family Vineyard and I’d love your help in getting these grapes from the vines into the bottle. I didn’t know if a passion project started during Covid could become something real, let alone half an acre of grapes on the land Rachu, Ashray, Maithri and I grew up playing on. Your encouragement, interest, and my parents’ help on countless occasions while I was away made this possible.

Harvest requires equipment I don’t yet have: a crusher de-stemmer, a wine press, bins to ferment the grapes to wine, carboys to age them, bottles for finished wine, and more to handle over 2,000 lbs of grapes. I’ve estimated the total cost of equipment to be upwards of $7,000 depending on the yield. Together, we can turn these grapes into wine for all of us to enjoy. Every every little bit counts, come over in September if you want to help in person, and text or email me if you’ve got any questions at all.

I cleared the land with Mom and Dad’s help in 2020, planted our first vines with their and Nainamma’s help in spring, got the vines through their first season with Mom, Dad, and Cathy’s help (she weeded and pruned with me, even before we got married!) and we’re now in our 3rd season when the grapes are ready for harvest. I hope you’ll join for the journey, helping us with the costs or even coming for our first pick and crush in September. And I can’t wait for us all to enjoy the fruit of this first harvest :)

love,

Rahul