The Winery

The Vineyard

A person harvesting green grapes from Rocklands Farm Winery vineyard

Nestled on a clay and sandstone slope pointing towards the Potomac River, the original Rocklands vineyard plot was planted in 2014 (when we really started to get serious about making wine). Since then, we've seen each growing season present different challenges, curiosities, and benefits.  From the dreary 2018 downpours to a major spring frost events in 2020 and 2026 to a near perfect "stars-aligning" 2025 vintage, the unpredictably of each year is simply something we learn to live with here in the mid-Atlantic.  

While admittedly stressful to manage, these annual variations can also be exciting and opportunistic for the ever-inventive winemaker.  Unlike most beverages, fermented grape juice has the unique potential to express its origins when cared for properly.  It can be a polarizing and debatable topic, but our low-intervention philosophy exists largely for this very reason: to showcase time and place through a glass of wine.  No, we're not trying to craft a wine that tastes like Napa or Bordeaux, but one that uniquely expresses the variable weather conditions and diverse soils of our region. 


A man leaning over a large container of wine grapes, inspecting or stirring them, at Rocklands Farm Winery

We believe that good wine begins in the vineyard. After that, here’s some ways we let the grapes do their thing in the cellar:

1. Fermenting the wines with yeasts naturally present on the grapes and in the air in our cellar in lieu of commercial lab yeast inoculations.

2. Avoiding enological addition adjustments for the aesthetics or appearance of the wine.  We forego using non-grape additions to make a wine darker or taste more full bodied, for example.

3. Minimizing or eliminating additions of preservatives in wine.  Sulfur dioxide is the most common addition, naturally present in wine, and also a very handy tool in the winery.  If we use SO2, we do so in small amounts well below even biodynamic standards. We do not consider any other additions in our wines.

“Low Intervention” Wine in the cellar

Healthy Soil

"Overall, our goal is for our vines and soils to be healthy with a strong immune system necessary to thrive with minimal spray intervention in the hot and humid Maryland summers."

We love seeing a diversity of life in our vineyards and nurturing habitat for birds to eat unwanted insects. We graze our flock of about 200 sheep and herd of 50 cattle through the vines periodically as fertilizers and mowers and revel in the ways our various farm enterprises intertwine symbiotically.

Close-up of a bird's nest surrounded by green grapes and grapevine leaves.

Handcrafted

"Wine enters through the mouth, Love, the eyes. I raise the glass to my mouth, I look at you, I sigh." — W.B. Yeats

We Bring joy to the process.  It's hard work, but it's also a lot of fun.  We like to goof around the cellar, shake our booties and make up dances to music, or bring out tons of friends and volunteers to help pick grapes.  A lot of times we feel like kids in a candy store; we're so lucky to be able to grow, create, and make wines that can be involved in special times in your life.  We hope you can feel that joy in the wine.  

Ultimately, we believe this light-handed, joyful approach to our production makes for more lively and interesting wines allowing them to be more transparent of time and place and celebrating the variations that come with each vintage. 

A woman in a pink shirt and jeans using a long tool to feed black grapes into a grape crusher machine in an outdoor setting with trees at Maryland winery
A person making kombucha using a continuous brew system at a brewery or distillery. They are pouring or handling bottles filled with a dark amber liquid, likely kombucha.
Two people, a woman and a man, smiling and working together outdoors on a cider press. The woman is wearing a red shirt and khaki pants, and the man is wearing a gray shirt and khaki pants. There are cars and trees in the background.
A close-up of a fine mesh strainer placed over a black stove with pink wine fermenting in a container beneath, bubbling and frothy.
A bird's nest with no eggs inside, located among green grape clusters on a grapevine.
A man wearing a cap backwards, glasses, and a gray t-shirt is loading a large metal container into a commercial ice shaver machine outdoors. There are containers and equipment in the background.
A person holding a bunch of ripe green grapes above a large container filled with more grapes, outdoors with trees and a cloudy sky in the background.
Bottles filled with a light yellow liquid, likely juice, being sealed or processed by a bottling machine in a factory or production setting.
A smiling woman standing on a step ladder next to a commercial HVAC unit outdoors, holding a garden rake, under a partly cloudy sky.
A stainless steel machine, possibly a wine press or food processing equipment, with red liquid spilling over the side and pooling beneath it.
Early morning vineyard with rows of grapevines, fog lingering over the ground, and a colorful sunrise sky with hues of orange, pink, and purple.
Two people are pouring purple grape juice from a large container, smiling and wearing casual clothes with hats. The scene appears to be at a winery or grape juice production facility.