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twigs that his daughter—a few weeks from heading off to Middlebury College herself—is transplanting by the greenhouse. “This whole idea of taking cuttings and making them root is kind of magical to me,” says Granstrom. “It’s sort of astronomical the way it multiplies.” Indeed, his business plan relies on that magic—he plans to concentrate on selling nursery stock to others in the area who want to start vineyards of their own.
    “Look, the wine will be really nice wine. But probably not world class. So it will be for local supply”—that is, for people who want the pleasure of tasting it not only on their tongues but in their minds as well, who will appreciate the story that comes with it, the same way I cherish the local wood in my house. “There’s a huge glut of wine right now in California, New Zealand—that’s why you can get Two Buck Chuck or whatever in thesupermarket,” he says. “But in places like the Finger Lakes in upstate New York, it’s worked out better—it’s for a local market.”
    Right about then the thunder finally cracks and the downpour starts, so we retreat back into the shed. Granstrom opens a bottle of the wine he’s made from his initial harvest—crisp, like a Riesling, delicious—and he and Sara engage in what is clearly a long-running debate about what to call their winery.
    “Lincoln Peak,” he says—a peak in the Mount Abe range, clearly visible through the trees.
    The New Haven gurgles nearby, now almost flatwater after its tumbling descent from the height of the ridge. “Breadloaf Mountain Winery,” I suggest—for the source of the headwaters of the river, and also for its “glass of wine and thou” overtones.
    “I just don’t know,” said Granstrom with a laugh. “My whole life used to involve dealing with words, and now it involves dealing with heavy objects.” He looked out through the open doors, where his vines gleamed in the lightening rain. “I have a much more complicated relationship with nature since I became a farmer. Things that seem benign or beautiful when they don’t threaten you directly become something else. Like thunderstorms. Or deer. I was out on the tractor the other day and this mother and fawn wandered in—I ended up chasing them around and around the rows in the tractor. Or take theweeds under the grapevines. I talked to a guy not long ago who was going to control the weeds organically—well, they got out of control and now he’s using a chainsaw to take out pigweed. So I use Roundup, maybe once a year, in a backpack sprayer. Monsanto is a big, evil, nasty company, but that Roundup starts to degrade as soon as it hits the soil. And what are the alternatives? Well, you could use a mechanical cultivator, but it tears up the vine roots and the soil structure, and it’s spewing diesel fuel as it goes. You could do flame weeding, and maybe I will—but that’s just driving down the rows with a propane tank. Or I could hire a bunch of migrant workers with hoes. Which is the right answer?”
    Just like the woodlot owners trying to figure out how much environmental conscience they can afford, Vermont farmers have to figure out how to stay afloat in an economy where food is treated as a commodity. For many, “organic” agriculture was the salvation—a label that could induce consumers to pay enough more for their dinner that small, local farms stayed viable. Behind the label was a story, just like Lincoln Peak wine will be a story, and VFF wood. “Organic” was “value added” in an almost psychological way, as shoppers looked for some kind of real connection that the shiny rows of supermarket apples, the yellow rafts of “chicken parts,” couldn’t offer. Organic carried those fuzzy feelings—but now the organic story is being quickly rewritten, as huge growers start to dominatethe market. And so, as we shall see, the search is on for the next story that might allow small farmers the margin they need.
    Whatever else it