Growwine Members Biographies

Steve Melchiskey
Maine Coast Vineyards

Maine

Steve used to be the California wholesale sales representative for a major wine distributor. They represented Frey Vineyards, the leading organic, no-sulfite added wine producer in the U.S. As he was doing the usual dog and pony show driving around one of the members of the Frey family from store to store hawking wine, she told him: "You think you are in the wine business because you like it, because you enjoy the work. But that isn't true. You are in this business because the grapevines have chosen you to work for them. You see, we only think we choose our work. But, in fact, in this line of work, the plants have chosen us. They have determined that you are the person they want to promote them in the human world. And that is why you do what you do."

And that is a good as explanation as any as why he is here, why I am trying to grow grapes and make wine in Maine. Steve has worked in vineyards and wineries in France, Long Island, New York, California, Hungary and the Finger Lakes, New York. His best times were loading up the car with organically grown wine and driving up and down the California coast selling it to stores and restaurants along the way. One time they had an organic beer that they kegged up and iced down and put in the trunk and had retail buyers from San Francisco to San Diego tasting out of plastic cups from the back of our car. That is what it is really all about; introducing new tastes and flavors and ideas to people from wines and other beverages that reflect place and space.

He is in the process of finishing planting about 3 acres of vines, Millot, Aurore, St. Croix, St. Pepin, Baco, Frontenac and a few others. They've been making wine from the experimental plantings ... good juice and good fun. Steve is just a pawn in some world-wide grapevine conspiracy. He has no say in the matter. He only follows instructions. But why the heck couldn't his instructions have been to grow grapes in Napa?