Awesome article on Willow Creek Winery!
Pour the Wine… From Cape May Magazine
The sea mist and its sheer curtain have lifted. There’s not a cloud in the sky and the sun begins its high ride. A breeze ripples from the bay to the harbor, and you can hear the whisper of the ocean rolling in at the cove.
The water and the weather are what make Willow Creek Winery possible here on the outer coastal plain stretching along the tip of the cape. Far as the eye can see, there are grapevines in perfect rows, reaching up to meet the day.
The scent of lavender drifts across the villa veranda from a sweeping swath of pastel purple spikes. Honey bees buzz over mounds of catmint. Banks of hydrangeas are opening their big mop heads. A cock crows – as if to announce an event.
And here she comes on her golf cart – Barbara Hamilton Bray-Wilde, waving and smiling and flying up the driveway. She is the chatelaine of Willow Creek vineyards, villa, gardens and brand new winery.
This season, for the first time since planting 40 acres of vineyards over seven years ago, Willow Creek Winery is attempting to open to the public. It’s an exciting time at this historic farm on Stevens Street in West Cape May that grew lima beans and soybeans before its reincarnation as a vineyard.
“Hello, hello,” says Barbara, clutching a small orange ball. “It’s my baby Fuyu persimmon, the first one from my new tree. See, it looks like a little squashed tomato. You eat it like an apple. I have a Hachiya persimmon, too, shaped like a heart. It must be tempered by frost. It gets soft and you eat it like pudding.”