III · Denesha Advising

Vineyards and cellars that hold up.

Counsel for a small number of growers and wineries in North Carolina and the Southeast.

Hand-painted watercolor map of the eastern mountains and Piedmont, from Cincinnati and New York City south to Charleston. Asheville, Boone, Roanoke, Charlottesville and Lexington are marked, with notes on the Catawba plantings at Mount Adams and the Mother Vine, an old scuppernong on the coast.
The mountains and Piedmont of the East, where American grapes have their longest history. Illustration by James Sligh.

Site, variety, timing, and process carry through from the field to the cellar. The vineyard and the winery are one process, and the advice treats them as one.

The work is with vineyard owners, wineries, and growers. Some are just getting started. Others are established and want better wine, fewer problems, or a closer fit between how they farm and how they make wine.

The cellar

Stability, faults, fermentation, and blending. Problems are easier to settle when they are caught early.

Hybrids and natives

Variety selection for Southeastern conditions, and wine from the grapes that ripen well in a humid mountain climate.

The vineyard

Planning and site setup, organic and low-intervention growing, and recovery for vineyards in trouble.

Cost and workflow

A quiet look at where a cellar is spending more, or working harder, than it needs to.

Chris on a stepladder in a winter coat and knit cap, tending a tall concrete egg fermenter draped in cheesecloth, a painted mural wall behind.
At the concrete egg.

How the work goes

A season, start to finish.

  1. Ink sketch of a vine bud breaking open on a cane.

    Budbreak

    Looking

    A first visit, or a first read of the records. What the site and the cellar are actually doing.

  2. Ink sketch of a young shoot with leaves, a tendril and a flower cluster.

    First flowers

    Deciding

    The early decisions, made deliberately: site, variety, the growing program, the cellar plan.

  3. Ink sketch of a cane with leaves and a cluster of small green berries.

    Fruit set

    Through the season

    Visits and calls at the points where decisions are actually made.

  4. Ink sketch of a grape cluster turning color, some berries dark and some still pale.

    Veraison

    Into the cellar

    The same thinking carried through fermentation and blending to the finished wine.

Sketches by James Sligh.

Terms

Four ways the work is arranged.

Grounding
Remote retainer

Steady support across vineyard and winery decisions without site visits: a standing monthly conversation, questions answered in writing between, plans and documents read closely.

from $500 a month
Rooted
Regional retainer

Grounding, with one visit each month to the vineyard or the cellar, for places that benefit from regular input in person across growing and production.

from $1,500 a month
Full Partnership
On-site and ongoing

Ongoing advising with on-site support and priority access, for operations that want consistent involvement across vineyard management and winemaking.

from $2,500 a month
Harvest
By the project

A defined piece of work with a beginning and an end: site planning and installation, variety and planting strategy, organic system design, vineyard recovery, or fermentation and blending.

scoped to the work

Experience

From the Pacific to the Blue Ridge.

Chris Denesha laughing, in a dark knit beanie, in front of a painted mural wall.

Chris Denesha has worked in wine since 2007, beginning at Rodney Strong in Sonoma County, and has grown and made wine in Western North Carolina since 2014.

Most of that time has gone to learning what holds up in this region, from the first planting decisions through fermentation and the finished wine. The terrain, the soils, and the weather set real limits. The right decisions are the early ones, carried through.

Ink map of the United States marking where Chris has worked: Sonoma County, California, 2007 to 2010; Puget Sound, Washington, 2010 to 2011; the Colorado Plateau, Utah, 2011 to 2012; Southern Georgia and Madison County, Florida, 2012 to 2014; Western North Carolina, 2014 to today; and wine distribution in California and New York, 2022, and Texas, 2023.
Where the work has been. Illustration by James Sligh.
2007 to 2010
Sonoma County, California
2010 to 2011
Puget Sound, Washington
2011 to 2012
Colorado Plateau, Utah
2012 to 2014
Southern Georgia and Madison County, Florida
2014 to today
Western North Carolina
2022 and 2023
Wine distribution in California, New York, and Texas

This is long-term work, and engagements are few. Inquiries may be addressed to chris@deneshafarms.com.