Tan Childs Winery

Tan Childs Winery
3239 Cooper Hill Road
Hinsdale, New York
USA 14743
Phone: (716) 557-2189
http://www.tanchilds.com/

Contact: Peter & Rita Childs
Email: [email protected]

At Tan Childs Blueberries, we use the healthest and safest approaches in producing our sweet tasting blueblerries. Our farm practices Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques taught by Cornell to minimize the need to spray pesticides. As long as our traps are clear of pests, we do not spray our crop. The opposite of IPM is to mass-produce blueberries. This requires regular applications of heavy duty pesticides that when applied, means the fruit cannot be eaten for 7 to 10 days. The spray we would use with IPM is so mild the fruit could be eaten the same day. Using IPM, we have gone as long as 7 years with no pests or pesticides!

We also use hardwood sawdust to naturally keep acidity at an optimal level. Leaf samples are sent to Cornell who analyzes them and reports what fertilizers (Iron, Potassium, Nitrogen, Trace Minerals, etc.) we need to retain in the soil for a perfect, tasty blueberry. We also irrigate the bushes, keep the fields well seeded and prune extensively each year. Besides "micro-managing" the field maintenance and upkeep, the blueberries we grow are so sweet because our soil is unique. Our hill top at 2250 ft. did not have the soil amalgamated by the glaciers and thus retained the naturally acidic and unique components that are like heaven on earth to blueberry bushes. Some folks in lowlands try to grow blueberries by chemically adjusting their soil to mimic the naturally unqiue soil compenents of Cooper Hill, but nature is tough to replicate!Our story begins when I traveled to Asia as a manufacturing representative. There I discovered a great deal of manufacturing and met my wife, Rita.

Rita and I started the winery in 2002, the year we were married. We decided to invest in a winery here in America and built our winery in the "Enchanted Mountains" of Western New York.

Our goal is to make "The Best Blueberry Wine" on a small scale similar to the small estate wineries in Europe. We educated ourselves in wine making from books, friends and also my father, who has made fruit wine for 40 years.

Our wine is made of the highest quality hand picked fruit, with first ferment on berry and second ferment in aging. The last ice age that formed most of upstate New York went around our mountain and produced our unique soil and fauna. This combination and our sustainable agriculture practices help us to grow blueberries that are so delicious.

Winemaker: Peter Childs

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