Photo essay: 1723 Vineyards

from Landenberg Life Fall/Winter 2021 Edition

Local couple taps into sweet success

Text by Richard L. Gaw

In the general pecking order of stunning visuals, there are very few views more majestic than the broad sweep of a vineyard stretching for acres – the breathtaking science of what happens when nature meets anticipation.

When Sarah and Ben Cody and their friends planted the first three acres of their 1723 Vineyards in the 36-acre McMaster Farm in 2015, it was not likely at the time that they could imagine that their dream would someday become one of those cherished vistas. Yet by the time the vineyard near the bend at Route 896 on the outskirts of Landenberg had grown to seven acres by 2018, what was happening there was the row by row perfection of a dream realized.

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Photos by Moonloop Photography

|Landenberg Life Photo Essay|

The purest expression of 1723 Vineyards

The purest expression of 1723 Vineyards

1723 Vineyards

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If there is another side of the beauty of 1723 Vineyards, it is found in the wine, passionately created under the supervision of winemaker Gabriel Pedro Rubilar. Thick-skinned, disease resistant and aged in premium oak barrels harvested from trees grown in Pennsylvania and in France, the vineyard’s red wines – Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Chambourcin, Landot Noir, Nebbiolo, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon – have become favorites of the 1723 Vineyard’s wine club members, and their bottles can be seen on the crowded tables that overlook the vineyard during event weekends and lazy Sunday afternoons in the spring, summer and fall.

Throughout the 600-square-foot tasting room, guests enjoy rosé sparkling wines or its many varietals of white wine that include the vineyard’s Sauvignon Blanc, its Albariño, Riesling and Traminette, or its blend of Chardonel and Viognier.

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The renowned wine critic Robert M. Parker once wrote, “I believe that the responsibility of the winemaker is to take that fruit and get it into the bottle as the most natural and purest expression of that vineyard, of the grape varietal or blend, and of the vintage.”

For Ben Cody, Sarah Cody and Gabriel Pedro Rubilar, the goal has always been to create the finest wine possible, and from a ground of clay and silt loam soil, melded with rain and sun, 1723 Vineyards has emerged from the wild-eyes aspirations of a dream created six years ago, and made into the purest of expressions.