Central Pa. winery took 6 years to finally open. It will build on that dream in a couple of months

Lavender Acres Winery had a soft opening in 2023, and in essence, that continued through 2024.

But over the past couple of weeks, anyone driving around southcentral Pennsylvania couldn’t help but notice any of the 10 billboards advertising the “official” opening of the winery.

That the business is suddenly booming, as Bill Hewitt put it, shouldn’t come as a surprise. Hewitt, who along with wife Wendy owns the York County winery that soon will expand into a wedding and events venue, is a sales executive with the Lamar Advertising team in Lancaster-York. Immersed in advertising for the past 42 years, he was inducted into the Lamar Green Jacket Club, i.e., Hall of Fame, three years ago.

In this case, the use of the billboards is bearing fruit quickly and opening a new chapter for a business that has taken six years to get off the ground.

It has been a journey, he said, in working with township officials on a project that began as an idea for an events venue and morphed, for several reasons, into a winery that eventually will welcome weddings and larger wine events.

Lavender Acres The tasting room building, which dates back to 1790, is prominent on the Lavender Acres label.Paul Vigna

We took a trip over there on a breezy but sunny Saturday afternoon this past weekend and found the place hopping, with many of the outside tables occupied, including those under furnished cabanas. Inside the tasting room was also busy, with the bar full and other visitors scattered on tables in the multiple main-floor and second-floor rooms that allow, depending on your mood, for a gathering or a quiet spot for two or four people.

There’s a wine for every palate, from dry to sweet and red to white, with some varietals and some blends. A Brut Rosé sparkling is also on the menu. We sampled just a few and found the Sauvignon Blanc and rose most to our liking. Wine is available by flight, by the glass and by the bottle, with a majority priced between $20 and $25 while the dry reds are around 10 bucks more. It’s the wine you’ll find served at the Harrisburg Symphony.

That list is complemented by a variety of spirits and beers, along with an assortment of what they call Nibbles and Bites, ranging from fruit and cheese and mixed olive plates to several sizes of charcuterie boxes and wraps. You can read the full menu at this link.

Events dot the schedule, including happy hours 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, trivia on Thursday and Friday nights, music on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons, and a mix of other activities such as art and cooking classes several times a month. An Easter egg hunt was held on April 19.

The winery is open 1 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays, and 1 to 6 p.m. Sundays.

Much of the interview focused on what has transpired. It began, he said, with the couple wanting to open a wedding venue on the Hellam Township property, located on the west side of the Susquehanna, almost equidistant from downtown York and Lancaster and about a 40-minute drive from Harrisburg.

That first request to Hellam Township was denied, Hewitt said, “and then another person in the Pennsylvania wine industry came to me and said, being the fact that the limited winery laws have changed, it would make it much better for you if you would establish a vineyard and open up a winery.” Looking at the zoning, Hewitt, said, he and his attorney determined that “if we had a vineyard and we had at least 2 acres of something that could [use to] make wine … we could hypothetically have a vineyard, and then with the vineyards, if we had more than 10 acres, according to Hellam Township zoning,” they could open the winery and in addition host the events they were hoping to welcome in the first place.

But there was no easy path there, as Hewitt described, with obstacles that took them to York County Court of Appeals and, after a 13-month wait, to Pa. Superior Court. “Mainly legal” is how he summarized the bumps in the road, both in getting the township approvals in addition to overcoming objections from the neighbors about putting in a wedding venue.

Lavender Acres Winery Wine at Lavender Acres is served by the flight, by the glass or by the bottle. Also pictured is one of the charcuterie boxes.Paul Vigna

In the meantime, he said that he was working with a viticulture consultant out of Penn State, “and she said to me, ‘Bill, you just need to go back to school and get some education.’ And I was like, I’m 60 years old. Are you bloody kidding me? And so I ended up going to the Penn State certification program, which was 13 classes. And Bob Green was my professor, who was, or is, the winemaker out of Presque Isle. I was in his class ... and it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me, because he made us go on field trips across the state and meet other wine owners and wine makers, and I got behind the scenes in places that I would have never gotten behind the scenes in. And by doing so, I was able to meet some really good people and through that I was able to meet my winemaker [Mike Innerst], who has more than 25 years’ experience.”

More will be planted next spring, adding to the lavender field. That would be around the time they open the building that will be used for weddings, which will bring the story and the plan full circle.

“We started off wanting to be a wedding venue with an OK winery,” Hewitt said. “Now we’re an unbelievable winery, and we’re still working on the wedding venue.”

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