Fourteen years after planting a vineyard on their organic farm in Jackson, David McDaniel and Heather Selin’s wines have found their way to store shelves this year.
Their winery, Earth Dharma Winegrowers, makes wine from their own certified organic grapes, using wild fermentation and no sulfites or additives. Or as Selin puts it: “Nothing added, nothing removed.”
After farming organic vegetables and seed garlic for years, the couple decided to plant grapes, mostly varieties developed by the University of Minnesota that are suited to Maine’s climate. They considered building a winery at the farm, but they live off-grid, and the idea of powering the sort of facility they’d need with solar power was daunting.
“I mean, you can do it,” Selin said. “But you’d need a hell of a lot of batteries.”
For a few years, they sold their grapes wholesale to local wineries, including Oyster River Winegrowers, based in Warren, which makes natural wines. Oyster River made its popular wine Carbonic Nation using only grapes grown by McDaniel and Selin.
In 2023, Brian Smith, Oyster River’s winemaker, told them he had some good news and some bad news. The bad news was that the company would no longer be buying Earth Dharma’s grapes. They were changing their business model to focus on wines for wider markets, and needed to buy from growers that could provide more grapes.
The good news was they were going to start an incubator of sorts, through which tenant wineries could lease space and equipment from host wineries.
Smith offered to show McDaniel and Selin how to make Carbonic Nation, a slightly effervescent deep-red wine, which they now do under the name Irina. They also make an amber wine called Vita that gets its apricot color from leaving the skins on white grapes for four days and has been described as having butterscotch flavors balanced by acidity and a suede mouthfeel, McDaniel said.
McDaniel and Selin credit Smith’s mentorship with launching them into the world of natural wines, which are characterized by low-intervention, wild yeasts, and a certain unpredictability, since they vary depending on the growing conditions each year.
“Like most people of our age, I learned to drink wine that was from France and Italy and California,” Selin said.
Carbonic Nation was a very different style. It was refreshing and lively, she says.
“It was one of those things where you taste it and go, ‘This isn’t what I’m used to tasting, but it’s good in a different way,’” Selin said.
They do not use sulfites, which are used to make wine shelf-stable and to stop fermentation. And they are entirely organic.
McDaniel and Selin kept their 2024 harvest to start making grapes at Oyster Rivers’ facilities. But It took more than a year of wrangling with the state over licenses until they were able to start selling their wine this May.
They made about 3,000 bottles of wine last year. The vineyard, located on East Chase Road, could eventually make about 7,000 to 8,000 bottles yearly, McDaniel said.
McDaniel and Selin do their own distribution to keep down costs. Right now, it is available in grocery stores, coops and specialty stores within driving distance of Jackson, including the Marsh River Co-op, Tiller and Rye, The Natural Living Center and the Belfast Co-op.
Support from the community, whether from other winemakers, wine buyers or customers who are seeking out local wines, has been “lovely and amazing,” Selin said.
The couple met at a Buddhist retreat, which is reflected in Earth Dharma’s name. The dharma is the teachings of the Buddha, one of which is that everything is connected, Selin said.
“Organic farming is a very tangible demonstration of the principle of interconnectedness,” she said.