Author’s story of starting a family-run winery is a fine blend

The first real blast of wintry weather feels as close by as the mountain that serves as the namesake for John and Martha Ezzard's Tiger Mountain Vineyards. Yet if the Rabun County husband and wife are fretting over a prediction of snow and its possible impact on the grapes that produce their award-winning petit manseng, malbec, cabernet franc and more, it's not apparent.

For one thing, it’s November. This year’s harvest is already done.

And when you’ve uprooted a way of life halfway across the country and planted a different one here with no guarantee it’ll take, not only do you learn to keep the occasional cold front in perspective.

You also gain added appreciation for being in the throes of a shared “second bud,” which Martha Ezzard explores in her new book.

“We had always talked about coming back here, maybe, someday,” Martha, 75, says, sitting in the couple’s updated version of a farmhouse on 100 acres the Ezzard family has worked for five generations.

“We wound up with a whole different direction in life,” John, 77, quietly marvels.

Clearly, the bluejeans-clad pair are a long way from their doctoring and lawyering days in Denver. In grape-growing, a “second bud” sometimes comes along to replace a first bud that’s fallen victim to low winter temperatures or late spring frosts. As a metaphor for survival, perseverance and unexpected growth, it’s pretty darned good. As the title of Martha Ezzard’s book, it’s perfect.

"When I started writing, I meant it to be about the land and I really wanted to write about saving a family farm," she confides on this blustery morning while her husband is still outside ministering to his beloved vines. "But as time went by, I realized it was just as much about encouraging people to take a big leap of faith, whatever it is.

“We chose to take a big leap.”

The landings weren't always smooth, as "The Second Bud: Deserting the City for a Farm Winery" (Mercer University Press, $25) makes entertainingly clear. A full-bodied tale of the couple's personal and professional journey toward a shared goal, it also contains intriguing notes of drama: the commuter marriage that began to show signs of strain as time went on; the steep learning curve that carving a European-style vineyard out of a onetime dairy farm in le Deep South entailed; the record deep freeze in April 2007 that led to a sobering conversation about possible options while they waited to learn the extent of the damage (including: "sell the farm and winery").

Even John Ezzard didn’t know the whole story until recently.

"I never knew Martha felt that way until I read the book," he admits about the parts where his wife of 50 years writes of her growing resentment at juggling responsibilities in Atlanta and Tiger for years, then facing other stresses when she moved to the farm full time in 2003. "I had thought Martha would have trouble adjusting to full-time, non-city life."

She’d jumped first, leaving Colorado after 23 years of raising three children and practicing law in order to join The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s editorial board in her native Georgia. John wasn’t far behind. A urologist who’d already begun making regular visits to little Tiger (current population: 406) to check on his elderly father and the farm, he soon came up with a plan: He’d give up his Denver practice just as soon as his partner (the couple’s son-in-law) found a replacement, and then move to Tiger for good.

His goal: keeping the farm family-owned and working. His unexpected idea: planting a vineyard to grow fine European wine grapes, aka vinifera.

“If it’s such a great idea to grow wine grapes this far north in Georgia, why isn’t anybody else doing it?” Martha writes was her initial reaction.

In the early 1980s, Chateau Elan in Braselton and Habersham Winery in Helen had opened, mostly making the sweeter muscadine and other wines from grapes native to the Southeast at first. Some three decades later, a North Georgia wine district stretching across the top third of the state encompasses more than 20 wineries and vineyards and produces varietals more often associated with France — cabernet franc, viognier, malbec — and other parts of Europe (touriga, sangiovese).

Yet the idea was still new enough in 1995 that John Ezzard had to go to Virginia to consult with the owners of a vineyard and get cuttings of their Horton grapevines for planting. Later, when potential competitors started popping up closer to home, it was actually a cause for celebration. And not just because there’s now a Rabun County Wine Trail to attract publicity and visitors.

"The more wineries there are, the better winery you're going to be," John Ezzard explains.

Tiger Mountain Vineyards survived the 2007 frost and began racking up some important reviews and awards (most notably, Best of Class, Gold Medal for its 2011 petit manseng at the prestigious Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits Competition). The refurbished 75-year-old barn where John grew up milking cows recently opened as a restaurant. Several years ago, the Ezzards' daughter, Lisa, moved back from California to join the business and ensure the family farm would be worked by a sixth generation.

Near the end of the book, Martha recounts the moment when she realized this story would have a happy ending. It’s several months after the big frost, and against all odds, the petit manseng has sprouted new shoots. They leave the vineyard holding hands.

Reminded of that moment now in their reimagined version of a farmhouse, the couple smile at each other.

“He was so excited the manseng was coming back,” Martha says. “I felt better because John felt better.”