In 1928 two Pietmontese immigrants, Matteo and Carolina Carozzo, workers in a gun powder factory in
Wilmington, used their life-savings to purchase an abandoned field near the town of Avondale.

The field occupies a small knoll between a concrete factory and two manure composting plants.
The soil is littered with horseshoes, old medicine bottles, and a stubborn vein of marble runs beneath it.
All seven acres of the Home Vineyard were planted here in 1999.



The planting of the vines coincided with the longest drought in the state’s
history. The first season then ended with a record of 10 inches of rain in one evening.

The next spring, a sink hole opened up. At the bottom of it, a large old crucifix was discovered.
The crucifix was hung on a fence post overlooking the vineyard and became known as “Vineyard Jesus”.

Pop Pop Jim ran over 100 miles of wire to erect a trellis for the vines.
A small winery was constructed in the hillside; the floors were poured on September 11, 2001.

The vineyard has been visited by hurricanes and hail, disease and cold snaps, deer,
insects, and legions of birds. New members of our family have been born, and others have left us.
Great Grandmother Anna is well over 90; she admonishes us to bottle on the new moon.
Our daughter is now the fifth generation of Matteo and Carolina to live and work here.
It is a place pregnant with memories, and full of ghosts.


The wines are a record of things that happen in this field.
We make wine here because we believe these things are in the wine.




Va La Wines






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Va La Family Farmed Wines  |  8820 Gap Newport Pike (Rt. 41)  |  Avondale, PA  |  19311  |  610-268-2702