Rooftop Reds Is Bringing Brooklyn’s First Rooftop Vineyard To The Brooklyn Navy Yard
Rooftop gardens, we barely knew ya. Say hello to rooftop vineyards!
Brooklyn entrepreneur and oenophile Devin Shomaker is pioneering New York City’s first ever “commercially viable rooftop vineyard,” Rooftop Reds, which partners with Finger Lakes-based Point of the Bluff Vineyards for distribution of bottles produced on the roof of Building 275 inside the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Word has been circulating since early 2014, when Shoemaker and co-founders Chris Papalia, Evan Miles, and Thomas Shomaker launched their Kickstarter funding effort, which was successfully funded by 203 donors of $16,820 total.
The first harvest from the Navy Yard roof is due to be ready in October 2016 and bottled for release by Autumn of 2017, but the first bottles of Rooftop Red — made from grapes grown in the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York — are on sale now at local purveyors: Corkscrew Wines (489 Myrtle Avenue), Wino(t) (796 Franklin Avenue), and Brooklyn Pop-Up Market (143 Waverly Avenue, weekends).
Next month (July), the vineyard will officially open, said Shomaker.
“Our mission is ambitious, going well beyond merely bringing viticulture to the urban agriculture industry,” he said on the company’s website. “Rooftop Reds will spearhead the New York State innovative wine market and plant the seeds for a new generation of viticulture enthusiasts.”
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the Public Design Commission of New York City voted on June 1 on the details of Rooftop Reds’ “plans to construct a commercial vineyard, wine-production facility and educational-event space” and that “later this month, the board of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp., the nonprofit organization that manages the 300-acre waterfront industrial park for the city, is expected to approve a lease securing the 14,000-square-foot rooftop for the venture.”
“Rooftop Reds was my path to finding individualism in this massive market, start my own business and take the viticulture skills and collaborative farming attitude back to the city,” said Shomaker, 31.
In addition to hiring a handful of part-time workers to support Rooftop Reds’ events program — think wine and cheese tastings, happy hours, pop-up dining experiences, and educational workshops and tours — Shomaker and crew will also engage with the community, extending the educational opportunities to local high school students through an internship program.
Projects like Rooftop Reds appeals to the startup and community-oriented manufacturing sensibilities of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, said Yard President David Ehrenberg to WSJ, because “we’re not necessarily looking for the most established company that pays the most rent. We’re looking for scrappy entrepreneurs.”