By Bill Hanlon
There is something fitting about tasting Brandywine Valley wine in a malting barn that has stood here since the 1740s.
Grace Winery sits on the historic Sweetwater Farm property in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. The restored barn that now houses the winery and tasting room was once part of the working farm, long before anyone was growing wine grapes here. Chris and Vicki Le Vine began planting vines in 2007, restored the deteriorating barn, and produced their first vintage in 2009.
My wife and I recently spent an afternoon in that barn tasting through nine Grace wines, beginning with three whites and a rosé before moving on to five reds. We went primarily to experience the wines, but somewhere along the way the tasting started me thinking about a question that has increasingly interested me as we visit wineries around the region:
What should Brandywine Valley wine taste like?
I certainly didn’t expect nine wines from one winery to answer that question. But they added some interesting clues to my slowly developing understanding of what that answer might be.
Andrew Yingst, who has been the winemaker at Grace since 2018, has apparently been thinking about the same question. His path into wine began somewhat unexpectedly during a backpacking trip through New Zealand. After returning to Pennsylvania, he worked in vineyards and wineries before eventually taking over winemaking at Grace.
In interviews, Yingst has described an approach that favors restrained, balanced and food-friendly wines rather than wines built around power or ripeness. What caught my attention, though, was his thinking about the Brandywine Valley itself. He has argued that the region shouldn’t try to become another Napa or Bordeaux. Instead, growers and winemakers need to understand what works here and allow a regional identity to develop around it.
That vision is exactly what I am trying to understand through Brandywine in the Glass.
Grace describes its wines as small-batch and French-influenced. During my tasting, Grace’s sommelier told me that roughly 90 percent of the grapes they now use are grown either on the property or locally. As production has grown, Grace has supplemented its estate vineyard with fruit from nearby growers, while some grapes come from farther away, including Cabernet Sauvignon from Lodi, California.
So while these aren’t all strictly estate wines, with most of the fruit coming from the estate or surrounding area, the tasting offered an interesting window into the grapes and wine styles that may be finding a place in this part of southeastern Pennsylvania.
One thing became apparent fairly quickly as I tasted through the whites: freshness.
The 2025 Pinot Gris was crisp and straightforward, with green apple, pear, grapefruit and lemon, medium-plus acidity and a touch of honeysuckle. That was particularly interesting after reading Yingst’s comments about Pinot Gris. He has called it one of the most consistent grapes in the Grace vineyard and something of an overachiever in the Brandywine Valley.
The 2024 Sauvignon Blanc had more aromatic personality, with grass, green apple, pear, floral notes and bell pepper, followed by mint and more herbaceous character on the palate. Medium-plus acidity kept the wine lively. Grace describes its Sauvignon Blanc as New Zealand-inspired, an interesting connection given that Yingst’s own interest in wine began there. Still, I found myself less interested in whether it resembles New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc than in what Sauvignon Blanc grown here might eventually become.
The 2024 Chardonnay went in another direction. Relatively restrained on the nose, it opened on the palate with lemon, lime and grapefruit, along with a mineral quality, medium-plus acidity, some roundness and just a slight buttery note. Grace describes its Chardonnay as combining barrel and stainless-steel influence, an approach that seemed consistent with what I tasted: enough richness and texture to round out the wine without losing its freshness.
The 2025 Rosé was simpler and perhaps the most immediately refreshing of the group. Pale pink and delicate on the nose, it showed strawberry, red cherry and cranberry with high acidity and a short finish. A wine to drink young and fresh.
By the time I finished the four, I wasn’t ready to call freshness and acidity a “Brandywine style.” That would be far too much to conclude from four wines at one producer. But I was beginning to pay attention to the pattern.
Then came the reds, and particularly Cabernet Franc.
Yingst has been outspoken about Cabernet Franc as a grape that belongs in southeastern Pennsylvania. Cabernet Franc can ripen in more moderate conditions than Cabernet Sauvignon while retaining acidity and producing aromatic, structured wines without requiring the same degree of ripeness.
The 2023 Grace Cabernet Franc made a good case for it. Red cherry, strawberry and vanilla led into more red fruit on the palate, joined by toast and a slight black pepper note. High acidity and medium tannins gave the wine structure, with a medium-plus finish.
What I liked about it was what it wasn’t. It wasn’t trying to be a large, powerful red. The freshness, red fruit, moderate tannin and peppery character worked together without any one element taking over. Of everything I tasted that afternoon, this was the wine that most directly made me wonder whether Cabernet Franc could become an important part of the Brandywine Valley’s identity.
The remaining reds showed a broad range of styles. Dragonfly was lighter, with red cherry and rhubarb, low tannins and some herbaceous character. It struck me as an approachable wine made to drink now. The 2022 1734 had more substance, showing red cherry and plum with medium body and acidity. I enjoyed it as it was but thought it might still have room to develop.
The 2022 Gracie Red occupied another part of the spectrum. Off-dry and low in tannin, with cherry, strawberry and blueberry, it was fresh, fruit-forward and immediately accessible.
The final wine changed the pace. The 2022 Vintner’s Reserve Syrah stood apart from the other reds. Blackberry, tobacco and vanilla continued onto the palate with herbaceous and peppery notes. The texture was velvety, and the medium-plus finish had considerably more persistence than the wines that preceded it. It was the wine that lingered longest after the tasting, and I would be interested to see how it develops with additional time in the bottle.
Sitting in that old barn after tasting through the portfolio, I wasn’t any closer to defining exactly what Brandywine Valley wine should taste like. In fact, I’m increasingly convinced that trying to define it too quickly would be a mistake.
There are too many variables. Grape variety matters. Vineyard site matters. Vintage matters. Winemaking matters. And sourcing matters. Grace itself illustrates that complexity. Most of its fruit is now local or estate-grown, but not all of it. The 2022 1734, for example, combines Cabernet Sauvignon from California with estate Cabernet Franc.
Still, there were patterns in the glass worth following. Freshness and acidity appeared repeatedly. The whites generally favored brightness over weight. Several of the reds emphasized red fruit and moderate structure rather than heavy extraction. And Cabernet Franc seemed particularly at home in that environment.
Those observations overlap with what Yingst has been saying publicly about the region. His argument isn’t that Brandywine should reproduce wines from somewhere else. It is that growers and winemakers need to figure out what this land and climate do particularly well.
That remains the more interesting question.
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