The world's first rooftop vineyard is about to open in Brooklyn
Shomaker founded Rooftop Reds with Chris Papalia (pictured here), and his brother Thomas Shomaker who serves as the team's videographer. Papalia graduated with Shomaker from FLCC's two year viticulture and wine technology program at only 20 years old, making him the youngest winemaker in the Finger Lakes region.
Having lived in Brooklyn for years before attending wine school, Shomaker knew he wanted to live in the city. This desire coupled with the skills he had learned in wine school spurred Shomaker's idea of a rooftop vineyard.
In order to test his idea, Shomaker used the roof of his brother's apartment in Windsor Terrace as the location for a pilot project. The test vines survived two incredibly harsh winters, giving Shomaker the confidence that his idea could work.
After the success of the pilot project, Shomaker got in touch with Red Hook Winery and Brooklyn Grange, a rooftop farm and major player in the urban agricultural industry. These two businesses introduced him to the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a potential location for Rooftop Reds.
Brooklyn Grange had already established a location in the navy yard back in 2012, giving Shomaker the confidence that the idea of Rooftop Reds would be well-received there, and it was. "We’re agricultural manufacturing, and this is a manufacturing zone, one of the last — if not the last — manufacturing zones in New York City. So artisanal craft businesses like Rooftop Reds which are reviving manufacturing are completely checking off their boxes," Shomaker said.
The soil that the vines are planted in was specially created to make sure that the vines receive the nutrients they need to produce a good crop of grapes. Shomaker said he spent two years on the phone with Skyland USA — the same soil provider for Brooklyn Grange — adjusting the soil's pH and nutrient levels.
Besides the pilot project, Shomaker conducted an extensive climatic analysis — which he used as his thesis while he was in wine school — and used the help and research of multiple top viticulturists at Cornell University.
Since the rooftop is white and not black tar, Shomaker said that it's better-suited to promote photosynthetic activity, which is crucial to the growth of the vines. A black tar rooftop would have produced temperatures that were too hot for the vines.
Shomaker and his team also designed the urban planter system that's being used on the rooftop. Each planter box contains 1.33 cubic yards of soil, which is large enough to allow the plants to go into hibernation once winter comes along.
Having just signed the official lease for the rooftop space and finished the planting of the vines, Shomaker hopes to open Rooftop Reds by mid to late September.
Along with the wine Rooftop Reds will source from their partner, Point of the Bluff Vineyard, which sits on Keuka Lake in the Finger Lakes, the rooftop vineyard will produce all five traditional Bordeaux red varietals at their future wine production facility that will be built on site: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Malbec. Shomaker is hoping to release New York City's first urban vintage made with rooftop grown grapes in the fall of 2017.
Once it opens, Rooftop Reds will be open to anyone, but will only serve wine during specific times. Hammock happy hours — where visitors can reserve a hammock, come for a tasting, or just enjoy a glass of wine — will occur Wednesday through Friday from 5:30-8:30 pm. The vineyard will also be available for private dinner functions and will host its own events such as movie nights.
Shomaker hopes that Rooftop Reds will "provide New Yorkers with a grape to bottle experience" that many other urban wineries don't offer. He also hopes to educate, which is why the vineyard is developing an internship in partnership with the Brooklyn Navy Yard Employment Center for Brooklyn Youth, and working with Services for the Underserved, a nonprofit that helps train and find employment for people with mental disabilities.
Shomaker says the biggest challenge in establishing Rooftop Reds was "understanding the requirements of what it takes to start a business and getting past all the bureaucratic hurdles." Because the vineyard is the first of its kind, Shomaker had a lot of explaining to do throughout the process.
According to Shomaker, though, urban agriculture is here to stay. "By 2050, 90% of the world’s population is going to be living in urban centers. It’s just absolutely necessary to make our cities more green, otherwise I see the writing on the wall, and not in a fun way. This is not a trend, this is a movement."
He's already had multiple people reach out to him from around the world, from wine students in Germany to viticulturists in Osaka and London. There's a class from NYU coming to visit the rooftop in September and a professor at Pratt who has challenged her class to design a rooftop vineyard. Shomaker says, "it's just unreal what's going on and how people are responding to this idea. It gives us a lot of hope and a lot of good energy to really see this through and make sure that it's spectacular."
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