Industry Night: The Family Betting Big On Maryland Wine

Drew Baker, Lisa Hinton, and Ashli Johnson turned a rocky hillside in Clarksburg into Burnt Hill, the most talked about winery in Maryland wine, and this DC food podcast conversation tells the whole story. An old farmer warned Drew the land only grew rocks. He bought it anyway. Then came a leukemia diagnosis, a 5 percent survival chance, and two sisters who became his bone marrow donors.
Nycci Nellis sits down with the sibling founders of Old Westminster Winery and Burnt Hill for a chef interview podcast conversation about family, farming, and what it takes to build a world class wine destination an hour from Washington DC. Drew Baker farms the land, Lisa Hinton makes the wine, and Ashli Johnson runs the brand, and together they have gone from a kitchen table decision during the recession to a regenerative farm with Leicester Longwool sheep, Mangalitsa pigs, eleven beehives, and wines fermented in barrels made from their own ash trees. They talk about the frost that created what Drew calls the lost vintage, the Chefs Counter partnership with Chef Tae Strain, the Temperance non alcoholic program, and the moment Drew learned he had acute myeloid leukemia while building it all. Then, live from RPM Italian in Washington DC, Nycci pulls up to a caviar station with Executive Chef Massimo Vicidomini and RPM Events and Catering managers Luis Zelaya and Arrica Ashe to talk Amalfi Coast dinners, private dining, and how one of the busiest hospitality industry rooms in the DC dining scene executes events for 8 to 300 guests.
What You Will Learn
Why rocky, depleted soil was exactly what Drew Baker wanted for the Burnt Hill vineyard.
How the family produces 18 different wines from only 1,000 cases using single barrel selections.
What regenerative polyculture farming looks like with sheep, pigs, bees, and log grown shiitake mushrooms.
How Drew survived a 5 percent prognosis with his sisters Ashli and Lisa as his bone marrow donors.
How RPM Italian DC builds custom private events, from Kaluga caviar stations to full off premise kitchens.
Listen to the full episode here, or watch it here.