The Story of Hiddencroft Vineyards
By Terry Housel & Clyde Housel
About the Book
An intimate, behind-the-scenes portrait of building and sustaining a small Virginia farm winery from the ground up. The book blends personal memoir, local history, and the seasonal rhythms of vineyard life. It traces how land, family, and perseverance took root on a historic farm. They grew into a working vineyard and tasting room. Along the journey, readers see the candid challenges. They witness the triumphs and quiet moments that shape life among the vines. In this place, agriculture, craftsmanship, and storytelling are deeply entwined.
Why we Wrote Branches, Roots Seeds and Vines
We wrote Branches, Roots, Seeds, and Vines because we learned that the land we care for is not just property, but a living story shaped by years of human effort and choices. What started as ownership turned into a legacy of memories—recorded in fields, barns, orchards, and soil—and we felt it was our duty to listen, collect what is left, and share it with others.
This book also offers a behind-the-scenes view of a working vineyard and winery—not as a how-to manual, but as lived experience. It shows the rhythms, choices, setbacks, and small triumphs that shape each season, revealing how the present is continuously informed by what came before. The vineyard is not separate from the past; it is one of its latest expressions.
At its heart, this book is about stewardship and continuity. It records observation, work, inheritance, and care in one moment of a much longer story. If it succeeds, it will encourage readers to look more closely at the land they inhabit, ask who walked there before them, and consider what seeds of memory and responsibility they themselves might leave behind.
