In coal country, vineyard grows on strip-mined land

Virginia's coalfields are not known for fine wines.
WISE, Va. (AP) -- David Lawson's vineyard begins at a small fishing pond and rises a gentle slope to a prairie of clover and buttercup in the blue-green mountains that roll through this part of western Virginia.
It's a paradise that could inspire good wine, even though the beauty in some places is only a few inches deep.
This is coal country, after all. A decade ago the vineyard was part of a strip mine where men drilled holes into the earth and planted explosives that made nearby homes rattle and quake.
"This is never going to be like Napa Valley where every vine is perfect," the 25-year-old Lawson says. "Some of these vines are sitting right on top of a rock and won't grow anything."
But with care, Lawson says, grapes seem to like it here. The three acres of former strip mine that overlap his vineyard are now alive with leafy rows of golden traminette, deep-red chancellor grapes and varieties of chardonnay, Riesling and concord.
It's an odd sight in the Virginia coalfields, a region not known for fine wine. Most of Virginia's 250 vineyards are in the northern and central part of the state. And mining officials say Lawson is the only farmer in Virginia to build a commercial vineyard on a former coal mine.
For Reilly, Lawson's vineyard is rare proof that people can still live off the land, even after its insides have been ripped out.
"Once they strip the land, all the trees are gone," Reilly says. "All the good dirt that's around the trees is gone. There's really no top soil anymore."
What's happened
Coal mines carved up more than 141,000 acres in Virginia between 1966 and 2002, according to the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy.
Much of that has since been reseeded and returned to forest as part of a 1981 state law ordering coal companies to leave land in at least as good condition as before.
Farmers have tried to grow crops on a small percentage of the "reclaimed" land, though the soil the miners left behind is mostly gray and lifeless and packed down from the heavy machinery.
It's usually too rocky to plow and too harsh for a traditional field of tomatoes or corn.
"You need crops that can grow without any plowing," said Jon Rockett, a Virginia extension agent who specializes in regrowing strip mine land. "Strawberries, blueberries ... nectarines, apples."
While there isn't much of a wine tradition here, Lawson says vineyards should do well with the relatively cool temperatures and low humidity throughout the year.
The mine also gives Lawson some advantages, he says, providing an unusual mineral content in the soil that gives his grapes an especially intense flavor.
Bob Carlson, the owner of a winery 50 miles away in Abingdon, agrees. He bought some of Lawson's traminette two years ago. "It was a very nice wine," he says.
Background
Lawson, a ruddy-faced farmer who wears a straw hat over his straw hair, has wanted to grow grapes since he was a teenager. He started six years ago, borrowing money from his parents to build a six-acre vineyard on land his family has owned since the 1800s.
The coal company, which has mineral rights to part of the land, left it hard-packed with an acidic soil full of crushed bedrock.
After six years planting and tending his vines, Lawson said the ground still has no real layer of topsoil and his grapes are in regular need of compost.
Still, Lawson managed to sell his Riesling and traminette to a few small wineries in 2001 and 2002. And he has bottled some of his private wine for years.
This year, Lawson expects to harvest about six tons of grapes.
"I'll probably be out of debt when I have three more good harvests," he says.