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Our guest today is Laura Poland, who, together with her husband Gene and their family, are the operators of Goodwater Vineyard near Newport Tenneesse. Grape growing and wine-making is challenging no matter if you are doing it in France or California. However, Tennessee has it’s own special environmental and bureaucratic challenges. Goodwater is exemplary of the about 60 or so small vineyard and wine producing operations in Tennessee today. For the most part these are essentially small farms which are growing a highly specialized and technically difficult crop. They are then engaged in the fine art of transforming that crop into a wine beverage which is hopefully appealing to the tastes of consumers and then bringing that beverage directly to the consumer with few if any middlemen involved.