Buckingham Valley was one of the first wineries started under Pennsylvania’s Farm Winery Act, which allowed wineries to sell wine directly to the public if it was made from Pennsylvania grapes. Today Buckingham Valley is among the largest and most successful of Pennsylvania’s two hundred plus wineries.
The winery started as a pipe dream in a dorm room at the University of Pennsylvania back in the fifties. Jerry Forest and his good friend Wladimir Guerrero would play guitars, drink wine, and dream of doing one or the other for a living. They decided they’d have a better chance of success making wine. The two, with the help of family and many friends, planted five acres in 1966, and renewed their guitar playing and wine drinking as they planned to start a winery.
Since 1970 the vineyard and winery have been owned an operated by the Forest family, Kathy and Jerry Forest, and sons Jon, Kevin and Chris.
Wine production has grown from less than a thousand gallons in the early seventies to over 35,000 gallons a year, with fermenting and aging capacity of over 75,000 gallons. The original five acre site has, through several acquisitions, expanded to over forty acres.
Although the winery has grown dramatically, it has kept the laid back attitude set by it’s founders: no quotas, no budgets, almost no staff (just family and friends), no guided tours, no yoga in the vineyard, and no BS.