John Skrip Jr., who founded and co-owned one of Pennsylvania’s largest producers of wine, died Monday of a massive heart attack.
He was 79.
John and wife Pat planted their first grapes outside Allentown, in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, in 1975 and would open Clover Hill Vineyards & Winery 10 years later. Since then, their children John III and Kari largely have taken over and together they have built a business that includes a spacious tasting room with plenty of patio space, several satellite locations, and according to the website six vineyards that are spread out over 80 acres. Production numbers, according to the website, are around 80,000 gallons.
The winery and tasting room will be closed Sunday and Monday for his funeral.
Per the Facebook post that Clover Hill put up Thursday morning: “The heart of the Skrip Family and Clover Hill Vineyards & Winery has stopped for a while to allow us to grieve. However, John Jr. has very deep roots full of love, life and hard work and we will all beat again.”
Originally, that land was going to be used to grow Christmas trees, but they never got planted, and John saw a story on growing grapes in an airline magazine that he picked up as he and his wife were flying to Florida. According to the account in “Pennsylvania Wineries,” John handed the article to his wife and told her that the grapes were what they should be planting. That’s the direction they wound up taking.
John and Jan Landis run Vynecrest Vineyards & Winery, close enough to walk out the door at Clover Hill and reach by walking. Both started growing grapes in the mid-1970s and John said Thursday he still remembers when they were invited to dinner at the Skrips, where they told them they were going to open a winery, at a time when only a handful of them were open across the state.
Vynecrest opened two years after that. Both wineries are located in Breinigsville.
“John did a good job growing grapes,” Landis said. “if you looked at what he planted he was one of the early pioneers for planting wine grapes in Pennsylvania.”
Eventually, Skrip would become president of the Pennsylvania Wine Association, and both Clover Hill and Vynecrest would be involved in the creation of the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail, which still exists today.
The winery this week just finished celebrating its 35th anniversary.
Here is a link to the obituary.
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The Link LonkAugust 21, 2020 at 01:38PM
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Clover Hill Winery founder, one of Pa.’s grape-growing pioneers, dead at 79 - pennlive.com
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