Carl Tinder Sr., owner of Tinder Cattle & Vineyard, a vineyard consulting business and agricultural cooperative in Scottsville, was awarded the Virginia Vineyards Association’s “Grower of the Year” award at its annual meeting in Charlottesville.
The award was presented by Ms. Bettina Ring, Virginia’s Secretary of Agriculture.
Mr. Tinder is a 1995 graduate of Virginia Tech with a degree in animal science. He first planted a couple of acres of wine grapes at his farm in 2004, then with Chris Hill, planted the current vineyard for Adventure Farm/Chisolm Vineyards adjacent to CHO, the Charlottesville/Albemarle regional airport in Earlysville.
“I started this consulting business because I found that with viticulture in Virginia, there wasn’t the infrastructure that was in place for other forms of agriculture and farming. I wanted to help other growers get things right and be successful.”
Ms. Ring noted that since Mr. Tinder took his consulting business full-time in 2014, “he has delivered more than 400 tons” of wine grapes to area wineries.”
As a measure of its success and scale, Tinder Cattle & Vineyard now employs 36 persons.
The Virginia Vineyards Association represents over 500 people who manage commercial vineyards in the Commonwealth.