An abundance of grapes led a ranch family to a new venture—crafting artisan vinegar.
A bumper crop of grapes led a ranch family into a thriving vinegar business.
Tiny Cody, Nebraska, in the secluded Sandhills region in the north-central part of the state, is home to a few surprises. The area is better known for its undulating hills, cattle ranches, grassland prairies and migrating cranes. But spend a little time in Cody, and you’ll learn that the high school students manage the local grocery store as an entrepreneurship class (the town is full of entrepreneurs). The local print shop still uses a century-old letterpress. And the family-owned vinegary (a place where vinegar is made) has captured the attention of food editors and chefs across the nation, as well as that of highend hair-care company dpHUE, which uses the local apple cider vinegar in its ACV Hair Rinse.
The print shop and vinegary are linked by their relationship to Emily Johnson, who along with her dad, George, and the rest of her family has been crafting gourmet vinegar under the label George Paul Vinegar to rave reviews for more than a decade.
Entrepreneurial Spirit
It began as a father-daughter hobby of making wine from homegrown grapes but changed when a friend suggested they try vinegar because their wines were so fruity. A bumper crop of grapes on the family ranch led George and Emily to ask, “Why not?” Now here they are. Emily has a degree in physics that she says was extremely helpful in learning the chemistry involved in crafting traditional vinegar.
Emily’s parents, George and Karen, built a modern, energyefficient straw-bale building in 2007 to house the vinegary next to their home. “Dad likes to say that this is all just ‘a hobby that
got out of hand,’” Emily says. “That said, he has always been an avid naturalist, as well as an entrepreneurial dreamer.” In fact, all of the family members are entrepreneurs: Emily’s brother Eric runs a renewable energy development company, her brother Adam manages the family ranch in nearby South Dakota, and Emily operates her letterpress business in a studio across the street from her parents’ home and the vinegary. She prints many of the George Paul Vinegar labels there.
Part Science, Part Art
Crafting vinegars using traditional methods requires having the spirit of a dreamer, as the process is still a bit mysterious. In fact, the Emilia balsamic—the company’s most sought-after product and the one named after Emily—happened almost by accident. “The science of making balsamic is veiled in folklore and superstition,” Emily
says. “Dad had been attempting small trials, but at a certain point each batch would develop a particularly off-putting smell and he would throw it out as a failure.” Luckily, one batch was lost in the process, set aside and forgotten for months. Emily found it one day and was about to dump it when she gave it a sniff. “It smelled amazing, so I decided to test it and found it had a good level of acetic acid. I gave it a taste and let out a scream. Dad heard me from the other room and came running. It was exactly what we were trying to achieve. It turns out we’d been making it right all along; we just needed to be a bit more patient.”
Patience is a good virtue with a product that can take years to complete—five in the case of the Emilia. But it is this process—part science, part art—that keeps Emily and George engaged.
“I really appreciate the process,” Emily says. “It’s so rewarding. The printing work, for instance, is about the process. You do everything by hand, and you can see the hand process in the final product”—just as you can taste the complexity of the traditional process in the gourmet vinegars.
Managing Growth
While the family now uses grapes from a nearby vineyard and apples from an heirloom tree farm, the business is still homegrown with George as the main producer, Emily as taster and pinch hitter for daily production as needed, and
Karen in charge of social media.
Growing interest in the vinegars, particularly with the dpHUE collaboration, however, has led the family to ponder the next steps.“We’re at a tipping point,” Emily says. “We either step back and admit it’s a hobby or grow things even more.” George has started training an assistant to help him with the daily operations in the vinegary, and Emily says her father has been enjoying the mentoring process, as it has reinvigorated his work.
Whatever direction the family decides to take, the passion and commitment to the traditional style of producing the artisan vinegars will remain. There is a lot more yet to discover.