Rob Deford

Rob Deford

President
Bordy Vineyards

Rob Deford is the President of Baltimore County’s Bordy Vineyards, an award-winning, the nearly 80-year-old winery – the oldest winery in Maryland — that he manages with his wife Julie and son Phineas.

Deford studied viticulture and enology at the University of California. During his tenure at Brody Vineyards, he has renovated historic buildings and dedicated them to new uses, expanded the vineyard and opened the operation to the public.

Most importantly, the wines have “steadily gained renown,” according to the vineyards’ website, bordy.com.

“Our goal as winemakers is to give expression to our beautiful fruit by producing wines of originality and personality. We employ techniques such as hand sorting of grapes, precise temperature control of each fermentation, gentle gravity transfer of red fruit, extraction of color and flavor through skin contact management, extended French oak barrel aging on the yeast sediments and many other steps critical to the transformation of grape juice into fine wine.”

Two years ago, the Eastern Winery Expo honored Deford and Bordy Vineyards with its Lifetime Achievement Award, citing “ongoing land stewardship and exemplary operation of a family winery on the East Coast.”

“It is a great honor, and frankly a surprise to receive this recognition from the Eastern Winery Exposition,” Deford said at the time. “Being part of the eastern wine industry for the past 40 years has been reward enough.”

The winery’s 240-acre farm dates to 1725, and Deford is planning major improvements to the historic buildings on the property.

“It’s a big investment, but that’s all part of it,” Deford told pennlive.com, an online news service.