Vine vandals strike local winery

There’s a strange mystery afoot in Dahlonega.
And Tyler Barnes is ready for it to be over.
“I just want it to stop more than anything,” he said.
That’s because according to Barnes, it seems someone is vandalizing his vines, over at Accent Cellars.
“It’s a very strange story that technically started last year, back in June,” he said. “...I noticed whenever I was driving home one day, I glanced over my shoulder and looked back at the vineyard and noticed a couple of dead vines on the backside closest to the creek and thought, ‘that’s weird.’”
What he found was four vines in his Auraria Road vineyard which seemed to be sawed in half.
“So we filed a police report and obviously they were like ‘there’s not really anything we can do about it,’ and I get it,” Barnes said.
And from there it seemed the ordeal was over as no more damage was done. That is until just a few weeks ago.
“I see there are a lot more dead ones,” Barnes said. “… I counted 12 to 13 dead ones.”
Frustrated and confused, Barnes considered once again filing a report with the Lumpkin County Sheriff’s Office. The next day, that decision was made sure, as he found eight more vines had been cut.
“Last year they just cut it and left it,” Barnes said. “This time it was weird. They cut it really low at the base of the trunk, then up along the top of the trunk and then took the trunk out. Very strange. I don’t know why they bothered to do that.”
While a first thought could be that the vandal was trying to graft the vines to grow their own grapes, Barnes believes that’s not the case.
“If somebody wanted to graft vines, you don’t graft from the trunk,” he said. “You graft shoots, so it’s definitely nothing to do with that. The whole thing doesn’t make any sense.”

VINE CRIME

Knowing it was doubtful for anything to come of it, Barnes went ahead with the second LCSO report as now his vineyard was significantly affected.
“It was pretty much the same thing,” he said. “He iterated a number of times that there’s not really much they can do without a picture of the guy...That’s fine. I don’t expect Lumpkin County PD to invest in a stakeout operation over some cut vines...But it was starting to get pretty destructive because that’s about 20 percent of our vineyard...They’ve killed a significant chunk of the vineyard now.”
Lt. Alan Roach of the LCSO says the severity of the crime would be determined by the value of the damage.
“It depends on the value of the crop that’s damaged,” Roach said. “It could be criminal trespass if it’s under $500 worth of damage. If it’s over $500 worth of damage it could be criminal damage to property...For them, not only is it the crop that’s damaged, but it’s the lost potential of any vines.”
Barnes estimates that to be well over the $500 threshold.
“The theoretical value of all of those, because it’s about how much fruit they can produce over a given timespan, is about $6,000, so it’s not a small sum of damage that’s being done whenever you consider what a vine can do over several years,” he said.
Roach agreed that the case is a strange one.
“This is not something that I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I’ve been here 27 years and whenever I’ve seen someone doing damage to a crop, it’s usually a juvenile...not necessarily somebody under the age of 18, but it’s somebody young in their criminal mindset.”

‘PETTY’ THEFT

Barnes feels it could be someone with strong feelings about the alcohol industry.
“I don’t really know who could have done this,” he said. “I do not think it was anyone from any of the other wineries, because why would they waste their time, it just doesn’t make any sense, best I figure, it’s someone who doesn’t really care for the alcohol business being in this town and is trying to punish us in some silly way and I think it’s incredibly petty and ridiculous as if this would do anything to impede the alcohol tourism industry in our town.”
While the damage to the property is frustrating to the owner, Barnes explained that it’s not really going to hurt the overall business at Accent Cellars, as most of their fruit is brought in from other states.
“Basically our entire business model centers around buying our fruit,” he said. “...Pretty much everyone is sourcing some amount of outside fruit. There’s just not enough planted vineyard to meet demand...We’re primarily a winery, not a farm because we don’t have a lot of land.”
Barnes added that the destruction could only hinder production of their own harvest, as the vines could still pull through, although that doesn’t take away from the frustration.
“Fundamentally, it just boils down to raw frustration with the destruction,” he said. “It’s like if someone breaks into your house, you feel violated. Someone is destroying our property.”
As for finding the culprit, Roach says it could be a tough task.
“It’s kind of a head-scratcher type crime,” he said. “Without having suspects to go after, unless we start getting some tips or leads, it may be a hard crime to follow up on.”
Roach added that anyone that does have any tips can call Captain Marcus Sewell at 706-864-0414.
Above all, Barnes is hoping for the destruction to stop.
“Maybe the person realizes just how much that damage costs,” he said. “That’s a felony and I will prosecute if I find out who it is...I suppose if someone came to me privately and apologized, I could let bygones be bygones and I wouldn’t press charges and it would be squashed. But I don’t see that really happening.”
Until then, Barnes takes solace in the support he’s received from the community, as many have reached out with their condolences over the issue.
“Honestly that’s kind of been the silver-lining to this,” he said. “It’s another reminder of the community that we have in this town, it’s pretty touching actually.”