Tiny Winery Makes Money from Back Yard Pest : Agriculture: Maryland firm is one of the few in the country that bottles dandelion wine.

For many people, dandelions are nothing more than seasonal pests that blemish lawns and cost money to control.

Not so for the Aellens. They look at the bright yellow weeds and see a slightly sweet, nostalgic wine suitable for cooking with or just sipping on a warm summer’s night.

And they see some modest profits.

“This is an old-timers’ kind of wine. I don’t know why people buy it, whether they really like it, or if it’s a novelty,” said Anthony Aellen, winemaster of Linganore Winecellars at Berrywine Plantations, one of just a few U.S. wineries that produces dandelion wine.

“I refer to it as weed wine,” Aelllen said. “As long as you can get people to forget about the thing that grows in their yard, they’re fine.”

To get the thousands of dandelion blossoms needed to make their target 2,500 bottles, the Aellens last month placed a tiny newspaper ad that said, “Wanted: Dandelion flowers $1 a pound.”

Dozens of enthusiastic dandelion pickers responded.

Many worked hours plucking the tops off the troublesome weeds growing in lawns, along roads and in meadows. The milky juice from the stems made their hands sticky; the flowers stained their fingers yellow.

A pound of blossoms almost fills a gallon pickle jar. A grocery sack can hold 12 to 12 1/2 pounds. Several people brought 30 pounds of dandelion flowers. One man worked several days to harvest about 75 pounds and earn $75.

Anthony Aellen’s parents, Lucille and Jack Aellen, founded Berrywine Plantations in 1971, shortly after moving from Bethlehem, Pa., with their six children.

They started growing grapes in 1972 on the 230-acre former dairy farm in southeast Frederick County. Today, the winery sells 50,000 bottles of wine made from grapes, berries, honey, tree fruit--and dandelions. Its gross annual sales are between $250,000 and $300,000.

Anthony Aellen said the idea of commercially producing dandelion wine didn’t catch on right away.

“We had always made it in the basement. We just never thought about bringing it up for commercial production,” he recalled. “My father got the idea. He said if people are asking for it, why don’t we produce 50 gallons of it. It was introduced as a joke.”

They produced 50 gallons of the pale yellow wine in 1978, then 500 gallons annually for the next 10 years. This is the first year the family has made it since 1988. Expansion work at the winery during the past few years had left little time for dandelion wine.

“It’s a nostalgic wine. It’s a reminiscent wine, especially for those who had it when they were kids,” Mrs. Aellen said. “Their grandparents used to make it in their basement and they would send the kids down to get it and the kids would get a little schnockered on it.”

About 1,500 to 1,800 pounds of dandelions purchased during the past few weeks are now soaking in a sugary yeast solution in a 400-gallon stainless steel tank.

“The yeast will eat the sugar and transfer it into carbon dioxide and alcohol,” said Anthony Aellen, who studied fermentation at UC Davis. “In the process, it is pulling the flavor, aroma and color out of the flowers.”

Aellen later will squeeze the juice from the brownish yellow mass of flowers and pump it into another tank, where it will continue to ferment. “It looks like cloudy apple cider when it comes out,” he said.

After about two more months of fermentation, the wine is pumped through a filter and then put in a third stainless steel tank to age for eight to nine months. The dandelion wine being made now will not go on the market until early next year.

“It tastes just like the flower smells,” Mrs. Aellen said. “It’s slightly sweet like our peach wine. I like to use it in mincemeat pie, instead of brandy. You can put it in your stuffing in your turkey.”

The wine has an 8% alcohol content, comparable to most table wines, and sells for around $5 a bottle.

Angel Nardone, director of the American Wine Society, a Rochester, N.Y.-based group of about 2,000 wine aficionados, said there were no statistics to show how many wineries produce dandelion wine.

“Some of our members probably make it at home, but that’s not commercially,” she said.

Mrs. Aellen said she knows of only two other places in the United States that make and market dandelion wine. One is in Kansas and the other is in Amana, Iowa.

“It’s been a favorite of home winemakers, but it’s very rare commercially,” agreed Ray Pompilio, associate editor of Vineyard and Winery Management, a 400-circulation trade magazine for winemakers.