Natural Materials, Held Within Structure: Brett Volker & Field Supply
An Australian who came to New York for the music industry, Brett Volker now makes natural wine in the upper Hudson Valley — fermenting grapes from sustainable and organic New York farms with native yeasts and minimal intervention, while his own young vineyard matures on its first cautious rungs of wire.
Field Supply was born from the belief that winemaking is more than the production of a drink. "It is an agricultural act with cultural consequences — shaped by soil, weather, and human decisions," the project says. "When made naturally and guided thoughtfully, wine can capture and preserve the ephemeral nature of a season."
The name says it plainly: everything comes from the field. Brett Volker — Australian by birth, New Yorker by way of the music business — is nurturing a brand-new vineyard of his own in the Hudson Valley while his vines mature, working in the meantime with sustainable and organic New York farmers who grow grapes he believes in. It is agriculture first, then artistry: a young winemaker learning a new region vine by vine, vintage by vintage.
And it is deliberately not a winery in the traditional sense. "It's a practice," Volker says — "an evolving network of close collaborators who believe creativity is stronger when it stays close to the ground." Musicians, designers, writers and chefs are part of the ferment; listening events, small-edition objects and limited releases blur the line between culture and consumption.
The Place — Two Regions, One Instinct
Field Supply works with sustainably farmed vineyards in the Hudson Valley and the Finger Lakes — two of New York's most distinct wine geographies, read through one winemaking instinct. The Hudson brings rolling glacial hills and orchards; the Finger Lakes bring deep, cool, lake-moderated Riesling country and a brave cast of hybrid grapes.
The Finger Lakes
Carved by glaciers, moderated by deep cold lakes, the Finger Lakes ripen Riesling and a roster of North American hybrids with vibrant acidity and bright, electric fruit. It is here that Field Supply sources its Riesling and Frontenac Gris — from growers farming sustainably on the slopes above the water.
Swedish Hill & Friends
Key partner vineyards include Swedish Hill in the Finger Lakes, whose Frontenac Gris and Riesling anchor early releases. Volker chooses growers the way a producer chooses session musicians: for feel, for farming, and for what they bring out in the room.
The Home Vineyard
A newly planted vineyard in the upper Hudson Valley is maturing under Volker's own hand — the slow first chapter of an estate wine that may take years to reach the bottle. Until then, every release is an act of collaboration with other people's fields.
Grown, Not Made
The name Field Supply acknowledges that everything begins in the field — that a wine can only be as honest as the farming behind it. Sustainable and organic viticulture is the entry requirement, not the marketing angle.
Winemaking — Organized Chaos, Held Gently
The cellar method is a dialectic. "Where conventional wine thinking prioritizes control, we seek dialogue. Where others chase consistency, we chase connection," Volker says. "Each bottle is a collaboration between soil, season, and instinct — a form of organized chaos that resists simplification."
The practice, though, is rigorously simple. All wines ferment with native yeasts and minimal intervention; the only additives are small amounts of sulfur when necessary, and several cuvées carry none at all. Wines are unfined, unfiltered and vegan — left to settle, clarify and find their own shape in tank, barrel and bottle.
The goal is explicitly not scale. "Our goal isn't scale, but resonance. To make things that matter to those who care deeply. To stay small enough to listen, and curious enough to change." Small lots — some just 120 cases — sell through natural-wine shops and pour at festivals like RAW WINE, where Field Supply is part of the community directory.
The Wines — Soil, Season & Instinct
Releases are small, rotating and named with a wink at music and memory. Native yeasts, minimal sulfur, unfined and unfiltered throughout — each wine an edition, not a product line.
The Blessing of Saint-Maur
The Riesling — Finger Lakes, round and balanced100% Riesling from sustainably farmed Finger Lakes vines: tropical, balanced, low-intervention, fermented on native yeasts. The 2024 trades around $30 ex-tax — proof the region's Riesling pedigree survives radical honesty in the cellar.
Electric Recreation
The rosato — Frontenac Gris with orange-punch energy100% Frontenac Gris from Swedish Hill, given three weeks of partial skin contact and a year on lees in stainless: strawberry, zippy acidity, saline, "orange pineapple fruit punch vibes." Unfined, unfiltered, vegan, no added sulfur — 120 cases total.
Shook Ones
The sparkling — a pét-nat wink at Mobb DeepField Supply's sparkling release — named, like everything here, from the record collection. Hazy, alive and quietly wild: the sound of a season caught mid-ferment and sealed before it could settle down.
Limited Releases & Collaborations
The editions — objects, events and one-off cuvéesBeyond the core wines, Field Supply issues small editions with musicians, designers, writers and chefs — listening events, small-edition objects and limited releases that exist as much as cultural artifacts as drinks. When they're gone, they're gone.
Legacy — Creativity Rooted in Soil
The first legacy is the home vineyard. Every young vine Volker tends in the upper Hudson Valley is a down payment on an estate wine that does not yet exist — the patient argument that natural wine in New York should be grown where it is made, not only trucked in from elsewhere. When those vines mature, Field Supply becomes something rarer still: a true Hudson Valley natural estate.
The second is the collaboration model. In a wine world that loves the myth of the lone genius, Field Supply insists on the network: farmers, musicians, designers, chefs, drinkers — a practice rather than a brand. The wines carry no château, no lineage, no appellation romance; just a field, a season, and the people who helped it ferment.
The third is the sound. Volker came up through music, and Field Supply's releases — The Blessing of Saint-Maur, Electric Recreation, Shook Ones — read like a record crate, each bottle a track pressed from a particular season in New York soil. Long after the last case sells, that is what the label will have preserved: not a wine style, but a moment.