For ex-Pa. winery owner, enough was enough when it came to issues with alcohol
Brad Knapp made the wine and managed the business at Pinnacle Ridge Winery in Pennsylvania's Berks County for 25 years.
Brad Knapp had this goal of wanting to open a winery, a “classic case of an amateur with dreams,” he told the Reading Eagle in a story that was published in January 2021.
After buying the property in Berks County, along Route 78, in 1990, he secured a limited winery license three years later.
“The property in Kutztown was affordable, served as a home, had some land for a vineyard, had buildings that could be converted into a winery and also had good road access for visitors,” he told the Eagle.
By the summer of 1995, Pinnacle Ridge Winery opened, and for the next 25 years he put the place on the map, both with the consistency of his wines and a scenic destination that for much of that time was a member of the Lehigh Valley and Berks County wine trails.
In 2021, he sold the brand to Carl Helrich, who owned and managed Allegro and Cadenza wineries, and the property to the owners of the Referend Bier Blendery, who would soon relocate their operation from New Jersey. He would move to Costa Rica, and outside of the friends in the U.S. that he stayed in touch with, disappear from the public eye.
One of the things he didn’t leave behind, however, was his issues with alcohol, which came to light in a couple of Facebook posts over the past two years, beginning with this lengthy one on June 4, 2024, atop a graphic that read, “It’s never too late to quit drinking alcohol.” On March 23, 2026, he posted again, this time with a much shorter message: “Six months without alcohol. Thanks family, friends, and AA.”
In a phone interview on Monday that touched on aspects of alcoholism and his decision to get sober, he was asked whether his drinking got worse once he left the business.
“I was probably an alcoholic before that. Certainly, I drank for years and years heavily, but the workload was such, and the importance of the work in my livelihood was important, so I managed both,” he said. “I drank a bunch, but I also managed to keep the winery running. Could I have run it better if I’d been sober? Probably. Did I keep it running? Yes, I did. Was it successful? Yes, it was. So, you know, I was a functioning alcoholic. But once I stopped work, then I had more time on my hands, and that was not good. I didn’t have to get up and get ready for bottling. I didn’t have to manage a bunch of employees. I didn’t have all the work to do, so I drank more.”
Knapp covered some of the history of his drinking in his first post, writing about raiding his “parents booze cabinet” and drinking through college. “I drank most days and often in excess,” he wrote. Later, he would learn how to make beer and wine, and that would eventually lead to the opening of Pinnacle Ridge. He wrote, “It is difficult to not drink when surrounded by thousands of gallons of wine every day. I drank daily.” That continued, even after moving to Costa Rica, and he wrote a bit about the issues, including health problems, that being inebriated caused.
“Making it public here on Facebook,” he wrote, “might give the process a bit more backbone.” Four days later, he posted again, noting the number of responses he has received from “grade school friends, high school friends, college friends, grad school friends, industrial friends, past winery employees, family members, customers.”
It was a process that took some time, he admitted, noting that after that post he “quickly failed. I tried to stop, and I failed. I went some amount of time, it was literally weeks, and then something happened … and I drank [again], because I would drink in response to stress or problems. And the reason I went public with that is I thought making it public would make it harder for me to go back and drink. I thought it would be a deterrent and would help me with my program, which at that point was my program, and nobody else was involved. And that failed.”
At least publicly, there was nothing else until that short post this past March 23, and a followup two days later, once again thanking those who reacted to his note about being sober for half of a year.
“That was the first one where I felt compelled to address my former post [from 2024],” he explained, “and say, hey, I found a way, this is the way. To me, AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] is a solution to this problem. It works. There’s plenty of people who have gone through it.
“I bought in, made a commitment, and I dried out,” he said. “A lot of people just go down this rat hole, and I went down far enough. Everybody’s bottom is different. Different people have different places, they end up in a situation, and they say that’s bottom.”
As of this week, he will have been sober for nine months.
While the reaction he received was gratifying, and he included his contact information in that March 25 post for anyone who has questions or thoughts about their situation, he said he was disappointed that he didn’t hear from more of those immersed in the industry that he used to work in.
“I know there’s a bunch of people in the wine industry — friends, acquaintances, you know, that have problems,” he said. “I mean, it’s really, you know, it’s difficult. You’re surrounded by alcohol. If you have any propensity toward addiction, or, you know, it’s, it’s there, right? It’s easy, easy to do. People in the restaurant business, people in the production business, you know, whatever. People surrounded by alcohol are prone to this problem. I know it’s a problem, but nobody talks about it. And I was kind of thinking that maybe some people would get back to me, maybe ask questions. I have one person that I’ve had some discussions with, but I really didn’t get much response that way, from the industry folks, that I hoped I might.
“I think the industry has a bunch of problems and no one is doing anything to help it,” he added. “There should be some awareness. Nobody talks about it, right? Nobody talks about alcoholism being a problem within the industry. I know it is. It’s obvious.”
While acknowledging that the adult beverage industry currently has a number of challenges and problems, he said that “this one is always the problem in good times and bad. It affects individuals. The industry should be offering some pathway to information or awareness, if nothing else.”
As the conversation was wrapping up, Knapp was asked how much he missed operating a winery. Pausing for a few seconds to collect his thoughts, his answer took a bit of a circuitous route.
“The thing that I miss the most is a nice glass of sparkling wine with some good food. I miss that. It’s weird. I can see other people around me drinking. It really doesn’t bother me that much. But if I’m in a restaurant and having my meal and I see a couple sit down next to me and they’re ordering, and the guy comes out and pops a bottle of something nice, then I go, ah shi-, I wish I could have a glass of wine.” He laughed, then continued, “That’s the worst part. I don’t miss the work, I miss some of the people, the relationships and the camaraderie, both in the industry and with customers, but I don’t miss the work. It was hard work. I’m glad to be done with that.”
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