Things were off to a sleepy start just after sunrise on a recent Friday morning in Clarksburg. A tractor needed a jump. Swarms of spotted lanternflies dotted branches. Five men readied empty yellow crates at the top of Burnt Hill Farm for harvest.

Drew Baker stood there with a Mason jar of iced coffee. He looked out onto the dozens of rows of grapevines and his home at the bottom of the hill as his kids were getting in the car for school. And he smiled.

The harvest was running a few minutes behind schedule. But after years of planting, farming and raising his family on this land, he knew how to be patient with what unfolded here. He understood how valuable it was to take a breath and enjoy the time because not too long ago it wasn’t a given that Baker, 38, would get to see the fruits of his labor.

Baker was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2022. He has had ups and downs, including a relapse in 2023 when doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital gave him a 5% chance of survival, he said. He estimates that he has spent more than 450 days at Hopkins for treatment.

“I look back and it’s just like awful and I stumbled through with existential dread,” Baker said. “But, in reality and in hindsight, I look back and it’s just, ‘Wow, that could not have gone better.’ There were so many elements that were this close to death.”

Burnt Hill Farm was one of the most anticipated projects in the region’s food and drink landscape when it opened in August. Food & Wine named it one of 12 “stunning” vineyards to visit this fall. At the moment, it’s open Saturdays and Sundays by reservation, but they’re booked through early December. Guests get a short tour of the property, and taste three red wines from grapes grown on-site and seasonal small bites for $85 per person.

Baker and his siblings, Lisa Hinton and Ashli Johnson, own and operate Burnt Hill as a sister operation to Old Westminster Winery in their native Westminster, which they started on their family’s farm in 2010. His family bought the Montgomery County property in December 2016.

Beyond the teamwork needed to operate the businesses, Baker says that he wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for his sisters. Both donated stem cells in the fall of 2023 for his treatment.

“I think his battle changed our perspectives entirely on how we look at what we’re doing together and how much just joy it brings us to be doing what we’re doing every day as a family,” Johnson said. “I would say it’s the joy of my life to be on this ride with him.”

The siblings say they needed each other to realize this grander project.

“It’s pretty overwhelming to stand up on the hilltop of Burnt Hill and overlook Sugarloaf Mountain, a view that we have called paradise for over a decade now,” Hinton said. “I have such a sense of gratitude when I stand up there and get to share it.”

Step onto the 117-acre property and you’ll see an apiary with six beehives; areas for Mangalica pigs and Leicester Longwool sheep; and an under-construction building that will host an eight-to-10 seat tasting menu restaurant that will open at a later date, as well as a grain mill.

“Drew has a way of looking into the future and seeing something that he wants to bring to life. And a lot of times, Lisa and I are kind of holding on,” Johnson said with a chuckle.

The goal, Baker says, is to try to serve as many ingredients grown on the land as possible. They partnered with chef Tae Strain to generate ideas and create a menu of local ingredients.

As the summer wound down, that meant snacks of Virginia salted peanuts and chilled sweet corn soup infused with curry oil. But the centerpiece is the bread service. Strain and his staff are serving a turkey red sourdough that comes with two spreads: roasted heirloom tomato and a sesame brown butter topped with honey from the apiary and gochugaru, a nod to Strain’s Korean heritage.

Strain started in May after three years at a pop-up supper club. He was raised and lives in Howard County and has worked in acclaimed restaurants, including Demi in Baltimore and Momofuku CCDC in Washington.

At the morning harvest, Baker’s eyes lit up when talking about the potential to raise and grow more to fuel the kitchen and wine production. He and his team were about 90 minutes into harvesting a dozen rows of Regent grapes. Baker grabbed his pair of shears to snip some to make sure they were ripe.

Baker was calling it a day, partly because he was still recovering from a nagging cough caused by pneumonia. His family was throwing him a belated birthday party at Burnt Hill the following day. He steered his rough-terrain vehicle down the hill toward his home.

“I just feel an immense sense of pride and gratitude — proud of what we’ve created together but also gratitude to be alive,” Baker said. “I could not achieve any of this individually. It’s definitely, like most things, a team sport.”