Peter and Pat Lenz closed a successful restaurant in 1978 to plant Merlot and Gewürztraminer on 30 acres in Peconic, a mile from the Hargraves' pioneering vineyard, becoming one of the North Fork's first wine estates. They raised "his and hers" tractors and a goat named Julia Child while waiting years for their first harvest. In 1988, Manhattan-based Peter and Deborah Carroll bought the property and, rather than push for quick profitability, gave vineyard manager Sam McCullough and incoming winemaker Eric Fry — who joined in 1989 and stayed three decades — the freedom to lower yields and age wines longer than the market might have dictated. That patience built Lenz's reputation for Burgundy-style Chardonnay and an "Old Vines" series drawing on some of the North Fork's oldest plantings. Fry has since moved to a consulting role, succeeded by longtime assistant winemaker Thomas Spotteck, continuing a technical team that has worked together with unusual continuity for a region still young enough to count its wineries in the dozens.