Pilgrimage Wine Company at Treaty Line Vineyards is an authentically old-world style wine grower in Cambridge City, Indiana, founded and operated by Scott and Emma Eckart. The couple — described on their own website as “musicians, pilots, academics, and storytellers” — are not your typical winemakers. Raised as military brats and forged into Navy pilots, their lives took them around the world before passion for the vine drew them back to a very personal piece of ground in Wayne County.

Where the Frontier Ran

The ground itself is part of the story. The vineyard sits on Scott and Emma Eckart’s grandfather’s farm — land that carries centuries of history in its soil. Arrowheads and Indiana mounds have been found here, remnants of ancient Native American territories long before European settlement. The farm unfolds along the Whitewater River, flanked by a certified forest, a wildflower plantation to the north, and Amish neighbors with whom the Eckarts proudly partner as vinedressers. It’s a place that feels, in every sense, rooted.

That rootedness runs deeper than the landscape. Scott points out that Indiana is home to the first successful winery in the United States, established in the early 1800s — a legacy, he says, they feel an obligation to honor.

And then there’s the Treaty Line.

The Greenville Treaty Line physically crosses Wayne County, cutting through the Cambridge City area where US 40 (the National Road) meets present-day Salisbury Road. The Daughters of the American Revolution marked the spot in 1924 with a commemorative stone that still stands today — somewhat improbably, in front of a McDonald’s. That line once marked the western edge of the United States itself.

In 1809, the Twelve Mile Purchase pushed that boundary another 12 miles to the west. Its far edge — the new western frontier of American expansion — was surveyed, established, and eventually named. That line exists today as Treaty Line Road south of Hagerstown.

The very road on which Pilgrimage Wine Company sits.

What Sets Them Apart

What makes Pilgrimage distinctive in Indiana’s wine scene is an uncompromising estate-grown, old-world philosophy: they grow every grape themselves. Under the guidance of viticulture consultant Fritz Westover of the Virtual Viticulture Academy, they cultivate 8.5 acres of cold-hardy hybrid varieties — including Vignoles, Traminette, Marquette, Chambourcin, Aravelle, and Chelois — in well-drained silty-loam soils using techniques like vertical shoot positioning and cane pruning.

The winery is veteran-family owned and operated, and the tasting room is styled as a European-inspired retreat — a peaceful, intentional escape nestled in a Midwestern landscape of Amish farmsteads and river bottomland. Scott’s annotated books, the music, the grandfather’s farm beneath their feet — none of it is decoration. It’s the actual DNA of this place.