Varga Family Farm

by Nicole Zappone @TheChronicleCT

As maple season is coming to a close, local farmers are tapping into trees to gather as much maple syrup as they can. While Mother Nature wasn’t quite nice by dumping several inches of snow this year, farmer Chris Varga of Varga Family Farm said the weather played a big part in a great maple season. Varga and his wife bought the property in 2019 and built the barn during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We started doing maple syrup in our backyard, just tapping some trees along the driveway,” Varga said. “About nine years ago, we were approached by one of our family friends about leasing a commercial setup that was George Bailey’s.”

Chris Varga of Varga Family Farm stands in front of his sugar house on Bujak Road in Chaplin.

Bailey was featured as one of the Taste of Mansfield Champion Award winners back in 2023 and was well-known as a Mansfield-based maple syrup and honey producer. He co-founded the Storrs Farmers Market in 1994. He passed away in 2024. “He was a third-generation sugar maple; his grandpa did it, then his father did it, and he did it,” Varga said. “He was over on Crane Hill Road and he had an awesome setup. He was a civil engineer by trade for work, so he had everything dialed in. It was super cool.”

Varga said they went there and leased his sugar house for about five years, and when Bailey’s wife passed away, he could no longer do it. “We bought all the equipment from him and passed his knowledge down to our own sugar house,” Varga said. “We bought the truck and all his maple sugar equipment and set up our own lines down the road on a farm down the road. He was like a mentor to us.” Varga said many people have dabbled in maple syrup, but learning it from Bailey was different.

“We started on a wood stove and it was super cool to go to a commercial place that was set up and have him there to mentor us and coach us,” Varga said. “It was a super heartfelt thing, because his wife had passed away, so he had given up on it. It was something that him and his wife always did together. On Valentine’s Day, they would go and tap the trees together as that was their date.” Bailey and his wife were high school sweethearts.

“He was super cool, and the first time we boiled at his place, he was smiling ear to ear,” Varga said. “He started to cry and said he thought this part of his life was gone. He told me we made an old man happy.” At the end, Varga was able to purchase the equipment and carry on the legacy. Inside the maple house, Varga has a tribute to Bailey, featuring articles on milestones in his maple business.

In addition to making commercial maple syrup, Varga and his family grow a variety of veggies, hay, cows and beef, pigs and pork, chickens and eggs. The farm has both milk and beef cows. “We grew a lot of vegetables and never really did it (maple syrup) commercially,” Varga said. “So we were getting ready to do the farmers market for the vegetables and that is where we met George.”

When Bailey couldn’t serve as the Market Master at the farmers’ market, Varga said it left a void, since nobody else was selling maple syrup there. “It was kind of cool because we went in with a heavy hitter behind us,” Varga said. “George would then come to the market and visit us. Trying to carry out his legacy a bit here. The maple syrup is our main thing now, and honey, we have bees. He was able to mentor us in that, too.”

For the past couple of years, Varga said the maple season hasn’t been very good due to warmer temperatures, but this year, with the snow and colder temperatures, production has been better. “When you have a freeze and when it’s really, really cold, the sap is starting to push up as the days get longer,” Varga said. “We usually tap on Valentine’s Day, and when it hits that frozen tree, the sap starts to concentrate, so the sugars are sitting there and getting concentrated until the tree starts to thaw and pushes up.”

During maple season, Varga said, the concentration is typically 1.2 to 1.8, and some trees get up to 2. Typically, they have seen the sugar content average 1.8. This year has been between 1.9 and 2. “As the season progresses, it starts to go down,” Varga said. “When you start, you are at a higher sugar content and you’re making your lightest syrup. You start off as a golden, and then it goes to an amber. Most people like dark syrup.”

For more information about the Varga Family Farm, call 860-487-9127.