Published: Sunday, June 10, 2007
Local wineries offer different experiences
New local wineries offer
different experiences for
their customers.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
Money may not grow on trees but an increasing number of businesses are finding it on the vine.
At least four wineries have opened in Mahoning County in the past two years.
"People are starting to have a passion for wine," said Frank Sergi, owner of one them, L'uva Bella in Poland Township.
The Mahoning Valley may not have the same ring as Napa Valley, but here's how local winemakers are building businesses in an area not known for its grapes:
MASTROPIETRO WINERY
This quiet, country winery in Berlin Township welcomes between 200 and 400 people a night on the weekends when the weather is good.
"It's taken off a lot quicker than we expected," said Dan Mastropietro, who opened his winery in 2005.
Customers can enjoy a dinner with their wine if they choose. They can sit inside the newly built lounge or relax on the patio and listen to live music. Or they can wander down to the lake.
One thing they won't find on the 52-acre, Ellsworth Road property is any hustle and bustle. The winery sits far off the road with trees and cornfields bordering the land.
"The winery scene is so much different than the bar scene," Mastropietro said. "You can sit down, relax and not have to worry about anything."
The longtime amateur winemaker quit his job as an electrician after friends urged him to go into the wine business.
"I asked my wife, 'Do you want to be five years down the road and wonder if it would have worked?'" he said.
He and his wife, Marianne, started taking winemaking courses in 2001 and later drove around the countryside looking for a good spot for a winery. When they found it, they moved from Austintown to a home on the property and spent eight months turning the cornfield into a destination for wine lovers.
Mastropietro's production is up to 10,000 gallons a year. He makes more than 90 percent of his wine from grapes that he buys from California, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The remainder are from juices that he buys.
His place is about to become a full-fledged Mahoning County winery, as he expects to harvest his first grape crop this fall. He is tending three acres of grapes.
He'll use them to make a small part of his 12 varieties of wines, but the vines also help in other ways.
"When people drive onto the property, they see them. They smell them. It adds to the atmosphere," he said.
MYRDDIN WINERY
This winery offers a different experience than Mastropietro. Instead of wide-open spaces, Myrddin is set on a wooded hillside overlooking Lake Milton. Entering the winery involves walking down a path that winds through trees and wild flowers.
The small property on Scenic Avenue in Milton Township won't hold hundreds of people. About 20 chairs are set up under the trees outside. A tasting room holds another 20, though a new building going up will have double the seats.
Gayle Sperry, one of the owners who lives on the site, said the winery will not get any larger because it's part of a small neighborhood on the lake shore. The owners may consider opening a second location elsewhere, she said.
For now, however, small is good, said her partner and daughter-in-law, Evelyn Sperry.
"It's very intimate. Everyone who comes in here ends up talking to everyone else," she said.
The idea for the winery came from the third partner, Evelyn's husband, Kristofer Sperry, an Akron architect who specializes in building wineries all over the world.
After his homemade wines started winning awards, he suggested starting a winery and his mother offered her home because of its park-like setting. She used to be a nurse at Southside Medical Center in Youngstown.
The winery doesn't offer food service, other than cheese and crackers, but it does offer 13 varieties of wine, up from five when it opened in 2005. Kristopher Sperry is making 4,000 gallons of wine a year.
Wines are made from grapes grown along the East and West coasts, but the Sperrys also have started growing their own. They planted one acre of vines at a nearby farm in May and plan to plant another acre next year.
Evelyn Sperry said she's learned about tending vines from attending wine industry conferences with her husband for the past six years.
L'UVA BELLA
This winery on U.S. Route 224 in Poland Township springs out of a successful wholesale business that Sergi started six years ago.
A retired inspector for the Ohio Department of Transportation, Sergi decided the juice being sent to Ohio from California was not up to his standards. He had learned winemaking long ago from his father.
He worked with vineyards and a juice manufacturer to set up a new distribution channel for area stores. He brought in a half-truckload of juice his first year, but that increased to 36 truckloads this year.
Produce companies in this area and other states now are buying his juice, which they sell to their customers to make wine. The wholesale business took a big jump this year as he brought in juice from Chile, which has an opposite growing season from farms in the northern hemisphere.
While the Coitsville Township resident expands his wholesale business, he started a retail business last year. Bottles of wine made on the premises are sold to walk-in customers. The winery uses juice to make about 80 percent of its wines but crushes California grapes for the remainder.
The winery made 15,000 gallons of wine in the past year as it prepares for the opening of a sit-down lounge.
Construction on the lounge was started but then put on hold because of the demands of the wholesale business. The lounge is expected to be completed around the end of the year.
VINO NOVELLO
You won't find any vines at the county's newest winery. Vino Novello opened recently in the Creekside Plaza on Boardman-Canfield Road in Boardman.
The storefront location allows people to participate in the making of about 30 varieties of wine from kits. Customers can start the process themselves by taking about 15 minutes to mix the initial ingredients or have co-owner Morris Frazzini do it for them.
Either way, he will spend the next six to eight weeks tending the juice as it becomes wine.
When he's done, customers come in and bottle the wine. But first, they develop customized labels for the bottles.
Vino Novello is aiming its business at people who are planning parties and events and would like customized wine bottles for the occasion.
Morris is a physical therapist at Sharon (Pa.) Regional Hospital, while his wife, Sandy, is a nurse at Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren.
The Hubbard couple said they got the idea after seeing similar businesses in other areas. Frazzini started making wine with his brother four years ago.
"When you have your own business, it has to be something you enjoy," he said.
shilling@vindy.com
Sunday, June 10, 2007
New local wineries offer
different experiences for
their customers.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
Money may not grow on trees but an increasing number of businesses are finding it on the vine.
At least four wineries have opened in Mahoning County in the past two years.
"People are starting to have a passion for wine," said Frank Sergi, owner of one them, L'uva Bella in Poland Township.
The Mahoning Valley may not have the same ring as Napa Valley, but here's how local winemakers are building businesses in an area not known for its grapes:
MASTROPIETRO WINERY
This quiet, country winery in Berlin Township welcomes between 200 and 400 people a night on the weekends when the weather is good.
"It's taken off a lot quicker than we expected," said Dan Mastropietro, who opened his winery in 2005.
Customers can enjoy a dinner with their wine if they choose. They can sit inside the newly built lounge or relax on the patio and listen to live music. Or they can wander down to the lake.
One thing they won't find on the 52-acre, Ellsworth Road property is any hustle and bustle. The winery sits far off the road with trees and cornfields bordering the land.
"The winery scene is so much different than the bar scene," Mastropietro said. "You can sit down, relax and not have to worry about anything."
The longtime amateur winemaker quit his job as an electrician after friends urged him to go into the wine business.
"I asked my wife, 'Do you want to be five years down the road and wonder if it would have worked?'" he said.
He and his wife, Marianne, started taking winemaking courses in 2001 and later drove around the countryside looking for a good spot for a winery. When they found it, they moved from Austintown to a home on the property and spent eight months turning the cornfield into a destination for wine lovers.
Mastropietro's production is up to 10,000 gallons a year. He makes more than 90 percent of his wine from grapes that he buys from California, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The remainder are from juices that he buys.
His place is about to become a full-fledged Mahoning County winery, as he expects to harvest his first grape crop this fall. He is tending three acres of grapes.
He'll use them to make a small part of his 12 varieties of wines, but the vines also help in other ways.
"When people drive onto the property, they see them. They smell them. It adds to the atmosphere," he said.
MYRDDIN WINERY
This winery offers a different experience than Mastropietro. Instead of wide-open spaces, Myrddin is set on a wooded hillside overlooking Lake Milton. Entering the winery involves walking down a path that winds through trees and wild flowers.
The small property on Scenic Avenue in Milton Township won't hold hundreds of people. About 20 chairs are set up under the trees outside. A tasting room holds another 20, though a new building going up will have double the seats.
Gayle Sperry, one of the owners who lives on the site, said the winery will not get any larger because it's part of a small neighborhood on the lake shore. The owners may consider opening a second location elsewhere, she said.
For now, however, small is good, said her partner and daughter-in-law, Evelyn Sperry.
"It's very intimate. Everyone who comes in here ends up talking to everyone else," she said.
The idea for the winery came from the third partner, Evelyn's husband, Kristofer Sperry, an Akron architect who specializes in building wineries all over the world.
After his homemade wines started winning awards, he suggested starting a winery and his mother offered her home because of its park-like setting. She used to be a nurse at Southside Medical Center in Youngstown.
The winery doesn't offer food service, other than cheese and crackers, but it does offer 13 varieties of wine, up from five when it opened in 2005. Kristopher Sperry is making 4,000 gallons of wine a year.
Wines are made from grapes grown along the East and West coasts, but the Sperrys also have started growing their own. They planted one acre of vines at a nearby farm in May and plan to plant another acre next year.
Evelyn Sperry said she's learned about tending vines from attending wine industry conferences with her husband for the past six years.
L'UVA BELLA
This winery on U.S. Route 224 in Poland Township springs out of a successful wholesale business that Sergi started six years ago.
A retired inspector for the Ohio Department of Transportation, Sergi decided the juice being sent to Ohio from California was not up to his standards. He had learned winemaking long ago from his father.
He worked with vineyards and a juice manufacturer to set up a new distribution channel for area stores. He brought in a half-truckload of juice his first year, but that increased to 36 truckloads this year.
Produce companies in this area and other states now are buying his juice, which they sell to their customers to make wine. The wholesale business took a big jump this year as he brought in juice from Chile, which has an opposite growing season from farms in the northern hemisphere.
While the Coitsville Township resident expands his wholesale business, he started a retail business last year. Bottles of wine made on the premises are sold to walk-in customers. The winery uses juice to make about 80 percent of its wines but crushes California grapes for the remainder.
The winery made 15,000 gallons of wine in the past year as it prepares for the opening of a sit-down lounge.
Construction on the lounge was started but then put on hold because of the demands of the wholesale business. The lounge is expected to be completed around the end of the year.
VINO NOVELLO
You won't find any vines at the county's newest winery. Vino Novello opened recently in the Creekside Plaza on Boardman-Canfield Road in Boardman.
The storefront location allows people to participate in the making of about 30 varieties of wine from kits. Customers can start the process themselves by taking about 15 minutes to mix the initial ingredients or have co-owner Morris Frazzini do it for them.
Either way, he will spend the next six to eight weeks tending the juice as it becomes wine.
When he's done, customers come in and bottle the wine. But first, they develop customized labels for the bottles.
Vino Novello is aiming its business at people who are planning parties and events and would like customized wine bottles for the occasion.
Morris is a physical therapist at Sharon (Pa.) Regional Hospital, while his wife, Sandy, is a nurse at Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren.
The Hubbard couple said they got the idea after seeing similar businesses in other areas. Frazzini started making wine with his brother four years ago.
"When you have your own business, it has to be something you enjoy," he said.
shilling@vindy.com
Sunday, June 10, 2007
New local wineries offer different experiences for their customers.
By
DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
Money...
