Schuchter’s uncle, Steve Shaw, has been brewing beer for 15 years and is overseeing the Cellar Dwellers craft-brewing venture, Schuchter said.
Valley Vineyards’ owners have come to recognize that their tasting-room beer menu that consisted of little more than Bud and Bud Light were not accommodating those groups of visitors that included both beer enthusiasts and wine lovers, Schuchter said. “We didn’t take the beer crowd seriously,” he said.
But changes in state law eased some of the restrictions on operating microbreweries and wineries at the same location, and the Schuchters talked with Tony Debevc, owner of Debonne Vineyards, about his experience with adding a craft brewery to his winery. Debevc told his fellow winery owners the response to the new microbrews “has been amazing,” and the addition of beer did not adversely affect the wine end of the business, Schuchter said.
Visitors to Valley Vineyards weekend dinners will have the choice of two glasses of wine or two beers with their dinners, Schuchter said. Plans call for producing a variety of brews, including Lager, IPA, American Pale Ale, English Pale Ale, Wheat Beer and a Port Barrel Ale that will be aged in the same casks that previously held Valley Vineyards Vintage Port.
Schuchter said the winery will start slowly, with a “soft opening” of sorts for its craft beers this spring until the Cellar Dwellers’ full unveiling at the winery’s annual festival, A Taste of Warren County, to be held June 2 at the winery. For more information, go to www.valleyvineyards.com or call (513) 899-2485.
A bit farther south, in Cincinnati, another Ohio winery, Henke Winery at 3077 Harrison Ave., has scored some national attention by making the Top 10 Urban Wineries in America put together by FoodRepublic.com.
Henke was the only winery in the Midwest to make the list, and the website couldn’t help but to take a bit of a swipe at the Queen City in its listing, which read in part: “Cincinnati may be the last place you’d expect to find a winery, but Henke has been around for more than a decade.”
I heartily recommend that FoodRepublic brush up on its wine history, starting, perhaps, with Nicholas Longworth. In fact, wine grapes were planted in the Cincinnati area in the late 1700s, prior to Ohio becoming a state, and by 1859, Ohio had become the leading producer of wine in the nation. So no, Cincinnati is NOT the last place one would expect to find a winery. But hey, we’ll take what love we can get here in flyover country, even if it is tinged with a hint of condescension, right?
Henke Winery owner Joe Henke called the Top-10 mention “quite a tribute.” “I’m honored that we’ve been acknowledged among the best in the country.”
The fact is, Joe Henke launched an urban winery in 1996, before urban wineries were fashionable — and probably before the term had been invented. Today, Henke bottles 15 varieties and more than 2,500 cases each year, using grapes from Northern Ohio, upstate New York and California. The winery is open Monday through Saturday. For more information, go to www.henkewine.com or contact Henke Winery at (513) 662-9463.
Contact this reporter at mfisher @DaytonDailyNews.com.
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