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“We have four acres of vines and when the weather’s warmer there’s seating outside on the patio and then we have seating in the vines as well, so it’s really just kind of a beautiful place for people to be outside,” said Kent Eichenauer, co-owner of Dragonfly Vineyard and Wine Cellar in Urbana. “But then inside is also nice and cozy. We have a fireplace and all that, but that really has been primarily a big chunk of our business. People will come in and they just enjoy each other, enjoy the wine, and they relax.”
At this time, Dragonfly is offering wine via carryout and delivery while also selling wine slushies and sangria to go with a carryout food order.
In normal times, “people usually take wine home as well, so obviously it’s been a downtick in what we’ve had, but people have been coming in and buying wine to take home and cope with being quarantined,” he added with a laugh.
Co-owner Connie Eichenauer added the winery has also lost business as a result of canceling events that were scheduled for the venue.
“We’ve had bridal showers we had to cancel, we had the full moon on Tuesday evening, we had yoga in the vines that we had to cancel, and it was a beautiful evening would have been awesome,” she said. “There’s been some festivals that have been canceled that we participate in also, so just there is sadness of not having people here and laughing and celebrating in some of these special events that we could have hosted outside.”
Owner Kelly Brandeberry at Brandeberry Winery in Enon told a similar tale: Bottle sales are sustaining her business that opened in 2009, but a big chunk of it is still missing.
“We’re very appreciative that we were still able to do bottle sales to go because if not we would be in really bad shape,” she said, noting wineries are among many businesses exempt from a statewide order signed last month by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine that shut down much of the economy. “We really appreciate that he has at least tried to keep us producers in mind and functioning somewhat, so we’re just doing our best to come up with any way we can to get people wine.
“If we have to deliver all over, that’s what we’re gonna do until we’re able to reopen.”
And by “all over,” she really means it. Once word got out via Facebook that Brandeberry was delivering to Centerville, Kettering and Xenia along with Springfield, orders came in from Fairborn, Tipp City, Vandalia, New Carlisle and South Charleston, among others.
“It’s been overwhelming, to be honest with you. We have been so inundated with deliveries that it’s just been unreal,” she said. “I mean our biggest worry now is running out of wine. We haven’t figured out how to bottle and social distance.”
While she laughed at just how big her delivery business got practically overnight, she also confirmed concerns about just how long that will continue.
“It’s a huge question mark every week – Will people keep ordering? Because the majority of our business is people coming in and doing tastings and listening to live music,” she said. “We have wine release parties, and all that kind of stuff is on hold.”
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Dragonfly has also added delivery, something Kent Eichenauer said was in the long-term plans when it opened last year but hadn’t been established yet.
“It’s a necessity is the mother of invention kind of thing,” he said, adding that they are also willing to be creative if they have the opportunity to eventually reopen fully while social distancing guidelines are still in place.
“On the news this morning they were talking about maybe if restaurants and bars reopen, you’ll take your temperature as you go in, and it’s like, ‘Well, I guess we could do that,’” he said.
“As we approach the warmer weather, we’ve looked out on the patio and at the vineyard and we’ve got as much square footage as you need, and if someone has to come to a table to take an order wearing a mask, well that’s what we’ll do.”
A third area winery has delayed reopening for the season, but Bob Folck of Folck Family Farm and Winery said he plans to open his winery outside Mechanicsburg this week for pick-up and delivery.
That comes after he self-isolated for the past three weeks.
He has not had any symptoms of COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, but he felt it was the right thing to do to assure sanitation for his one-man bottling and packaging operation.
“I want to doublecheck and make sure because I don’t want to be out there and then next week I come up that I am sick,” he said. “I don’t want to do that to my customers at all. I don’t want to give them that doubt.”
Typically his winery would have a tasting room open on weekends and a porch were groups could relax while drinking.
Folck is also working toward the start of the season for his farm, which should have strawberries for sale around the end of May and peas, raspberries and blackberries later in the summer.
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