Growers and Grocers

When I say Ohio, you don’t immediately think WINE, do you? I live in Ohio, and I don’t think of my home state as a great wine producer. But Ohio wines have been gaining worldwide attention, and reaching beyond the traditional area of wine production in Ohio. In the 1800s, the Ohio Valley region was the biggest producer of wines in America, making over 300,000 gallons annually. The Civil War left the area with little manpower, though, and disease brought devastation to vineyards in the area. The Lake Erie Islands were settled by German immigrants who brought their winemaking traditions with them, and by Prohibition, there were dozens of wineries along Lake Erie’s southern shore.

Prohibition hit the area hard, however, and the re-birth of winemaking in Ohio didn’t pick up until the mid 1960s. Today there are five viticultural appellations for the state, and 75 wineries registered with the Ohio Wine Producers Association.

I’d heard that a winery had opened in Mahoning County, which is someplace that is better known for a crazy congressman and a very shady past than wine production. I wanted to check this out for myself, but my expectations were low.

Rural Mahoning County isn’t very well marked, and we had left the address of the winery at home. Which is a recipe for disaster. For those of you who are city dwellers and don’t get out on country roads too often, there’s no wi-fi or much of a mobile signal out there. But we eventually found it, and from the instant we walked in the door, we were welcomed like family.

Mastropietro Winery is a small operation, as vineyards go, run by the Mastropietro family. They made their first batch of wine as amateur winemakers with 7 crates of grapes, and eventually had a semi-truckload of grapes delivered to make wine, before becoming professional winemakers. Currently, they are pressing and bottling all wines that bear their label on site, although their vineyards are not yet producing all of the grapes.

They bottle eleven different wines. For just $3 total, you can sample all eleven types. I’m not a wine expert, by a long shot. But I know what I like, and I liked most of what I tasted. They purchase grapes from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and New York, to produce a diverse group of wines, from a dry Chardonnay to a very sweet red, called Dolce Rosso. My husband and I rarely agree on a particular bottle or vintage; if he likes it, I don’t, and vice versa. But we found 4 in common that we both liked, two of them well enough to take home bottles. The Chardonnay, which is buttery, with wonderful fruit and honey flavors, paired well with both a chicken sandwich and fresh blueberries purchased that day from a roadside stand. We also purchased a bottle of Sangiovese, which has a delightful cherry nose and will be served at a dinner party later this summer.

Our hosts were very gracious, showing us their entire operation, from pressing to bottling. Dan is the winemaker, and Marianne is the master gardener, tending to all 3 acres of vines by hand. Of all the things to grow, wine grapes might be the best! Marianne told us that she didn’t realize when they first began operations how much work it would be to tend to 3 acres of vines by hand, but the small vines are growing beautifully and they expect to have a large enough harvest to make wine from their own grapes next summer.

Dan showed us the operations side, where the huge vats of wine age, and the family gathers to bottle the wines. We ended up spending more than two hours at the winery, and intend to return whenever we’re in the area. Our expectations were exceeded at every turn; being able to speak with the winemakers as we sampled each varietal made a huge difference in the experience. I look forward to more great things from the Mastropietro family.