Urban wineries include everything but the vineyard
CINCINNATI -- The 1880s-era two-story frame building where Joe and Joan Henke greet thirsty customers six days and nights a week has always pumped lifeblood into the quiet Westwood residential neighborhood that surrounds it. But seldom has the heartbeat been this strong.
Located across the street from a Methodist church and City Hall, the structure housed a candy store, tearoom and restaurant over the decades until the Henkes arrived in 2001 and began trucking in grapes to the parking lot, making medal-winning wines in the basement and serving them to mellow crowds upstairs.
"People had never seen anything quite like this before," says Joe of the barrel room/restaurant/tasting bar/retail shop known as Henke Winery. "But I think they've found a Cheers-like home they're comfortable with. We see a lot of locals who walk here, enjoy the food and wine, and then walk home. We also get people from Kentucky and Indiana who make the winery their prime destination."
Though a retro, homespun atmosphere prevails — volunteers crush the grapes and bottle the wine, and the musical acts in the dining room play for tips and sips — Henke is actually part of a modern urban winery revival that has taken root in at least a dozen cities, from Brooklyn to Oakland to Traverse City, Mich.
"I just took a chance," says Joe, a former machinist and hobbyist winemaker who founded a smaller version of the winery in 1996 in a nearby neighborhood before outgrowing it and moving to the current location. "But I've lived here all of my life, and I felt it could work."
So far it has: Visitation, production and sales have grown each year, and in 2007 his $29.95 Norton Limited Edition, made from grapes grown 30 miles to the east, was named Ohio's best red wine in a statewide competition. Henke also trucks in grapes from California, Indiana, New York and Northern Ohio and produces about 1,500 cases of wine annually, up from 300 at the beginning. Nearly all of it is sold in the retail shop or the 125-seat restaurant, where tastes are offered for $1 each.
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