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Winery owners flush with ideas for growing Copley, Wooster sites
By Paula Schleis
Beacon Journal business writer
Published on Saturday, Jun 14, 2008
Among Ohio's vintners, Andy Troutman sees himself as the ''young old guy.''
He's 35, but he's been growing grapes since picking it up as a 4-H project at the age of 10.
Last year, his experience and youth combined to win him and his wife, Deanna, the ''Outstanding Young Farm Couple'' award from the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation.
The pair established Troutman Vineyards in Wooster seven years ago, and took over the Winery at Wolf Creek in Copley Township a year later. Since then, production at the two wineries has collectively tripled to more than 30,000 gallons a year.
But Troutman said the award was also a recognition of their long-term goals, which include making their own goat cheese, adding a restaurant to Wolf Creek, converting more virgin acres to vineyards, and learning how to grow more European grapes in Ohio soil.
Others might be content to think about what their business needs this year or next, ''but we're always thinking 10 years down the road,'' Troutman said.
Troutman grew up in Wooster, the center of the state's top dairy county. But young Andy's interest in cows lasted one day, when he milked a cow and vowed it would be his last.
When he opted for the far less common 4-H option of grape growing, his parents encouraged him, although they clearly hoped it wouldn't become a career.
His parents and grandparents knew intimately how hard the farming life was, so as Troutman prepared to enter Ohio State University, ''my mom said, 'We don't care what you do. Just don't go into agriculture.' ''
But that's just what he did.
After graduating from OSU, where he began dating his future wife, Andy Troutman became vineyard manager at the Winery at Wolf Creek.
A few years later, the winery owner died and the surviving family asked the now-married Troutmans whether they wanted to buy it.
The answer was a no-brainer. A year earlier, the couple had decided to unite Andy's love of farming and Deanna's
training in marketing in establishing Troutman Vineyards in Wooster.
It would be a challenge taking on a fully operational winery in Summit County while starting their vineyard in Wayne County, but they felt up to the task.
In the past seven years, the Wooster site has gone from producing 400 gallons of wine a year to nearly 6,000 gallons. Wolf Creek, which produced about 10,000 gallons in the last year of former owner AndyWineberg's life, is pouring more than 25,000 a year.
Much of that demand is owed to Ohio's rebounding grape industry.
Once the country's top wine-producing state, the industry foundered after Prohibition. The state now has perhaps 3,000 acres of grapes, compared with the million planted in California.
But in recent years, the state has welcomed many new vintners. Troutman said there were 29 wineries in Ohio when he got started. Today, there are 104.
The number of wine drinkers is also growing, he said — from about 5 percent to 12 percent of the adult population over the past 10 years.
What Ohio grows is also changing. The state's bread and butter has always been pink Catawba and Concord sweet wines, but the industry has learned how to grow some sophisticated European crops, like cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, pinot gris and riesling.
Troutman is always experimenting with his own vineyards, testing quarter-acre batches of new varieties.
But his two wineries have distinctly different business models.
In its urban/suburban setting, Wolf Creek's crowd tends to be local and regular, so the Troutmans cater to it with music twice a week and evening hours.
Because the demand is so large, the wine grown at Wolf Creek is supplemented by grapes from as far as New York and the West Coast.
Meanwhile, Troutman Vineyards is among Wayne County's farms and more suited to tourism and visitors to the nearby Amish communities, so the site closes at 6 p.m. and doesn't sell wine on Sundays.
And all of the wine produced at Troutman comes from that vineyard or from other local farmers.
''If we don't get chardonnay, we don't make chardonnay. That's how we operate there,'' Troutman said.
Goats are an attraction at both places. They have practical roles as fertilizer producers and natural grass mowers on unused acres, as well as an entertaining distraction for visitors.
Starting next year at Wolf Creek, the herd will be put to work producing goat cheese. The Troutmans hope to feature that cheese and their wine at a restaurant they want to build.
It's all part of a journey that keeps the business fresh and exciting.
''I've been growing grapes since I was 10 and I'm still trying to figure out how to grow the perfect grapes,'' Troutman said. ''In this business, you never stop learning.''
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com.
Among Ohio's vintners, Andy Troutman sees himself as the ''young old guy.''
Get the full article here.
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