Winemaking inquiries please email sales@citywinery.com

From Picking to Crushing to Aging in Your Very Own Barrel, City Winery is Ideal for Winemaking!

To see what vineyards our grapes come from Click Here

At City Winery, we go out of our way to make sure our grapes are handled with care straight from the vine to the barrel. Grapes are picked at the height of harvest, maturity being determined by several factors like PH-levels, skin texture and taste. The grapes are picked at night, when it is cooler, and are packed into specially designed 38-pound plastic bins. These smaller bins are chosen over the more-commonly used half-ton containers and are considered more effective in helping to protect the grapes from any crushing, juicing, or premature fermentation during transport.

Once picked, the grapes are immediately brought to a pre-cooling facility in the vineyard. Here the core temperature of the grapes is brought to 34°F, and then loaded onto an 18-ton refrigerated truck, which is sealed with CO2 or Argo, to keep out oxygen and ensure the best environment for shipping to the East Coast. When the grapes arrive they are immediately delivered to another cooling facility in Hartford, CT, where they remain until they are delivered directly to City Winery, about 5-6 days after they have left the vine. Essentially, the chain of cold is not broken from the moment the grapes are picked, until the moment they arrive at City Winery to be crushed—a process that guarantees fruit of the highest integrity, and creates conditions that are ideal for winemaking.