Cellar NewsCarafe Wine Makers By Karen Beardslee Kwasny Wine! Wine! Wine! That's all they ever do at Carafe Wine Makers of Chesapeake.
"From sunup to sundown,"
say Robert and Cynthia Miller, owners of this cozy little shop on Volvo Parkway. And thank goodness for
that because Carafe Wine Makers is where some of the most unique wines in town can be found and made.
Shortly after they married, the couple moved to Waynesville, North Carolina, where, for seven years, Robert worked as Director of Engineering for a plastics company and Cynthia managed the home and their two children. The next four years found the couple in Hillsville, VA where, together with Robert's parents, they owned and operated a campground and Robert worked from home for the plastics company. When Robert and Cynthia decided that they'd go into business for themselves, they had a pretty good idea what they wanted to do and they knew exactly where they wanted to begin this new venture. "We were ready for a full-scale change in the way we worked and lived," clarifies Cynthia. "We wanted more time together, work that would be fun and truly ours and a family-oriented community with good schools and great open spaces. Carafe Wine Makers is the perfect business for us and Chesapeake is the perfect place for our family." Carafe Wine Makers originated in Canada about ten years ago and there are 17 locations there. However, it wasn"t until 2004, after Robert and Cynthia went back to New Jersey for the Christmas holiday, that Carafe Wine Makers had an address in the U.S. "One night during our visit in New Jersey, a member of my family began talking about how fun it would be to make his own wine," remembers Robert. "That's when I mentioned to Cynthia Carafe Wine Makers, which I had stumbled across a few years back while on business travel in Canada." The couple talked about the company the whole way back to Virginia. By the time they got home, Cynthia and Robert were convinced that winemaking was their future. "Robert's description of the Carafe Wine Makers' shops in Canada really intrigued me," Cynthia adds enthusiastically. "It sounded like the very thing we were looking for -- work that would be fun for us and for our customers." In no time at all, Robert and Cynthia made Chesapeake home to the very first Carafe Wine Makers in the United States. At Carafe Wine Makers, you can not only buy specialty wines, made right on the premises, but, more importantly, you can create your very own vintage from their extensive list of delectable wines. "Yes, people come here to buy our delicious bottled wine," Robert says. "But most of our customers come here because they're excited about the idea of fashioning their very own vintage -- from selecting the style to designing the label." "I just love being able to make my own wine," regular
customer Murphy Brown says. "There's something truly wonderful about creating the wine
itself, bottling it, labeling it and then sharing it with friends."
Taste-testing the different wines and juices is essential at this stage of the process so that customers can make an educated choice about the wine they want to make. Once the wine is chosen, water, bentonite, juice and yeast are combined to begin the fermentation process. "After the customer selects their wine, the work involved in starting things takes a matter of moments,” Cynthia explains. "For the next six weeks, while the wine ferments, the wine-maker won't have to do anything but wait. It's the waiting that's the hardest part." When the wine-maker returns to the store six weeks later, their wine has already been filtered and is ready for bottling, corking, labeling -- and, oh, yes, sampling. " I was so excited to return to Carafe when my first batch of wine was ready for bottling," Murphy enthusiastically explains. "We listened to oldies on the radio and Robert and Cynthia helped me get a rhythm going with the work. It was the most relaxing two hours I've spent in quite some time." Since then, Murphy has made three more wines at Carafe and, according to her, each one of them has been superb. "I share all my wines with my friends and they really enjoy them," Murphy adds with the pride of an accomplished artist. "Every one of them has been phenomenal. Carafe Wine Making is a 'not to be missed' experience, especially if you truly enjoy good wine."; At Carafe Wine Makers, customers get to do and learn what they would not otherwise experience unless they visited the wine country. "We've had customers bring food with them to their wine bottling day," Robert says with a smile. "For them, the 'birth' day of their wine is an occasion to celebrate a true achievement and we couldn't agree more." The 'birth' day of any batch of wine is considered day one in that wine's lifetime, although most wines will need an additional six weeks or more to reach their true peak of flavor. "All the wines made here will improve with time," Robert explains. "White wines age faster than reds, which benefit from more time before drinking, perhaps three or four months in total. But all wines made at Carafe are proven 'trunk-agers.' That means they're great even if they only age from the time they
leave our store to the time you get home to pop the cork." Carafe Wine Makers specializes in wines made by and for individuals and wines crafted for group celebrations large or small, like weddings, anniversaries and retirements. Carafe Wine Makers of Chesapeake produces some of the most unique wines in the area because when the customer is the creator, the wine crafted is as distinctive as the individual who made it.
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