One of the hardest parts of making your own wine is deciding what to name your winery. For a little inspiration, we asked WineMaker’s Facebook audience, “What is the name of your homewinery — and why?”
Many names were nods to geographics:
Lynn Burris Ferda: “Teasel Hill Winery. When we built our home (on a hill) all that was growing were teasels.”
Kent Keller: “Crescent Valley Vineyards and Winery. We live in the Crescent Valley just outside Gig Harbor, Washington.”
Corin Fairchild: “Domaine Vella Frontera, because I am on the old Catalan/French border.”
And some wineries were named for family ties or winemaking partners:
Kevin Donnelly: “Donnelly Micro Micro Winery — because I am really, REALLY small!”
Dan Corke: “Corkey’s Corks. Thought it was a clever use of my last name.”
Stephen E Kistner: “Rentsik wines — my last name spelled backwards.”
David Raleigh: “Raleigh Vineyards, grown and produced on my land.”
Peggie Shafer-Sinnott: “Sinnott Family Wines, because we are proud of our Irish last name and winemaking involves our whole family from start to finish!”
Michael J Hoy: “Four Friends Cellars — we ferment with our neighbors.”
And then there were wineries with a story to tell:
Daniel Hand: “Happy Boy, because not only are the partners happy boys when we’re in the wine room together, but my nephew at 3 years old (now 20) was helping us punch the skins down one evening and informed us he was “a happy boy.”
Jeff Shoemaker: “LBW. Low Budget Winery. I tried to make it low budget but after reading WineMaker magazine I now have a small vineyard, filters, pumps, lab equipment — the list goes on! It should be called, ‘I’m Ruined Winery’ because all of my moola goes into it!”
Phil Brandt: “Busted Thumb. I had a thumb crushed off and sewed back on several years ago. It’s not quite the same anymore.”
Jake Flaherty: “Due Duomi. It’s literal interpretation from Italian is two domes, but it also means two cathedrals. Both of us are bald but the Italian sounds more fancy than Two Bald Guys.”
Lou Cavaliere: “Crooked Label Winery. So I don’t have to worry about how the label goes on the bottle.”
Jerrid Hawkins: “HawkDizzle Winery. During one of my deployments to Iraq a buddy of mine started calling me Dizzle and it stuck on me like glue.”
Thank you to all of our Facebook fans who shared winery names with us. If you haven’t visited WineMaker on Facebook, join us at www.facebook.com/ WineMakerMag.
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