• A new wine bar to be called Cru Wine Bar and Shop is in the works in Oxford. Owned by Mike Patterson, Cru will be adjacent to Patterson’s Cafe at 103 W. Spring St., according to Oxford economic development officials.
• The Bella Vino Wine Merchants & Bar in Springboro has opened a second location at 6064 West Chester Road in West Chester. The new wine serves pizzas and hot appetizers, and will offer themed wine tastings and special dinners. Plans call for a patio that will hold 40 people to open this summer.
• A Winans Fine Chocolates & Coffees shop that will include a wine and cocktails bar and a retail wine shop is scheduled to open in mid-May at 3510 Pentagon Blvd., Suite C, in Beavercreek.
• A new wine and craft beer shop called Bottle No. 121 opened Feb. 1 on Troy’s town square.
• The newly opened Kroger store in the Austin Landing development near Austin Road and I-75 has a huge wine department and has an ambitious lineup of wine tastings and events planned, including special tastings the first and third Tuesdays of every month.
• The new downtown Dayton restaurant called Serendipity Bistro that opened last month at 25 S. St. Clair St. will host its first wine event tonight starting at 5 p.m. The “Wine Down Wednesday” event will include shared plates of light fare, and wines will be discounted 10 percent, according to the bistro’s co-owner, James Harris. Regular wine tastings will be held the first Thursday of each month, starting March 7, Harris said.
• The Patriot Steakhouse & Tavern at 1525 Genntown Drive, just north of the intersection of State Route 42 and Bypass State Route 48 in Lebanon, will host its first wine tasting from 6:45 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. tonight, Feb. 20. The tasting is designed “for wine lovers, or those who would like to become wine lovers,” restaurant spokesperson Greg Carter said in an email.
• A new winery called the Old Mason Winery & Vineyard — formerly slated to be called The Naked Grape Winery — is in the works and is scheduled to open later this year in Miami County.
• Valley Vineyards near Morrow in Warren County has expanded its sales footprint so that its wines will now by available in 15 counties in northern Kentucky, including stores such as Kroger and Party Source, said Joe Schuchter, director of sales and marketing and third-generation member of the family that founded Valley Vineyards. The expansion of Valley Vineyards’ distribution footprint “means that we are being recognized for making high-quality wines from the Ohio River Valley,” Schuchter said.
• And in what may be the most intriguing local wine-related development of any on this list, Caesar Creek Vineyards, at 962 Long Road east of Xenia, opened its tasting room and announced itself to the public on Feb. 1. Ohio’s newest winery has been many years in the making, and joins wineries such as Brandeberry Winery in southern Clark County and Valley Vineyards in Warren County as popular destinations for those seeking to sample wines that are, as Caesar Creek founder Walter Borda puts it, “grown, harvested, pressed, fermented and bottled right here” in southwest Ohio.
And the wines — there are three available now, based on White Cayuga grapes that Borda harvested in 2011 — are delicious. The Headwaters Rose is a beautiful salmon color, and strikes a balance between fine European roses and white zinfandel. The Skipping Stone white is off-dry with up-front fruit and a brisk, cleansing finish, while the Creek Stomper white is a touch sweeter, but not cloying, and is also backed up by mouth-watering, appealing acidity that invites the next sip.
These are well-made wines that will whet your appetite to see what the future holds. “We have lots of other styles coming from the 2012 harvest,” Borda said.
As this list of wine-related developments that have occurred just in recent weeks amply illustrates, these are exciting times for wine enthusiasts throughout southwest Ohio. We have plenty of reasons to raise our glasses now — and many more in the fermentation stage.
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