CEO & Entrepreneur™ Magazine

“With bread and wine you can walk your road.” - Spanish proverb

After tasting wines as a guest judge at the Big E Northeast Gold Wine Competition in preparation for the event this fall, one notable taste led to my jotting down the number on the label of that glass of wine (more about that in a previous story). Afterwards, an inquiry (all wines tasted were numbered and served in identical glasses as a flight) to Elena Hovagimian, Eastern States Exposition Agriculture & Education/MIS coordinator, provided the answer for my quest. It was a “Chambourcin from LaBelle Winery in New Hampshire.”

So the delicious taste of a wine led to a discovery of entrepreneurs and a journey to learn more about wine in nearby states.

LaBelle Winery is located in Amherst, New Hampshire. Their wines feature “grapes and other fruits grown in New Hampshire or New England and are bottled with as little filtering as possible, and in some cases no filtering, to preserve the wine’s natural quality,” according to Amy LaBelle, winemaker on the company’s Web site.

LaBelle is a corporate attorney in Boston, Mass., and Merrimack, NH, whose lifelong interest in wine lead her to pursue her passion for winemaking and her winery is part of the professionals of New Hampshire Winery Association, a group of wine, cider, mead, and fruit wine growers, producers, and academics devoted to the state’s wine industry.

The Wine Entrepreneur Conference that was held earlier this year was the first-ever professional wine conference to combine entrepreneurship and the business of wine. Four categories of workshops and networking connected people to grow their wine business, find venture capital and investors or network.

And the world of wine is certainly a growing business.

“Table wine consumption in the U.S. has grown every year since its uninterrupted climb began in 1994. In 1996, table wine consumption surpassed the 1982 level reaching 176 million cases. The 200 million case mark was reached in 2000, and consumption reached 272 million cases in 2008. U.S. per capita consumption reached 2.96 gallons in 2008,” according to a 2009 report by the U.S. Wine Market Council, a non-profit association of grape growers, wine producers, importers, wholesalers, and affiliated businesses.

Note: The gold, silver, bronze medal wines will be displayed at The Big E in the new Mallary Cheese Shoppe location. Wine tastings will also be scheduled daily in the Storrowton Village Gift Shop.

Here’s a few of the highlights of places to check out:

The Southeastern New England Wine Growing Trail stretches from Cape Cod and the Islands through the south coast of Massachusetts, coastal Rhode Island and along the shoreline of Connecticut. Sea breezes of the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound link nine wineries together.

Wineries include: Coastal Vineyards, Greenvale Vineyards, Langworthy Farm, Newport Vineyards, Running Brook, Sakonnet Vineyards, Travessia Vineyards, Truro Vineyards, Westport Rivers.

The Connecticut Farm Wine Development Council (860-267-1399) a group with members who have worked to organize wineries into the Connecticut Wine Trail. And a handy brochure that can guide a driver to member vineyards and wineries.

A trail passport offers a way to visit wineries, collect stamps along the way and then submit the completed passport to the council’s lottery drawing to become eligible for wine-lover discounts and other perks.

Blue-and-white highway signs along the way may help drivers find member wineries, but also take along a copy of the brochure, which is available online.