Vintner’s Cellar Winery of Kalamazoo: A new wine experience.

The bride-to-be, BreAnne Maak, and her family arrived at Vintner’s Cellar at 5:00 on a Tuesday evening, bringing snacks and hors d’oeurvres. Their job for the evening was to sample several varieties of wine, choose which wine would be served at the wedding next summer, make that variety of wine, and get it started fermenting. Many months from now, the wine will be ready and the family will have another party to bottle the wine and attach the custom labels. It’s a hard job but somebody has to do it!

Vintner’s Cellar Winery of Kalamazoo is a franchise winery, located in a beautifully restored storefront in downtown Kalamazoo. It is owned and operated by Irene Kokkinos, a young engineer, who returned to her hometown of Kalamazoo to open this winery in August last year.

At Vintner’s Cellar, there are 25 to 30 different types of juices that can be made into wine. The juices come from grapes grown around the world. Irene selects the best crops from top vineyards each harvest and imports the juice for winemaking.

Alex Mantakounis is the resident winemaker, and he daily makes and bottles wine for retail sale in the store. Other juices are sold to home winemakers, and still others are used for parties such as BreAnne and her family had.

Irene feels that this “do it yourself’ winery is a concept whose time has come. “Every night, mealtime wine drinking is becoming more common,” she says. At Vintner’s Cellar, people can make wine from her standard recipes or custom mix and match to please individual tastes. Individual bottles can be purchased for as little as $8.99, while a cask that makes 25 bottles costs about $150.

Many customers come in to buy a few bottles for gifts or celebrations. Custom labels can be made for any number of bottles. Another bride arrived during the party to pick up a gift basket with wine, snacks, and wine glasses. The bottle in the basket had the young couple’s picture on the label. Other bottles in the store had been labeled for graduations, wedding anniversaries, holidays, and gifts.

The winery is also open for retail sales and wine tasting. Visitors can sample 5 different wines per visit. Wine tasting parties can be booked as well as wine making and bottling parties. Irene and Alex have become very knowledgeable about wine and can offer advice for novices.

The storefront is a feast for the eye as well as the palate. The room is filled with racks of wine for purchase, casks of aging wine, and large jugs of fermenting wine. Most of the casks and jugs have labels that identify the people who made the wine. It is an education in winemaking just to wander around the room. Irene is a gracious hostess and her obvious enthusiasm for wine and wine making is contagious.

BreAnne Maak, who is marrying Matt Lafleur next July, heard about Vintner’s Cellar Winery from the owners of the reception hall she is using. The word seems to be spreading about Vintner’s Choice Winery, because there were people buying wine and sampling wine when we arrived.

The motto of Irene’s business is, “A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine.” It was apparent that the sun is shining brightly on Irene Kokkinos and Vitner’s Cellar Winery of Kalamazoo.

Vintner’s Cellar Winery of Kalamazoo
260 E. Michigan Ave. Kalamazoo
269-342-9463
www.vintnerscellarwinery.com

Hours of Operation
Tues. and Wed. 11am-6 pm
Thurs.-Sat. 11 a.m. – 8 pm
Sun. and Mon. by appointment

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