Private label
Minot winemaker opening Urban Winery
The newest downtown Minot business is getting a lot of attention and it hasn’t even opened yet.
Urban Winery is located at 6 N. Main St., Suite 103 and is owned by Eric Hansen.
The winery, which Hansen hopes to open for business sometime in March, developed as an extension of his passion for making wine.
Hansen has been at it for about five years now and has made many kinds of “kit” wines where all of the ingredients necessary for making a batch of wine come in a box – from the juice to the yeast and all of the clarifying ingredients.
“I have done 38 different varieties,” Hansen replied when asked about his experience, adding half jokingly, “I have a nice cellar.”
Hansen’s interest in winemaking was buoyed by a group of friends who also enjoyed sampling and making wine at home. Hansen took the next step by starting a local winemaking club and putting it on Facebook.
What started as a club of about a dozen friends and co-workers now includes 150-plus members and interest is still growing.
“There is a wine movement out there and it’s not just Minot,” Hansen said.
He really notice interest in the club spike after last summer’s Wine Walks held downtown. Members of the downtown business association host the event with each member store serving a different wine to customers to enjoy while they shop.
Hansen’s was the only homemade wine served at the summer and fall walks and were the most popular wines at each event. For spring, he made a white merlot and for fall, blackberry cabernet.
“It’s a hobby that has turned into a business,” Hansen said of Urban Winery. There are numerous ways that business will be generated and Hansen has dreams of many more.
Already, Hansen says, there is a market for working with bridal stores where bridal parties could come to Urban Winery and make their own special wine for the wedding. Hansen would be there to help mix the concentrated juice that comes with a kit, add the yeast and then basically babysit the process thereafter, until the customer comes back for a bottling party.
“We’ll put the engagement photo on the bottles and they’ll have it for years to come to enjoy on their anniversaries,” Hansen said.
Office parties could be held in much the same way.
Hansen is already working with the downtown association with the idea that all of the participating businesses could make their own wine varieties for upcoming Wine Walks.
Other possibilities include downtown restaurants developing private label wines to serve in their establishments.
While Urban Winery is not open yet, Hansen can see the day when locally grown grapes are stomped at a festival downtown with the public being allowed to take part.
If that event ever comes to be it will be a ways off. For now, Hansen continues to make ready his winery in a small suite in a building at the north end of Minot Street. Meanwhile, he continues to field a lot of questions from eager potential customers – and wonders where Urban Winery is headed.
“My idea was to start small and I’m already experiencing growing pains,” he said.
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