Business of the Week: Franklin Hill Vineyards Wine & Gift Shop

Nestled between the Sunoco mini-mart and the Crossings Coin Laundry on Route 248 is the Franklin Hill Vineyards Wine & Gift Shop, also known as The Grape Spot, one of the winery’s three supplementary stores in the Lehigh Valley.

The store exclusively sells the 24 varieties made by Franklin Hill Vineyards, which includes their selections of red, white, rosé, sparkling and specialty wines. 

This year, their best-seller, Sir Walter’s Red, won Double Gold at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, and was named Best American Wine. Sir Walter’s Red, a sweet concord wine, is named for the winery owner’s father, Walter Pivinski, who manned their store in Tannersville for many years.

It is also the only Franklin Hill wine available in a five-liter bottle (see it in the accompanying photo gallery). 

Other popular varieties, besides the Sir Walter’s Red, are Fainting Goat, a black cherry wine, and Simply Red, both of which are made from Chambourcin grapes, a French-American hybrid that is designed to grow well in east-coast ground.

Manager Michael DiLorenzo explained, “They call [the Chambourcin] the jewel of the Lehigh Valley… it loves our soil.”

Specialty wines are also popular, and come in suggestive varieties like Passion, Desire and Bliss.

Desire particularly stands out as a specialty, DiLorenzo said. “Nobody else makes a mango wine.”

In fact, nearly every wine on Franklin Hill’s menu has won some type of recognition; in 2010, more than half of their wine list garnered awards.

This year’s newest addition to the Franklin Hill’s family is Pomegranate Peach, a unique fruity blend that is already showing promise as a popular choice.

“Every year, we try to do something new,” said DiLorenzo.

For 29 years, Franklin Hill Vineyards in Bangor has been putting out award-winning varieties of Valley-grown wine. The winery, spread across a 57-acre farm, produces its own grapes, which are pressed, fermented and mixed right on the property.

The vineyard itself was first founded in 1976. The first wine was made in 1982. By 1983, Franklin Hill Vineyards had five varieties and was serving their Vidal Blanc at Muskifest.

Winery owner and founder Elaine Pivinski didn’t start out as a winemaker, nor a farmer, but she knew where to go with questions.

“I’m an outgrowth of the Woodstock generation,” said Pivinski. “[My husband and I] found this farm with 35 acres and a 200 year-old farmhouse. But then we didn’t know what to do with it, because we weren’t farmers. I wrote to Penn State and Rutgers, and they told me to grow peaches and apples… Cornell told me to grow grapevines, and by 1976 the first ones came in.”

Back then it was a completely new venture to her. She joined the American Wine Society and met with amateur winemakers to cultivate her curiosity.

“One guy was always getting gold medals, so I hired him for two years to help me make wine,” she said.

In 1982, the first wine was pressed from her farm and yielded about 1,000 gallons. Today, her annual output is about 35,000 gallons (about 8,500 of which is Sir Walter’s Red).  

In 1985, some family hardships caused her to reevaluate her position. Just as Pivinski was about to quit and sell the farm to go back to teaching, her wines won three awards from Penn State.

“It took me about 9 years to get everything going, but it was worth it,” said Pivinski. Her and Bonnie Pysher (an assistant back then, now the chief winemaker) did everything to cultivate the grapevines and prep the fields.

In the following years came dozens of accolades across the country and in international wine events. Governor Rendell named Pivinski one of the top 50 businesswomen in the Lehigh Valley. She has also been presented the Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce’s Athena Award.

Pivinski outlined the basics of her wine-making process:

• First the grapes are harvested. Every grape is hand-picked by Pivinski and a group of senior citizens and stay-at-home moms.

• Her son, Adam Flatt, runs the entire harvest. He picks up the grapes using a machine called a gondola. The grapes are then de-stemmed and pressed into juice. The juice is pumped into their on-site facility.

• From there the process is taken over by winemaker Bonnie Pysher. She ferments the juice with yeast and mixes each different style. Each variety depends on different grapes and blending techniques. 

What makes Franklin Hill wines unique is simple, according to DiLorenzo. “We don’t put in a lot of preservatives and additives… it’s fresher.”

Franklin Hill Vineyards is one of nine wineries on the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail. They also hold their own events and tastings. Visit them on the web at www.franklinhillvineyards.com. 

The Grape Spot is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday noon to 4 p.m. All varieties of Franklin Hill wines can be purchased at the store for between ten and fourteen dollars. Tastings are always available for customers.

Also for sale in the store are plenty of wine accessories: BYO bags, replaceable corks, Scentation candles from Arkansas, Robert Rothschild dips from Ohio, and the ever-popular wine purses, solid-form clasped bags large enough to carry a standard wine bottle. 

The Easton wine shop, which recently underwent major renovations, is one of the winery’s three satellite stores, in addition to stores in Bethlehem and Tannersville.

With the recent renovations, DiLorenzo expects that the Easton store will be seeing more events in the near future, like the “Meet the Winemaker” events that are often held in their Bethlehem location.

Several local establishments serve Franklin Hills wine, including Big Woody’s in Forks Township, Bethlehem Brew Works, and the Apollo Grille, to name a few. A complete list of Lehigh Valley restaurants that serve their wines is available on Franklin Hills’ website.