Page 9 - Leisure Living Magazine: Autumn 2020 Edition

Heineman Winery - A Place Where Wine Meets History
By Maggie Kelch, Feature Writer
1963 - Louis Heineman at age 37 bottling wine on the 5 spout gravity fed filling machine. This piece of equipment was used up until the year 2000 when they switched over to a new, quicker and more advanced bottling machine. This vintage piece of equipment, along with the oak barrels remain in the winery today.
Visitors to South Bass Island enjoy visiting Heineman Winery and Crystal Cave to tour the cave and sip a glass of wine in the beautiful wine garden. However, they may not realize that they are actually enjoying the unique taste of island history.
Heineman Winery is the oldest family owned and operated winery in the state of Ohio. After 132 years, it is the last remaining original winery in this Lake Erie Island’s history.
The winery was founded in 1888 by Gustav Heineman, an immigrant from a grape growing region in Germany. At that time, the Lake Erie Islands were already famous for their vineyards and wine production. The islands have ideal soil conditions and a long growing season thanks to the temperate Lake Erie climate. This ensures that the vineyards produce excellent, high quality grapes.
www.LeisureLivingMagazine.com
In 1897, Gustav Heineman discovered the Crystal Cave when he was digging a well for his family home and the winery. In 1900, Heineman was one of 17 wineries on Put-in-Bay.
Prohibition of alcohol in 1919 was cata- strophic for the island’s wine industry. Heineman Winery survived. Gustav’s son, Norman, kept the business alive by giving tours of Crystal Cave and Mammoth Cave (closed in the 1950s) and selling unfermented grape juice. He also ran the Yellow Ribbon Taxi Company, which was started by his father.
When Prohibition was repealed, Ohio was one of the first states to go “wet” and Norman received his grower’s permit to make wine. Norman’s son, Louis, continued the family tradition of wine making and also helped to start the Ohio Wine Producers Association in 1978. Following in his
Continued on page 10
Autumn 2020 LeisureLiving | 9