Into the spirits

Part 2

by Mary Hurley

Photos by Paul Moreau Jr.

Joe Compagnone needed five to 10 acres to construct a road for his adjacent business, the Mace Corp., which makes polyurethanes. But the land was part of the Haven Family Farm. To buy the road Compagnone found himself, after two years of negotiations, forced to buy the farm. All 28 acres. That was in 1980.

"What am I going to do with this land?" Joe Compagnone asked himself. "I am going to plant grapevines," he decided. Located on a hillside blessed with southern exposure -- providing the required light and warmth -- the farmland soil, he believed, was especially suited for the growing of two French-American "hybrid" grapes, the Seyval and Vidal Blanc grapes developed by French botanists. Mellea (pronounced Mel-lay-ah) Winery, named after Joe's mother, Rosina Mellea, began operation eight years ago.

Today, Mellea offers 10 varieties of wine, including seven white wines, a cranberry wine popular around the holiday season, and a blush and a rose, both crafted from Seyval grapes with a touch of Pinot Noir. At around $6.99 per bottle, they are reasonably priced. Taste is subjective, but they stand up pretty well to similar wines on the market, especially the Seyval-Vidal Blanc, a dry white wine that is barrel-fermented and aged in oak for nine months. It is estate-bottled, meaning it is made with grapes grown in the Mellea vineyard.

About 60 percent of Mellea wine is made with grapes grown in the three-acre vineyard. Finding the rest of the 40 percent is what makes the venture a challenge. Wine grapes, especially red grapes, are scarce and expensive. A very brusque Jacques de LaPinau, a French winemaker who is helping to produce the Mellea red wines this fall, recently answered the winery phone in a panic mode. "Call back later! I'm on the other line begging for grapes from California!"

For the Compagnones, the winery is indeed a business, but more of a hobby than full-time occupation.

"If you want to do this full-time, you could make a great living at it," Joe Compagnone contends. "We have high-quality wine. But we don't spend more than six months at it. We go to Florida for the winter, so it's marginal."

One result is that Mellea wines are not well-known. Only eight stores in the state carry a full selection, and five are located in Worcester County. Two are in Hadley and one is in Springfield. Mellea doesn't emphasize outside promotions such as in-store winetastings, considered a crucial marketing strategy. Wine magazine editor Elia says he is not familiar with Mellea, and has never been sent samples from the winery, which is rare in the business. When told of the estate wine made with the hybrid grapes and the price, Elia pauses. "That's a very good deal," he says. On average, New England wines tend to be priced on the high side and as a result have developed a reputation for lacking in value, he notes.

Five years ago, Mellea employed a full-time winemaker, Michael Shaps, who exhibited a flair for promotion, hosting winetastings in stores and talking up Mellea to Boston liquor stores, which placed orders. In a February 1994 Boston Globe story on the winery, Shaps said that the nearly 3000 cases he produced the year before had almost sold out. Shaps said he was aiming to slowly grow the winery into a 6000-case output and then think about expanding. Shaps left several years ago to work at Virginia vineyard (which has better terroir than New England, according to wine connoisseurs).

Today, Joe Compagnone, who is also a chemist, is Mellea's chief winemaker. The winery's annual output is between 1500 to 2000 cases a year, he estimates.

Marketing "is a time-consuming part of the business where you must be diligent," says Joe Compagnone. "You need to get out there and sell your product and do the tastings and convince the owner of a wine store to sell it. . . . If this were your living, you would have to work at developing a following in wine shops and restaurants."

But Compagnone is 71 years old, and he wants to retire. Earlier this year, the couple put the winery up for sale. Their daughter Lisa, who has worked as the winery's general manager, will be married in November and will live in Florida. The couple's three other children are not interested in the business. Lisa was responsible for Mellea's popular in-house marketing efforts, such as the theme gift baskets. Along with the bucolic setting, the Mellea gift store, in fact, is worth the trip, carrying a creative selection of wine accessories, including bottle openers and gift bags and whimsical wine-oriented T-shirts that feature the famous scene of Lucy and Ethel stomping grapes in a barrel.

So far, no serious buyers have surfaced. Those in the wine industry predict a tough sell, particularly in a region that has not yet developed sufficiently to attract venture capitalists, says Bob Russell, a co-owner of Westport Rivers, a vineyard and winery in Westport, Massachusetts, who is also head of the Massachusetts Wine Growers Association, a group of local winery owners. "The wine business is not a get-rich-quick scheme," he says. "It requires a lot of capital and a long-term lifestyle for a long-term return."

On to part 3