Peconic Bay Winery Manager: 'We Are Not For Sale'

Cutchogue's Peconic Bay Winery is not for sale -- for now.

But, according to general manager James Silver, a sale is one possibility down the road.

This season, Silver said, the property has been "repurposed," with the vineyard outsourced to Lieb Cellars and Premium Wine Group -- the two recently merged -- in Mattituck.

Russell Hearn, director of winemaking and production at both, has hired Bill Ackerman to run one vineyard and Steve Mudd, of Mudd Vineyards, to run the other, Silver said. 

"The agreement is that they would care for the property and keep it looking very attractive," Silve said. "We don't want to let it go. There's no cash transaction. They get the fruit, and the arrangement has no end date."

Only a letter of intent seals the deal, Silver said. 

Meanwhile, Silver added, the Peconic Bay Winery will continue to produce, with Greg Cove at the helm. "We have two years' worth of inventory," Silver said.

The tasting room in Cutchogue, however, will not open this year, Silver said. "It probably won't open ever again."

In January, Peconic Bay Winery moved its tasting room from Route 25 in Cutchogue to a newer facility at Empire State Cellars in the Tanger Mall complex in Riverhead.

“There is a massive crush of people coming through the Riverhead store all of the time now, the hours are much longer, and there is a lot more parking — we’ll reach a lot more people this way,” Silver said at the time. “And to be honest, the agritourism aspect we were dealing with in Cutchogue is not nearly as profitable as you would imagine it would be and was not beneficial to the branding of our wine.”

Office and administrative work, fermentation, bottling and storage of wine will also continue at the Cutchogue location, which opened in 1979 and has been owned by Ursula and Paul Lowerre since 1999.

Empire State Cellars opened at the Tanger Outlet Mall in the fall of 2011, with a tasting room and a retail store featuring over 800 wine, beer, and spirits products made exclusively in New York State. ESC-X is the export arm of Empire State Cellars, currently shipping products from ten New York wineries, including Peconic Bay, to the New York State Wine Outlet in Shanghai, China.

"Empire State Cellars is a very successful business manager for us," Silver said. He added that Tanger was the perfect location for a tasting room and said the site has become a one-stop destination for tourism information, as well.

With questions swirling regarding the winery's future, Silver addressed the issue: "People really want to know what's going to happen," he said. "Honestly, I don't know. We don't have any plans. We are not for sale."

However, Silver said, the option of a sale is not off the table "The fact of the matter is if someone came along with an offer, we're not going to look askance. We are not actively trying to sell the winery, but we don't have illusions -- we are looking for something to do with the property. What that is -- if it continues to be a winery, or if there's a transfer of ownership, or development of the property, or a lease situation -- all of of those things are possible. But all of those things take years."

Knowing how long any option would take, Silver said the main objective was to keep the property "looking beautiful" and ensure that it not become run-down and an eyesore. "Even though it's not a public tasting room anymore -- it's a private farm with a private winery -- it's going to be maintained one hundred percent."

And, he added, "It's not going to become a K-mart. It's going to be a farm and a winery for a long time."

Some other parcels owned by the winery, Silver added, are on the market.
 
Of the decision, Silver said it made good business sense. "People get sentimental about the vines. But the land is the valuable part of this," he said.