Self-Described 'Wine-Maker' Opens Up About Plans For 'Full-Scale Winery Experience'

By Jack Kramer, Correspondent

NORTH BRANFORD, CT – Spend a little time with Jon Rose and you can’t help but get caught up in his dream of the “full-scale winery experience” he envisions opening on the North Branford/Branford town line late in 2018 or early 2019.

Rose, the self-described “wine-maker” in the Rose Orchards Farms family business, Monday gave a tour of the site that is being groomed to be a winery and talked at length about what wine-lovers will soon be sampling.

“We planted two varieties of grapes this spring,” Rose said, “a white and a red.”

Rose said the family “has experience growing a lot of things, but we’ve never grown grapes before.”

The idea to turn the area that buffers Rose’s and the adjacent Van Wilgen’s into a farm winery Rose said, came from his uncle and father, who are the patriarch’s of the family farming business.

“My uncle started cleaning up the area this past January and February and once we saw it open up my dad said – “Maybe we should plant grapes.”

Rose immediately took that idea, noting: “Farm wineries are very popular in Connecticut now. I thought to myself, let’s do this!”

Rose said he began researching farm wineries, learning everything he could about the industry.

The farm winery recently won unanimous approval from the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Rose said the family is also planning to build a full-scale tasting room on top of the hill that sits where the grapes are currently growing.

He said when the winery does finally open it’ll likely, at first, be a combination of wines from grapes grown at Rose’s and some wines from other grapes brought in.

“We’ll probably have about eight different varieties of wines when we first open,” Rose said.

Rose said while the winery is an important aspect of the family business, it is only an aspect, and the rest of the farming the family does will remain a priority for the family as it has been for centuries.

Robert Rose, born in 1594 in England and died in 1664 in Branford, was the first Rose to settle in Connecticut. Now in the 11th and 12th generations, some of the original descendants of Robert Rose still live on the grounds of their original home on the farm.

But while family farming will always be in the Rose blood, it is clear that Jon Rose believes that the farm winery gives the family an opportunity to take it to another level.

He talked about how the state of Connecticut is going through what he called an “agric-tourism” boom, referring to the growing popularity the farm wineries and craft beer brewing places are experiencing.

And nowhere has that craze been any crazier than in the area near where the Rose winery planned.

Jon Rose said he’s even thought about the possibility of teaming up with one or more of Branford’s craft beer breweries to serve beer at his winery when it opens for business.

He added that he can even envision eventually applying for a hard cider license, too.

Rose is right when he said the winery business is doing well in Connecticut.

The growth of wineries in the state has caught the attention of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who touted the growth at a recent press conference on the wine industry at Jones Winery in Shelton.

“We want to continue to grow the wine industry in the state,” Malloy said, adding that Connecticut has seen more growth in the industry than any other state in New England.

“We made 800,000 bottles of Connecticut farm wine last year,” Malloy said. “We have more than three dozen vineyards that produce a number of high-quality wines.”

Photos by Jack Kramer