Gouveia Vineyards Has Its Best Business Year Ever

“Doesn’t Wallingford have a vineyard?” said a resident of Pawcatuck, a village some 60 miles east of the town along the shoreline.

Indeed, the story of Joe Gouveia and his vineyard is well-known in Wallingford and, increasingly, beyond.  Gouveia came to this country from Portugal and, in 1999, planted his original vines by hand.  He produced his first bottle of wine in 2004. 

This year, Gouveia’s wines took a slew of awards—four from the Connecticut Specialty Food Assoc. and a double gold, among others, from the Amenti del Vino International Wine Competition in Mystic, Conn. 

“It’s been a very, very good year,” said Gouveia, who sells between 70,000 and 90,000 bottles of wine each year.  He termed 2012 “the best year so far, businesswise.”

Gouveia credited the high volume of sales in part to what he described as the “very dry, hot summer” of 2010. Grapes, he said, prefer that weather to the damp spring that arrived the following year, yet the grapes from 2010 are among those in the wine he has bottled and now sells.

Although he said Connecticut vintners lack the advantages of other states—“We are not as lucky as California,” he remarked—he said, “We have to do the best we can.”  He did observe that, with climate change underway, the forecast for vintners is that the land “from Long Island up is going to be the future growing range.”

Gouveia Vineyards is unique in that it sells only from its wine shop, rather than also selling to restaurants or caterers.  Sixty percent of the walk-in traffic that propels his business now comes from outside Wallingford, he said, with 15 percent coming from New York City.

“It’s word-of-mouth and Facebook,” he said.  He also said he has benefited from those who travel the Connecticut Wine Trail because it brings new people to his vineyard.  Then, he said, much of his business come from families.  He said families participate in tours of his winery, which he offers four times each weekend.

Like other retailers, he said that this holiday season the gift cards in his wine shop have sold especially well.  The Gouveia gift cards have no expiration date.  “ . . . the gift cards, they sell more,” he said.  “It’s easier,” he continued, “especially if you don’t know what kind of wine you like.”

Gouveia recommended one dessert, one white and one red as wines to serve at this time of year.

For the dessert wine, he recommended his Epiphany Reserve, which is the Gouveia red wine that took the double gold or highest honor in the Amenti international competition.  Gouveia said the grapevine
from which the wine comes was created at the University of Minnesota.

Said Gouveia:  “We’re able to get very high alcohol from it.  That is good for winter.”

Gouveia also recommends the Stonehouse Red, which he described as a mixture of grapes, with Cabernet, Sauvignon and Merlot among them. 

For the white wine, he chose the Seyval.  “It’s in the dry end, but not that dry,” he said.  He said the grapevine from which the semi-dry white wine comes is the number one vine East of the Rockies, and it is especially big in upstate New York and Michigan.

“We are very established,” he said of his business overall.  “I can’t complain.”

Details of the winery tours and also the Gouveia wine tastings are available at the Gouveia website.