Wine & Dandy

Winemaking dates back to ancient times, so people have literally been bottling their product for hundreds of years.

Just a year ago, however, Darren and Belinda Porter, along with their bottle corker Tyler White, decided to try their hand at the craft and ended up with two award-winning wines in the process.

Darren, a native of Ohio County who now splits time between Beaver Dam and Florence, used his capstone project for his MBA degree nearly five years ago as a stepping stone into becoming a vintner.

“I knew that someday I wanted to start a winery and I thought this was

the perfect opportunity to do some serious research,” he said of the work and research required for his 10,000-word paper and visual presentation.

After Darren’s father passed away, the Porters knew it was time to move to Ohio County and begin the process.

“I finally said, ‘We are here and before we start this vineyard, I need to figure out how to make wine.’ I know what grapes to use and the soil samples and what grows well here and have toured half the wineries here in Kentucky, but I needed to work on learning how to actually make the wine,” Darren said.

Through a mentor in Louisville, 2018 Kentucky Wine Maker of the Year Michelle Vincent, the Porters were set up with everything they needed to start making their own wine from scratch.

Because fruits such as blackberries and peaches are most readily available locally, they decided to begin with those sweet, fruit wines.

Darren said most people prefer sweet wines, which is what has made Western Kentucky’s Purple Toad Winery so successful.

“So, I had been told that if you are going to make wine in Kentucky and are going to make a living doing this you need to learn to make sweet wines,” Darren said.

Darren said being a fan of peach and because it was available locally, that’s what the couple decided to start with, and they purchased 60-70 pounds of peaches from Reid’s Orchard to begin. From there the two, with the help of White, went through the process of preparing fruit to be made into wine – which includes steps like freezing the fruit, fermenting, straining and stabilizing.

Once all the processes were complete, it was time to “back sweeten” the wine to taste. That is where he relied on Belinda.

“She is primarily a sweet wine drinker, so I always felt that if I could get it to where she would like it then most of the women would like it, and they are typically the ones who go to the store and buy the wine,” Darren said. “From that business perspective, that was my plan and her taste buds have been spot on.”

The first batch of peach wine that the vintners made ended up down their sink. Darren said they just couldn’t get it right.

“I just couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t get the color. I couldn’t get the taste and I just poured it down the sink and we started all over,” he said.

Belinda said it is a magical moment when the taste is just right, “You just know when the taste is perfect.”

Their award-winning peach wine is actually the very first peach that they ever bottled; Darren said the same is basically true for the blackberry as well.

Once they got their wine bottled, the couple’s next step was to enter it in competitions as all winemakers enter their creations in competitions as they are starting out as a type of “benchmark” to see where it will score on the 0-20 UC Davis Scoring system used in most competitions.

Vincent suggested they enter the Winemaker’s Magazine international amateur wine competition which is the largest amateur competition in the world, but she warned the Porters not to “get their hopes up” as the competition was stiff especially for first-timers.

They entered their peach into competition and from July 23-25 a total of 1,893 different wines in 50 different categories from hobby winemakers living in 47 states, four Canadian provinces and as far away as Australia were judged in West Dover, Vt. Wines are evaluated on appearance, aroma, taste, aftertaste and overall impression. Entries were awarded gold, silver, bronze and best of show medals based on the average score given by the judging panel.

The results were published in the Magazine on Aug. 13. In their first competition, the Porter’s peach received a silver medal out of 49 entries and their blackberry received a gold medal out of 101 entries.

On the same day that the magazine’s results were published, the couple entered the wines in the 2021 Kentucky State Fair Home Winemakers Competition. The wines were judged the following day.

To win in these types of competitions is difficult and to win anything in the state fair in the first year just doesn’t happen, they were told.

The Kentucky State Fair Wine Competition is considered the fourth largest amateur competition of its kind. Approximately 500 different wines were entered and judged in 22 categories.

Their peach wine was awarded the sole gold medal of the category (most wine competitions award gold medals to all wines that score 17-20, but the state fair only gives one of those to award a gold medal) as well as one of the specialty awards “Kentucky State Fair Best Peach Wine.” The wine received a 19.5 out of 20.

“When they had named the honorable mentions and then the third and second places, we were thinking we’d gotten skunked,” Darren said. “And then they mentioned our names and we just couldn’t hardly believe it.”

Their blackberry wine received an honorable mention at the state fair.

After the awards, winning wines are set out for tasting and the Porters were blown away at the feedback they heard about their literal first-ever bottle of peach wine.

“Those words were worth more than the awards,” he said.

Now that they feel validated in their winemaking, the couple’s goal is to open a winery in Beaver Dam and put a bottle of their wine on a store shelf – starting in Ohio County and going from there. If the timetable develops as planned, Darren said they have hopes of selling their first bottle of wine within 24 months – selling primarily fruit wines starting out.

They have registered their business name, Porterbird Wines, LLC and are now completing paperwork and going through the legal process of starting their winery on their four acres off of Old Rob Roy Lane. Work has already begun and the trellises for the grapes and blackberries are already being set as the couple wants to grow their own fruits. They will continue to use local fruits until they can get theirs up and going.