‘Vine’ way to promote wineries

HUNLOCK CREEK – Torrential downpours didn’t hamper wine lovers at the Back Mountain Wine Festival.

Sponsored by NEPA Wine Country in Tunkhannock, the event was held Saturday at Pikes Creek Raceway Park, and featured wines from three regional wineries.

A miniature golf tournament was planned, depending on when and if the rain let up, to raise money for the Lake Silkworth Volunteer Fire Company. Chris Lathrop, assistant fire chief, said the proceeds from the golf tournament and the fire company’s food stand will go toward building a new fire house.

Huddling under tents, eventgoers sampled a variety of vintages from Pavlick Hill Vineyard in Dallas, Bartolai Winery in West Pittston and Lopez Winery and Vineyard in Lopez, Sullivan County.

Bill Karlotski, co-owner of Pavlick Hill Vineyard, said his crop suffered this year. “This was a bad year. A freeze early in the year set us back a month,” he said. “But we got grapes.”

He tends to the grapes while his wife, Denise, runs the retail store on Route 118 in Lehman Township.

Bill said he dedicated a semi-sweet red wine, “Mon Pere” to his father, Bill Sr., who died many years ago. He used cuttings from his father’s grape vines to make the wine.

Using his grandfather’s recipe, Ray Bartolai, owner of Bartolai Winery, named “Isadore’s Red” after his grandfather, Isadore Bartolai. “He’s the reason we started this,” he said. Bartolai said his son, R.J., also makes two wines “Fourth Generation Blush” and a red called “Flood Mud.”

Al Kapler and his wife, Jeannie, run Lopez Winery with the help of their daughters, Elizabeth and Katherine. He started growing grapes as a hobby 30 years ago. “I started growing grapes, and one thing led to another,” he said. “Before you know it, you’re in the winery business.”

As a perfect accompaniment to both reds and whites, Dustin Watts offered samples of “Tony Boffa’s” homemade marina sauce with chunks of Italian bread for dipping. Watts, a junior at Misericordia University, partnered with his college roommate, Tom Boffa, to make and market the sauce.

Watts, who is majoring in marketing, said Tom, a business major, approached him last year about fulfilling his grandfather’s dream of making, jarring and marketing the sauce using the recipe that had been used for years in Tom’s father’s Middletown, N.Y., restaurant. “I get out there and knock on doors,” Watts said about his efforts to market the sauce, which is sold in small shops and online. “It’s a healthy, homemade product.”

Other vendors included The Red House Bakery, Very’s Farm Raw Milk and Cheese Products, and Sweet Revenge Jewelry of Dallas.

Handing out complimentary commemorative wine glasses at NEPA Wine Country’s hospitality booth, Dan Tompkins, founder and partner of NEPA Wine Country, said 200 tickets had been sold in advance for the event. “It’s perfectly fine for a small, new festival like this,” he said, pointing out that the event was held for the first time at Pikes Creek Raceway. “All our events are held rain or shine.”

Tompkins said he created NEPA Wine Country to unify the state’s wine industry and to promote the region’s wineries. He founded his organization three years ago by sponsoring bus tours to wineries. “The economy affected the bus tours, but people are willing to embrace festivals,” he said. “With the ‘staycation’ concept, they are more than willing to buy a ticket to attend a wine festival.”