On a lazy stretch of Route 302 passing through Casco, Blacksmith’s Winery sits on a hill, vines exposed.

These vines are part of an on-going experiment by winemaker Steve Lynne to grow Vidal Blanc grapes. The vines have yet to mature and produce fruit, but such is the reality of our harsh Maine winters. Like many wineries in Maine and across the country, Blacksmiths gets the grapes for their wines from growers in other states. The grapes for their red wines come crushed and “cold-soaked” in spring water. Blacksmiths buys pure grape juice for their white wines from these growers as well. Lynne and his business partner David Ulrich then extract the juice, treat it with nutrients and barrel it. And then wait. And wait.

While this may seem an unromantic vision of winemaking, Lynne and Ulrich contend that the process is more science than art.

“The key to wine is balance,” Lynne says. “You balance the sweetness, the acidity, the oak level. The wines that you consider really good probably taste that way because they are in balance.”

“A balance where no one thing overwhelms something else,” Ulrich adds. “You want it to be just a really pleasant experience where you notice a lot of different things going on.”

Lynne and Ulrich began making wine six years ago. At the time, they were importing and selling wine as a wine brokerage. As they learned about winemaking through the wineries they represented as a brokerage, they discovered that many of its principles were similar to water-treatment which Lynne had studied extensively.

“As we were learning more and more about the winemaking process and meeting with winemakers, we realized that Lynne’s background which is water-treatment uses a lot of the same principles as making wine,” Ulrich said, “So whenever he talked to one of the winemakers, he understood exactly what there were talking about. And even though he’d never studied winemaking, most of things he had studied applied. So the concepts were familiar to him. At the same time, retailers in New England were telling us that they couldn’t get enough locally produced wine, especially fruit wines. This was a real unmet demand for them.”

So Lynne and Ulrich decided to stop selling other people’s wine and start making their own. Through their affiliations as a brokerage, they were able to get connected with growers who grew, as Ulrich says, “really good grapes.” In 1999, they purchased a three-bedroom house that used to be an old blacksmith’s shop owned by William Watkins in the early twentieth century. And thus Blacksmith’s Winery was born.

“So we gutted (the back of the house), insulated it, boarded a new floor and put in the drains, and that was all we needed to do to get the winery started,” Ulrich said. “So we were able to start making the wines that winter. Then we started working on the rest of the building to get the gift shop and tasting room ready and those were done just about the same time the first wines were ready. And we opened in May with two wines, a Vidal Blanc and a Blueberry wine.”

Though Blacksmith’s primary focus was on making super-premium wines of many grape varietals at the time, the decision to make blueberry wine was an obvious one.

“There’s a pretty famous winemaker out in Washington whose name is Gary Figgins. One of the things he always said was ‘Try to get your fruit as local as possible so it can be as fresh as possible.'” Lynne said, “We really wanted to support agriculture and the state of Maine, so we decided to make wine from products grown in Maine. Like blueberries. You’re not going to make wine from lobsters. So that’s why we started to make blueberry wine.”

The process of making blueberry wine is a complicated one. Unlike grapes, blueberries have a low sugar level and therefore sugar must be added to ferment properly. After the blueberries have fermented, Lynne blends a little reisling to add “complexity” to the wine which it is otherwise lacking.

This blending of reisling is one reason why Lynne and Ulrich believe the blueberry is so popular. Since its release in May of 2000, its popularity has only grown and so has the business.

“The idea was to start at a thousand cases and then increase by a thousand cases each year,” Ulrich said, “But we grew a lot faster than that. Our first tanks were dairy tanks from dairy farms. We started out very, very low budget and now we’re taking all the proceeds and reinvesting it in higher tech equipment.”

Lynne and Ulrich have just bought a brand-new wine bottler. Before the machine, they had to bottle every wine by hand one bottle at a time. This bottler will also allow them to easily cork their new sparkling fruit wines, such as sparkling blueberry and sparkling cranberry.

Although their fruit wines are fast sellers, Lynne and Ulrich are equally as dedicated to producing super-premium wines from various grape varietals. They buy their grapes by the acreage at two tons per acre. Their grower limits the number of grapes grown per acre so as to not dilute their vitality. Grapes from vineyards that don’t limit the growth would lessen the quality of the wine produced, says Lynne.

Lynne and Ulrich are also particular about their oak. They have 75 French oak barrels of various ages and toasting levels. Lynne carefully selects each barrel for the fermentation of each of the wines. The wines then stay in the barrel for anywhere from several months to several years. After their time in the barrel, the wine receives at least one year in the bottle before they are sold. Right now, their focus is on “quantity of the fruit wines and the quality of the grape wines.”

Blacksmith’s currently produces nine different wines of different grape varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Gris, Vidal Blanc, Sangiovese, Syrah and Chardonnay. They produce six fruit wines as well, including two sparking wines (cranberry and blueberry) and two Port-style wines. Restaurants and wine stores throughout the Lakes Region and Maine sell Blacksmith’s wines. Their winery also holds tastings every day in its tasting room.

Lynne and Ulrich guard no secrets about their winemaking. Visitors to Blacksmith’s are invited both to taste and tour the winery. Lynne feels that the mystery some wineries prefer shroud over the process often excluding many potential wine lovers. Therefore they try to make their wines as accessible as possible. They encourage anyone with an interest in wine to taste everything and not to be afraid to try something new.

“Taste as much wine as you can.” Lynne says, “Drink what you like. Don’t go by price, don’t go by the publications. Drink wine with food.”

“Food plays off wine, wine plays off food and the combination of the two is something completely different than either one would be alone,” Ulrich adds.

“Finding those kinds of combinations, that’s the fun thing to do.” Lynne says, “And that’s what’s most important, to have fun with wines.”

Blacksmiths Winery owners Steve Lynne and David Ulrich stand in the tank room of their Casco winery. This is where the juice for their wines is treated before fermentation.

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