Door Peninsula Winery
Winemakers often find that certain years produce better results than others, and though this year is not quite over, it will certainly be a vintage reserve year for Door Peninsula Winery in Sturgeon Bay.
Corporate Report Wisconsin’s Small Business Success accolades come on the heels of the business being named the Door County Industry of the Year.
“It’s been an exciting year for us,” says Door Peninsula Winery COO Rob Pollman. “But behind those awards, we have a lot of people to thank. We have a great staff here and a pretty smooth running operation now.”
That wasn’t the case when Pollman’s parents first bought the winery in 1984.
“I just asked them about it and they said that their hope was that they didn’t go broke, that they could somehow make a living doing this,” chuckles Pollman. “It’s true.”
Rob Pollman came on board at the winery about 15 years ago, a point in the corporate history when his parents hopes were just starting to come to fruition.
“The business was starting to turn the corner at that point,” he says. “My goal was to keep growing the business, to continue looking for new ideas to make things successful.”
And he has. The largest producer of wine in the state of Wisconsin — and Door County’s original winery— continues to make an impressive showing at international wine competitions year after year.
Since 1984, the winery has tripled its retail area and production space, added a restaurant and is now one of the largest wineries in the Midwest, producing 50,000 cases of wine annually.
“We are known for our fruit wines, and we started out by relying on juice from cherries and apples produced here in Door County,” says Pollman. “About seven or eight years ago, we started blending those fruit juices with grapes, which has since become a big trend. We always try to stay ahead of the game.”
While some of the grapes used in those blends are brought in from southwest Wisconsin, the winery also started producing its own grape harvest, and the vines were planted and continue to be maintained by winery staff. No pesticides are used in the small, hand-tended, eight-acre vineyard and herbicides are applied only occasionally through spot application.
In July 2007 Door Peninsula Winery started efforts to be more environmentally responsible in all aspects of growing, production, fulfillment and sales. For example, approximately 7,200 wine bottles (about nine pallets) from the retail area/sampling bar are recycled annually along with 550 cubic yards of cardboard. The winery is currently seeking Travel Green certification from the state of Wisconsin and plans to continue their green habits regardless of the certification.
Door Peninsula Winery now has 12 year-round and 18 seasonal employees. Last year, approximately 225,000 visitors went through the production space and enjoyed a guided wine tour at the facility.
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