Cinder has a Home
Since setting off on our quest to create Cinder, we've had the good fortune to be able to lease equipment and winery space from several great friends in the Idaho wine industry. As we've grown up this past year though, it became apparent that the sooner we could have our own winery site the better as our friends were running out of room!

So we embarked on an adventure to find a home for Cinder, something that could handle us for the next 2-5 years of growth. Since then, Joe & I have contracted an acute case of what I like to call "forklift envy." It came over us quickly, really without warning. One day we were regular people who would drive by an industrial section of town or a warehouse district without incident but now… we crane our necks to look at things like loading docks, roll up doors and old warehouses. We comment on things like access to the freeway (who wants to be trucking grapes through a residential area?) and square footage rental price…yes, I know, very sexy.

When I walked into a non-descript warehouse in the industrial area of neighboring Garden City I nearly fainted over (not tripped over but nearly fainted over)…the floor drains. We make a wet mess making wine, making floor drains a necessity and this warehouse had plenty of them. It was an old vegetable processing site, where they'd bring in fresh veggies, wash them down, chop them up and bag them for people’s snack food.

It has loading docks, roll up doors, 20+ft interior ceilings, refrigerator units, concrete floors, available 3-phase power and those gorgeous floor drains. The rent was reasonable and the lease terms were long enough that we decided to make a go of it there together.

So thanks to this serendipitous find Cinder will be involved this Fall 2008 in Idaho’s first cooperative winery. Cleaning the place up, having some minor electrical work done and getting our licensing in order are all that remain to be done before we truck in the first grapes sometime this September. Our partners in this “industrial chic” winery are Mike Crowley of Syringa Winery and John Danielson of Vale Wine Company. They will have releases available this fall and coming spring respectively.

We’ll be open for tastings on select weekends this holiday season so please check our website for more details. It will be exciting to offer our customers the chance to try three different labels under one roof and see what they think of an urban winery showcasing the best of Idaho’s wine country. Please do stop by and try some Cinder wines; we’ll even show you our forklift.

-Melanie