Welcome to Wines By Design!
We are a full service, on-premises wine making facility and wine-making kit supplier, located in Rochester NY. If you’re interested in making your own wine, come on in and we can help! We have hosted families, small groups, wedding parties and corporate team building events.
Or, if you are already an experienced vintner and are simply looking for supplies, we can help with that too. While our primary focus is wine-kits, check in with us, if we don’t have it in stock, we can probably get it for you!
For more detail on how your time will be spent making your very own wine, please see: our process.
Wedding
Why not share your special day with all your guests? Let them take home part of your special day, a bottle of your very own wedding vintage.
A Night At Home
What’s better than a night by the fire, some artisan cheese and a bottle of terrific wine you’ve made yourself?
Wedding orig
Why not share your special day with all your guests? Let them take home part of your special day, a bottle of your very own wedding vintage.
Continuing Education – Orig
Looking for something to do? Got four nights free? How about joining one of the local CE classes, we’ll show you how to make your very own delicious wine!
Rosé
Rosé
Rosé is style of wine that has a slight red tinge to it. Traditionally, color has been added by adding grape skins to the wine, but not long enough to qualify it as a red wine. Alternatively, red wine is sometimes blended with white to achieve the desired color.
This year, we have a limited number of Rosé kits from Winexpert. On the drier side (it’s a Sauvignon Blanc base), it should have slight citrus notes.
From Winexpert: Offering up tropical notes of pineapple and white peach with raspberry and cherry. The off-dry finish is balanced by expressive acidity for a refreshing, crisp wine that’s great on its own or with your favorite seafood dish.
For additional background on rosé wine, there’s a really nice article from the nice folks at Wine Folly. It discusses various tastes available in rosé wine, as well as how rosé wines are made. You can view the article here.
Sauvignon Blanc not your thing?
We have other blushes available too for your summer enjoyment! How’s about some other offerings from Winexpert, like:
- White Merlot
Take Merlot. Make it a blush. Voila – a Merlot like you’ve never experienced! Fresh strawberries abound in the aromas and flavours of this medium-pink rose style wine, capped by a crisp finish that’s slightly drier than a typical blush. Bright fruit and generous acidity make it a brilliant food pairing wine. Try it with salads, appetizers, fruits – even BBQs and spicy cuisine. - White Zinfandel
This blush favourite displays the trademark pink hues and a soft, refreshing taste that make it particularly enjoyable as a chilled delight on a summer afternoon. Must be tried to be believed. - Pink Moscato
Light and refreshing on the palate with flavours of fresh strawberry, raspberry and cherry.
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Original Source: What Really is Rose Wine? –The Pink Stuff
2017 Wine Tasting Results
The 2017 Wine Tasting Results are in!
But, before we share the results of our Wine Tasting event, just a quick: “Thank You”!
To those of you who contributed: Thanks for sharing your wine. They were all delicious!
To those of you who stopped by, tasted, and voted: Thanks for all of your “hard work”!
It was a pleasure to see all of you (and meet some of you). It’s always a fun time for us, we trust that it was for you as well.
Now, let’s get to the 2017 Wine Tasting Results:
We had enough entries to split to FOUR categories!: Red, White, Fruit, and Dessert Wines. The wine receiving the highest number of votes in each individual category will receive a $50 Wines By Design Gift Certificate.
Additionally, an Overall Winner (the winner with the greatest number of votes) will receive an additional $50 Gift Certificate.
Our 2017 Winners were:
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Congratulations to this year’s winners!
We’re looking forward to next year’s event, so set one bottle of that “special wine” aside for your next chance to win!
Reminder: You can keep up to date with what’s happening at Wines By Design by signing up for our newsletter on our Contact page.
This year’s entries (because some of you asked):
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Limited Edition wines – 2016
Welcome to LE16, a showcase of five outstanding limited edition wines from some of the world’s most renowned regions.
Winexpert has begun to release their 2016 limited edition wines. This year, we have brought in all five options. See below for Winexpert’s descriptions.
Please note: Winexpert are releasing these gradually. As a result, we don’t have all of them yet (but we WILL!), so please drop us a note or give us a call if you’d like to check on availability.
Blanc de Noir
Blanc de Noirs is a French term that translates to a white wine made from dark grapes. Pinot Noir, which many wine experts argue is the greatest red wine grape in the world, is used for this particular wine. By quickly removing the skins from the juice after the grapes have been pressed, the pigment from the skins is not transferred to the juice and you have all the beautiful complexities of Pinot Noir while keeping the colour light and the tannins at bay. This wine, with its crab apple and strawberry driven nose and white peach and grapefruit palate pairs well with delicate dishes. Splurge on poached lobster or enjoy with eggs benedict for your next Sunday brunch.
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Cabernet Franc
Cabernet Franc is a grape with so much to offer, yet most of the winemaking world blends it with other varieties to make a ‘Bordeaux’ style blend. There’s good reason to celebrate this grape on its own. It can tread the line between fruit and spice notes magnificently with ripe raspberry and red currant dancing around with black pepper and fresh mint leaf. There is a solid backbone of tannin to provide mouth-feel and structure, and it can pair with a range of foods due to its medium-full body status. Play up the herbaceous elements and enjoy it with rosemary-crusted lamb or cozy up in the winter with a paprika-rich bowl of Goulash stew.
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Grenache Cab
Cabernet Sauvignon, the undisputed “king” of grapes, is a big, bold character that has strong tannins in his youth, yet unwinds himself with age to a smooth, velvety texture that is worth waiting for. Flavours like black currant (cassis) jam, cigar box and black olive. Grenache is the yin to Cabernet Sauvignon’s yang. It’s both soft and jammy to balance out the powerful structure of Cabernet, yet rich and spicy enough to stand up to him. Flavours like red licorice, black cherry and raspberry combine with warm vanilla and spice that rounds out the blend perfectly. Enjoy this wine with bold protein-rich dishes like grilled steak on the barbecue or wild mushroom risotto if meat is not on the menu.
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Milagro
Blending grapes together is an art, with of course a bit of science, and the grapes here are perfectly suited. Three of Spain’s great red varieties, Tempranillo, Garnacha and Bobal bring their lush and hedonistic qualities to pair the full-bodied and well-structured friends Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. Together, you have a wine with a range of black and red fruit characteristics, cherry cola, anise and white pepper and a powerful yet supple mouthful. Pair this with braised beef, a big wedge of Manchego cheese, or the region’s famous specialty, Paella.
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Vermentino
Although rare in North America, in Italy the Vermentino grape is a white star. Think of flavours like white peach, green apple, fresh lime and even a bit of dried tarragon on the finish. On the palate, it has a quenching acidity that makes your mouth water with delight and a delicate weight that allows this wine to be sip-worthy on its own. Although perfect on its own on a warm summer day, this wine also pairs beautifully with regional Italian cuisine like pasta tossed in olive oil with fresh shellfish or simply with grilled Mediterranean vegetables.
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2017 Wine Tasting event
It’s almost time for the 2017 Wine Tasting Event!
You’ve worked hard perfecting your wines here at Wines By Design and once again, you have a chance to show it off. On Saturday, April 29 from 11a – 3p we are holding our annual competitive tasting event.
The store will be closed for “normal” business, the day is devoted to the event!
Special bonus: All attendees will receive an Owners discount of 15% off all wine kits during the event.
You are allowed to submit up to 3 bottles per person for the 3 entry categories: Red, White and Dessert/Fruit. Your wine will be moved into numbered bottles and you will be the judge in the blind tasting. The highest scored wines will be the winner in each category and the highest scoring of those will be named Best of Show. Best of Show wins a $100 gift certificate at WBD and the other two winners will each receive a $50 gift certificate to WBD.
To enter, turn in your bottles at the store before Friday, April 28 (contest closing time is 7p).
For the day of the event: there will be a $5 fee for those not contributing a bottle of their finest vino. (Contest entrants are free!)
Note: This is limited to wine made in the Wines By Design store (from our kits). This does not include wine made from fresh juice.
A quick recap (TL;DR):
- Drop off up to 3 bottles per person by April 28 at 7p.
- Join us for wine judging on April 29 beginning at 11a.
- See how your wines stack up against all the WBD competition!
Information
Address:
Contact Us:
Business Hours:
| Tue – Fri: | 3:30p – 7:30p |
| Sat: | 9:00a – 2:00p |
| Sun & Mon: | CLOSED |
Continuing Education
Looking for something to do? Got four nights free? How about joining one of classes, we’ll show you how to make your very own delicious wine!
Wedding
Why not share your special day with all your guests? Let them take home part of your special day, a bottle of your very own wedding vintage.
A Night at Home
What’s better than a night by the fire, some artisan cheese and a bottle of terrific wine you’ve made yourself?
We heard many great things about you, so we decided to check you out for ourselves.
(BTW: They were right!)
We cannot say enough good things about Wines By Design. The quality of the wine is better than most bottles of wine you can buy at the store, plus you get to tell your friends and family you made it on your own!