Wine FAQ's

Yes, we sure do and yes, it is.  The best Pennsylvania Wines (like ours) hold their own with wines from the West Coast and around the world.  Don’t just take our word for it, though; listen to the professional judges in competitions we have entered.  Our wines have won many significant awards and 90+ scores in California-based wine competitions as well as others across the United States.  Browse our online Wine Store or download our Wine Catalog to learn more about our wines.  No matter your preferred style of wine – classic dry European style reds or whites, semi-dry wines, semi-sweet wines, sparkling wines, sweet wines, ice wines, port, and even Vermouth – we’ve got a Pennsylvania-made wine that you are sure to love and be glad you tried.

Pennsylvania wine grapes are grown in Erie County, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, as well as in other areas of the state, particularly in the southeast quadrant between Harrisburg and Philadelphia.  There are now nearly 600 licensed wineries in Pennsylvania and in some years, by taxed gallonage, Pennsylvania has actually been the fourth largest wine producing state in the US, behind California, Washington, and New York, and just ahead of Oregon! 

Most likely.  We can ship wine ordered by web or phone to 40 of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.  We can ship wine purchased in person at our winery to all but 2 US states – Utah and Mississippi.  Check our “Wine Shipping FAQ’s” page for detailed information about ordering and shipping our wines.

No.  We are proud to make several great tasting, great quality sweet wines for our many customers who enjoy them but we also produce many award-winning dry reds and dry and semi-dry whites and rosés.  For red wines our dry Saudade (a Bordeaux style blend), Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, Teroldego, Blaufränkisch, Dornfelder, and Noiret and our semi-dry Freeport Red have all won several major awards in international competitions.  For white wines, our dry Riesling, Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, and Grüner Veltliner have all won several major awards in international competitions as have our semi-dry Riesling, Freeport White, Freeport Rosé, and the Original (a white blend).  Our Creekside label wines and Blushing Heron rosé are delicious sweet wines.  Our Blusé and Falling Waters and Ancestrale Pet-Nat sparkling wines are delicious semi-sweet wines.  We also make legendary ice-style dessert wines, a port, and a sweet vermouth that are all exquisite.  All in all, we make over 30 different wines that cover the full taste and style spectrum with many unique wines not found elsewhere.  At Presque Isle Wine Cellars you are sure to find a quality-made wine that perfectly suits your palate and we invite you to come taste for yourself!

Yes, our winery at 9440 West Main Road in North East, PA, is open to visitors year-round and we love having guests.  We have a beautiful Creekside location that is available for events and for relaxed lounging, imbibing, and picnicking and toe-dipping in the creek for all our guests.  We are dog friendly and welcome well-behaved dogs and dog Owners to all outdoor areas.  RV Camping is also available to Harvest Hosts members.  

We have a tasting room in our Isle House facility on the winery property at 9488 West Main Road at the corner of US Route 20 and Catholic Cemetery Road.  The Isle House is in a lovely restored farmhouse and offers great food as well as wine tasting and a wine shop.  The Isle House is also available for catering and private events.  Contact Marya Johnson mjohnson@piwine.com if you are interested in learning more.  See our Hours of Operation.

Our full portfolio of wines is available from our online Wine Store, by phone order, and at our lovely Isle House tasting room and café on the winery property at 9488 West Main Road, North East, PA.  Most of our wines are also available at Pennsylvania Libations wine and spirits stores in Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market (right next to Carmen’s) and in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood.  Select varieties of our wines are available at Wegman’s, Giant Eagle, Tops Market, and Country Fair stores in northwestern PA and at Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) Fine Wine and Spirits stores throughout Western Pennsylvania.

All our wines are proudly made from locally grown grapes in the Lake Erie AVA (American Viticultural Area) that includes vineyards climatically affected by Lake Erie from Toledo, OH, through the Pennsylvania “North Coast”, to Buffalo, NY.  The Lake Erie AVA is one of only a few multi-state AVA’s in the US and is the largest AVA by area east of the Rockies.  The vineyards in two adjacent Erie County, Pennsylvania, townships – Harborcreek and North East (where our winery is located) – account for around 90% of the grapes grown in Pennsylvania.   This area is, by planted vineyard acres per acre of land, the second most densely vineyarded area in the country, behind California’s Central Valley.  Virtually all of the vineyards in our area are located in a narrow band between the lake and the first ridge off the lake, known locally as “the escarpment”.  Interstate 90 pretty closely follows the escarpment, so it is effectively the southern boundary of our local vineyard areas.

Well, it can be cold and dreary here and we are up north, although actually not quite as far north as the vineyard areas in Washington State and Oregon.  We are the beneficiaries of a unique micro-climate that has allowed our area to be a productive fruit-growing area, especially for grapes, since the 19th century.  The Lake acts as a heat sink, absorbing and retaining heat all summer and into late fall and providing warm breezes that circulate in the vineyard band, but don’t get beyond the escarpment, and delaying frost onset until well into November.  Even in winter, the Lake helps protect against extreme cold temperatures and provides the moist, “warm” air that contributes to our famous heavy lake effect snows.  While most people think of bitter cold when they think of snow, the snow is actually a fantastic insulating blanket for the grapes, keeping the ground around 32°F no matter what the air temperature is – quite comfortable for our grape varieties. In spring, the cold lake water helps keep temperatures cooler and delays budding beyond typical last frost; so we get protection at both ends.  Also, the sloped terrain from the Lake up to the escarpment allows cold air to “slide off” the land rather than having it sit and do its nasty work on the grapes.  In our Pennsylvania section of the Lake Erie AVA the Lake is deeper and the escarpment is closer to it than anywhere else in the AVA, so the positive effects of the micro-climate are most amplified, to the point there we have a nearly 200-day average frost-free season!  Compare this with average growing seasons in some other well-known grape growing areas – the New York Finger Lakes (169 days), Washington’s Columbia Valley (163 days), Oregon’s Willamette Valley (185 days), and the Texas High Plains (211 days).

With regard to sun, we do have a lot of dreary days and our sun profile is pretty similar to Seattle, WA.  We tend to be fairly sunny and dry, though, from late July through early October.  So, we have really nice late summers and we get our sunshine just when the grapes need it for good ripening.  We also use vineyard techniques such as cluster thinning (selective culling of nascent bunches to control the number of bunches and optimize bunch development) and leaf plucking to maximize the impact of our limited sun resource.