Microwinery Takes Root In Basement

by Val Cavalheri, Special to The Washington Post

Thursday, September 20, 2007

When Jay DeCianno takes you on a tour of his winery, you’ll first have to pass through his living room, say hello to his wife and daughters and probably pet the dog.

But when you reach the basement, the signs of serious winemaking are hard to miss: steel tanks, crushers, ultramodern bottling equipment and ruby red bottles of aging wine. It’s almost enough to make you forget that this is South Riding, about as far away as you can get from rolling hills of sun-kissed vines.

DeCianno’s basement houses what’s known in the trade as an urban microwinery. Instead of growing their own grapes, these wineries truck in grapes from other regions to produce handcrafted wines in limited quantities.

Quattro Goombas Winery, the company launched by DeCianno and his two business partners, celebrated the commercial release of its first wines with a tasting Sunday at a local store. It was not only a milestone for their business but the fulfillment of a plan that had aged slowly over many relaxed dinner-table conversations.

They met almost by accident. DeCianno, 48, David Camden, 44, and David Gaetani, 50, each had a daughter on a local swim team. The three men discovered that they shared an Italian background, and friendly talks soon led to big dinners among their families.

Things might have simply continued in that vein if Gaetani hadn’t decided one day to bring a bottle of wine that his brother-in-law had made. As the three talked about how the wine could have been improved, they realized they had more in common than their Italian heritage. They also shared a family tradition of winemaking.

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A Loudoun Winery

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On top, David Gaetani (CEO and winemaker) oversees the operation. Grapes are being loaded into the crusher. Below, Gaetani's son, Sean, moves the crushed grapes around in the container. The Quattro Goombas Winery is in the basement of Jay DeCianno's home in South Riding. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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Signs on the basement wall of Quattro Goombas Winery in South Riding. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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Taylor Evans and Sean Gaetani carry out the empty crates of grapes at Quattro Goombas Winery. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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Grapes going into the crusher at the Quattro Goombas Winery. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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On top David Gaetani, David Camden and Jay DeCianno put grapes into the crusher. On left, Gina DeCianno (daughter of Jay) brings crates of grapes in from the other room. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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Down in his basement in South Riding, Jay DeCianno pushes grapes into the crusher. Today they will crush 150 cases of grapes. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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The owners of Quattro Goombas Winery from left, David Camden (CFO), Jay DeCianno (COO), David Gaetani (CEO and Winemaker), and Diana Sandone (David's sister). (Tracy A. Woodward)

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DeCianno’s and Gaetani’s grandfathers had made wine in Italy. Camden said he, too, had winemaking in his blood, although the ingredients in his father’s wine were Virginia berries rather than Italian grapes.

That conversation in summer 2005 led them to consider making some wine “just for family and friends.” DeCianno volunteered his basement, and after comparing their winemaking notes and taking on another friend, Brian Girardi, they spent a few hundred dollars apiece to buy some kegs and enough grapes to make 40 gallons.

Their dinners continued, but now each one was scheduled around that week’s winemaking.

One evening, after a tasting revealed they were on to something really good, Camden gave birth to their name. “This is great. This is us — the Quattro Goombas!” he said, coming up with a phrase that is Italian slang for “four friends.”

Before long, they noticed that their wine was starting to get rave reviews from people outside their immediate families. “They told us, ‘You should think about doing this seriously,’ and we started to think about doing it seriously,” DeCianno said.

He made an unrelated business trip to the West Coast in late 2005. While he was there, he read a story about some urban microwineries and visited them. When he returned, DeCianno introduced the concept to his associates as “something we can do here in Virginia.”

The partners immersed themselves in learning all they could about commercial winemaking, consulting closely with other oenologists. One was Tony Ciccone, the father of pop singer Madonna; he was a successful winemaker who had once worked with DeCianno at General Dynamics in Michigan.

“At first we checked into buying a vineyard,” Gaetani said. “But the advantage of the urban winery business model is the ability to source grapes from around the world.”

DeCianno agreed. “We didn’t want to be farmers. We didn’t want our business to live or die by weather conditions,” he said. “We only want to use the best grapes. If New Zealand has a bumper crop, then that’s where we’re going.”

As they began to think seriously about opening a business, Girardi realized that he couldn’t commit enough time to the project and bowed out. The three others incorporated their business, got a liquor license, kicked in a few thousand dollars and bought some high-tech winemaking equipment.

They trucked in their first shipment of grapes from California, crushing them in September 2006, blending them in May and bottling 100 cases in June. The three resulting wines, which were featured in Sunday’s tasting at the WineStyles store in South Riding, are Vino di Nonni (“grandfather’s wine”), Vino di San Pietro (named for a region in Italy where one of the grandfathers lived) and Vino d’Ana (named for Gaetani’s sister Diana).

Quietly fermenting in DeCianno’s basement are an additional 400 cases of wine, made from Chilean grapes, which was bottled in May. And Quattro Goombas received a new shipment of grapes on Saturday.

So have they quit their day jobs? Not yet. What did change, however, was the division of labor at the winery as the three realized it would be more efficient if each of them focused on a specialty. DeCianno, an engineer with a master’s degree in business administration, is the company’s chief operating officer and deals with the day-to-day running of the business. Gaetani, who works in the telecom industry, is chief executive and has evolved into the lead winemaker, picking yeast and working with additives. Camden, a banker who recently moved to Richmond, is the chief financial officer.

They plan to open a second location in Loudoun County or Fairfax County in the spring, either renting or buying the space, which they will use to produce about 2,500 cases a year. DeCianno’s basement will remain the company’s headquarters and a place where they can do test batches.

Camden said the trio’s goal is to be “the Ben and Jerry’s of winemaking.”

“We’re not schooled winemakers. We just know what we like,” he said. “It’s a beautiful marriage.”

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