Photos by Alexis Tarrazi
Gene Ventimiglia owner of the Wantage winery tends to his vineyard.
WANTAGE — Take a turn down a gravel road and into the woods and you will come across fields of grapes grown straight from Sussex County soil that will soon be fermented and bottled into wine. Gene Ventimiglia owner of the family-run Ventimiglia Vineyards in Wantage takes great pride in being a New Jersey winery and the only farm winery in Sussex County.
“All of our wines are 100 percent Jersey grown, with the exception of two wines,” Ventimiglia said. Those two wines — Carignane and Fratelli Ventimiglia — are crafted in Ventimiglia’s grandfather’s honor using the Carignane grape grown from his grandfather’s village in Italy.
“I was always around wine growing up,” Ventimiglia said. “My grandfather made wine and I helped.”
Alexis Tarrazi 