As a kid growing up in South Philadelphia, Tom Caruso helped his grandfather make homemade wine on the sidewalk. It was an annual tradition in their Italian community, and one that brought friends and family together over the years. A few decades and many miles later, Caruso is back in Philly making wine at his winery, Pray Tell Wines. His path to winemaking in his home city has taken him throughout wine regions both legendary and unsung.
Tom Caruso
We spoke with Caruso about wine tourism, present and future. This immersive form of travel centers on experiences like wine tastings, winery and vineyard tours, behind-the-scenes looks at wine production and meeting winemakers and sommeliers. Individual wineries and entire wine regions can offer wine tourism at varying scales. Join us as we explore the options available to you in Pennsylvania and beyond!
Local Vines & Wines
One of the best ways to dip your toes in wine tourism is by getting to know the wineries close to you. Pennsylvania is home to well over 400 wineries found on sprawling countryside estates and nestled into bustling city centers. You can view a map of them on PennsylvaniaWine.com, and create your own itinerary by zip code, experience type and preferred wine styles.
Pray Tell Wines is among a growing number of urban wineries in Philadelphia that act as hubs for gathering, community and wine education. Caruso made the switch from making wine in “wine country” on the west coast to setting up shop in a family-owned warehouse in Fishtown.
“It’s definitely different,” he says, “to go from making wine in a very strong agricultural community to being in a major city where you’ve got a bit of distance from where the grapes are being grown. On the one hand, our proximity to the industry and vineyards is a little more remote, but our access to wine drinkers, right here, is amazing. We get to have this really lovely, earnest rapport with our customer base and conversations almost daily about tasting notes and the wines and our story. It’s wonderful to make something with your own two hands and then be able to present that to people, face to face.”
PA grown Gamay Noir grapes at Pray Tell
Many urban wineries in Philadelphia produce wine just steps from the tasting room, including Pray Tell Wines and nearby Mural City Cellars. Likewise, Kavic Winery (Pittsburgh), Yori Wine Cellars (North East), Mark & Val Wines (Columbia and York) and The Renegade Winery (Stroudsburg) all produce wines onsite at their urban winery locations.
The close proximity of consumers to production in urban wineries allows for numerous learning experiences. Caruso says, “There’s always an emphasis on education and exploration, talking about how we make wines and the agricultural growing seasons. We do everything from processing grapes to bottling in the building. We’re able to demystify the wine making process by not keeping things behind a mysterious curtain but, rather, showcasing and literally pointing to equipment and saying, ‘The flavors you’re picking up from that wine are from a deliberate decision we made to use that machine right there.’ We have two different types of grape presses, a basket press and a bladder press, and we’ll talk about those differences with the visual cues. Right now, it’s harvest season, so when you walk into the building, you literally smell the active fermentation – a kind of candied, confectionary smell.”
Caruso cleaning equipment
While urban wineries often bring you close to production, suburban and rural wineries offer bucolic vistas, vineyard tours and vineyard experiences. These allow you to see the grapes on the vines at various phases and even watch their harvest. You’ll find spectacular vineyard experiences across the Commonwealth including old vine tours, dinners and yoga in the vineyard at Penns Woods Winery (Chadds Ford), vineyard movie nights at Grovedale Winery & Vineyards (Wyalusing), vineyard tours at Happy Valley Vineyard & Winery (State College), yoga in the vineyard at The Winery at Longshot Farm (Carlisle), vineyard and winery tours at Narcisi Winery (Gibsonia) and Blue Mountain Vineyards and Cellars (New Tripoli), music in the vineyard at Penn Shore Winery (North East) and picnic in the vineyard and meet the winemaker tours at Courtyard Winery (North East).
Vineyard exploration at Penns Woods Winery
Many PA wineries have calendars chock full of immersive fun including wine dinners, wine pairings, wine tastings and special events for wine club members. At Pray Tell Wines, Caruso holds “pickup parties” for wine club members gathering their quarterly selections as well as guided tastings, available to any tasting room visitors. He says, “We offer tasting flights and talk through those. Similarly, we’ve done vertical tastings with six or so vintages of a wine like Chardonnay. We taste all six side by side and do an in-depth review of what each vintage variation looks and tastes like, discussing the soil and how conditions affect the vines. Those tend to be opportunities to get very dorky about wine, which I always love.”
Caruso leads a wine tasting at Pray Tell Wines
Beyond urban and estate wineries, there’s a growing trend of winery satellite locations, bridging the gap between remote vineyards and more densely populated areas. WayVine Winery and Vineyard in rural Nottingham has a tasting room/pasta restaurant in Fishtown called Tulip Pasta & Wine Bar and another tasting room in downtown Kennett Square. Similarly, Chaddsford Winery (Chadds Ford) operates a bottle shop and tasting room adjacent to Bucks County shopping center Peddler’s Village and a seasonal pop-up wine garden in Fishtown.
Wayvine’s Tulip Pasta & Wine Bar
Some wineries offer overnight stays, which allow you to absorb the winery’s cadence and spend more time up close to its terroir. Armstrong Valley Vineyards & Winery (Halifax) offers stays in its granary and summer kitchen guest houses. The Inn at Grace Winery (Glen Mills) offers three types of accommodations, which come with wine discounts. And Deer Creek Winery (Shippenville and Uniontown) has a pair of lovely bed and breakfasts available for overnight stays.
Regional Wine Tourism
As we zoom out from individual wineries to regional clusters and viticultural areas, some spectacular itineraries come together. Exploration is made simpler by organized wine trails that plot out your journey in places like Berks County, the Brandywine Valley, Bucks County, Central PA, Lake Erie and the Susquehanna Heartland. Many other regional tourist organizations offer wine trails and winery lists on their websites, so try searching for your own town to see what’s around you.
Another way to “taste the region” (and beyond!) is through wine festivals, which bring together numerous wineries for a one-stop-experience. The annual PA Wines Harvest Celebration includes over 15 PA wineries for an exquisite day of wine tasting, cheese pairings, educational programming and relaxation.
Vineyard at PA Wine Harvest Celebration venue Stone Gables Estate
Other annual wine events to check out include the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg in January, complete with a wine competition, and the Seven Springs Wine Festival, a weekend-long celebration of Pennsylvania wines held in southwestern PA in August.
You can also explore wine by zeroing in on the state’s American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) and Pennsylvania Viticultural Areas (PVAs). Travel through these regions and get to know how the unique terroir and climate are expressed in the grapes. Note the varietals common to the region and ask a lot of questions while tasting.
Hotspots and Must-Try Itineraries
We’ve all got our dream destinations and running bucket lists. We asked Caruso about wine tourism he’d love to experience as well as itineraries and resources he’d suggest to others.
First on his list is Champagne, France. “That’s probably the top of my list right now because it is such a departure from what we do [at Pray Tell Wines], as we don’t currently make any sparkling wines. The infrastructure to make wines in a traditional method requires a lot more space and time for it to come to fruition and be ready to drink. I think going to a place that has such a rich history and, obviously, a distinct style of winemaking would be illuminating.”
Champagne vineyards in France
Beyond other classic wine regions like Burgundy in eastern France and parts of Italy, Caruso would love to visit Croatia, known for its ancient winemaking tradition and small, picturesque vineyards. Croatia has four distinct wine regions recognized for crisp white wines, bold red wines and natural wine production with over 130 indigenous wine grape varieties. Caruso says, “You get a lot of really cool skin contact-style white wine out that way. It’s lesser known, and it can be a rewarding experience looking at less explored, less talked-about regions and seeing people who are doing really honest work in those areas.”
Vineyards in Croatia
Within the United States, Caruso says, “There’s a lot of interesting stuff happening in Texas and it sounds like Michigan’s wine scene has a percolating, fun energy. And there’s exciting stuff happening all over the East Coast and mid-Atlantic region. You have a lot of states in really close proximity, sharing terroir and climate. There’s a range of really bright, aromatic white wines being grown in the Lehigh Valley and out in the Finger Lakes of New York down through more robust, concentrated red wines in Maryland and Adams County, Pennsylvania.”
A vineyard tour at Galen Glen in the Lehigh Valley
For wine tourism within Philadelphia, Caruso suggests the Fishtown and Olde Kensington corridor with some fantastic spots for sipping and savoring wine in this vibrant, walkable part of the city:
Drink:
- Pray Tell Wines. 1615 N. Hancock St., Philadelphia; no phone.
- Mural City Wine Cellars. 1831 Frankford Ave., Philadelphia; (215) 291-9161.
- LeoFigs (coming soon!). 2201 Frankford Ave., Philadelphia; no phone.
Eat:
- Emmett for macro Mediterranean, a thoughtful, PA-focused wine menu and frequent pairings and wine education events. 161 W. Girard Ave., Philadelphia; (215) 207-0161.
- Middle Child Clubhouse for casual, all-day fare with an always-rotating selection of natural wines. 1232 N. Front St., Philadelphia; (267) 858-4325.
- Pizzeria Bedilla for fantastic pizza and small bites paired with a global wine list. 1313 North Lee St., Philadelphia; (267) 298-2256.
Guests dining at Emmett
Caruso also recommends Chloé Grigri’s wine-focused bars and restaurants throughout the city, including French inspired Supérette wine bar and mini market (Passyunk Square), modern French restaurant The Good King Tavern and moody little wine bar, La Caveau (Bella Vista), and charming wine and small plates bar Superfolie (Rittenhouse).
Outside of the city, Caruso suggests a jaunt to the nearby Brandywine Valley area, where you’ll find the likes of WayVine, Vox Vineti and Va La Vineyards with Penns Woods Winery and Grace Winery nearby.
Guests at Inn at Grace Winery
Farther out, you’ll find Lancaster’s thriving food scene coupled with wineries like Waltz Vineyards Estate Winery. Downtown eateries like Luca and Passerine offer artfully curated wine lists with some PA wines in the mix. “You could go to the PA Renaissance Faire at Mount Hope Estate & Winery, go to Waltz Vineyards and then end up in town for an amazing dinner,” says Caruso.
For exploring and learning from home, Caruso suggests podcasts like ‘I’ll Drink to That!’, ‘Delicious City,’ and the Oregon Wine History Podcast.
Caruso reflects on finding his way back to winemaking in Pennsylvania. “I moved to Oregon because it was the shortest chapter in any textbook on wine. It was always just a couple of pages of mention. Then I moved Pray Tell to Pennsylvania, where we don’t even get a chapter. We’re listed under ‘other regions.’ Even though Pennsylvania has a really rich history and strong infrastructure for viticulture, I think we are in the beginning stages of a bigger community of winemakers. I hope we can contribute to the conversation and get the region talked about and recognized for the good things people are doing here.”
Pray Tell Wines is open Thursday through Saturday, 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. and by appointment. For a spectacular start to your wine tourism journey, check out its inaugural Rising Tides tasting event on Sunday, October 26, which brings together 20+ PA wines and winemakers from Waltz Vineyards Estate Winery, WayVine, Mural City Cellars and more. Follow Pray Tell Wines on Instagram to stay in the loop! 1615 N. Hancock St., Philadelphia; no phone.
The PA Vines & Wines series was created in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Wine Association.
The Pennsylvania Winery Association (PWA) is a trade association that markets and advocates for the limited licensed wineries in Pennsylvania.
