New winery coming to west-central Ohio

A new winery is in the works in — where else — Champaign County. And, it will be located just up the road from the village of — wait for it — Catawba.

Folck Winery has applied for the necessary state permits to operate a tasting room and winery at 6843 N. Urbana-Lisbon Road (Ohio 54), about a mile south of Ohio 4, between Springfield and Mechanicsburg.

The new winery will be located at Folck Family Farm, which also grows and sells strawberries, blackberries and red raspberries just north of the Champaign-Clark county line.

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“The whole plan is to make wine out of the fruit we grow right here on the farm,” founder and owner Robert Folck told this news outlet.

The winery’s signature product will likely be strawberry wine, but Folck said he intends to produce multiple styles ranging from dry to sweet. Blackberry and raspberry-based wines also will be on the tasting menu, he said.

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Folck is shooting to open a tasting room that will be added to the family’s two-story farm market building at the farm’s entrance in May 2018 — “in time for Mother’s Day,” he said.

There are no current plans to plant a vineyard of wine grapes, Folck said.

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Several Ohio wineries produce fruit-based wines, in a variety of styles and sweetness levels, sometimes blending with grape-based wine, and sometimes producing wine solely from the juice of other fruits. A blackberry wine produced by Brandeberry Winery near Enon in Clark County captured first place in the 2017 Ohio Wine Competition for "Best Fruit Wine."

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Folck said his family has been farming since the 1800s. The 17-acre Folck Family Farm also breeds award-winning pigs, sells show pigs, and sells pork products.

For more information, check out the Folck Family Farm Facebook page.

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