While the term ‘winery’ can conjure romanticized visions of idyllic, rolling vineyards, an urban winery is located in an urban setting and will grow, or purchase its fruit from a remote vineyard site. Once collected, grapes are then transported to the urban winery, or another site, where winemaking and ageing techniques are implemented before the wines are brought direct to you.

We don’t own vineyards. We contract our grapes directly from experienced growers, then custom crush our fruit in Napa Valley before bringing finished barrels to our tasting room. This unique aspect allows us access to cutting edge winemaking technology with the industry’s leading experts. This also gives us the freedom to source grapes from proven areas where they produce their best wines such as Napa Valley for Cabernet Sauvignon, and Russian River Valley for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

‘Growlers’ have long been recognized as a transport vehicle in the craft beer industry. Simply, it’s any container that is designed to be securely covered with the intention of filling (or refilling) it with wine for purposes of off-premise consumption. Our wine growlers were expertly designed with craft precision keeping function and aesthetics in mind to create a sustainable alternative to bottle use.

Each wine growler serves to protect the integrity of our small-batch wines, and can double as an elegant keepsake. Please note that wine growlers are for off-premise consumption only. We are not permitted by law to offer Wine Growlers on site.

At LJ Crafted Wines, we take container cleanliness VERY seriously by accepting full responsibility for the hygiene of our bottle practices. We offer a wine growler exchange program with standards set to adhere with all state and local health regulations using NSF approved, industrial-grade cleaning technology. Each wine growler that is returned empty, is replaced with a freshly sanitized one meeting Alcohol & Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau compliance to ensure that our wine travels from its barrel to the comfort of your home completely clean and without contamination. New, sanitized wine growlers are available for purchase onsite, and un-sanitized wine growlers are never used. We encourage consumption within one week’s time to ensure optimal freshness. Outside containers are not permitted.

The role of oxygen is pivotal in its relationship to wine. Too little can create a tight, reductive wine with little to no expressiveness, while too much oxygen can reshape the wine where it begins to lose freshness and eventually becomes vinegary. We use our innovative, patent-pending, displacement device which replaces wine with inert (still) gas at a low pressure to create an oxygen-free environment for our wines. This is not wine in a box, nor a bladder in a barrel.

Aside from being a wonderfully eco-friendly way to consume wine, when served direct from the barrel, wine often tastes better. Commercial practices require the addition of standard preservatives and filtration to the final product before a wine is bottled. We believe this process can reduce the character of wine, so we’ve devised a system to preserve the complexity of our wines offering you an enchanting barrel tasting experience that’s authentic.