Vino Culture
Urban winery Revel OTR blends Italian heritage with an easygoing ethos
It’s true that blood may be thicker than water, but there’s more than a color palette that bonds blood to wine — especially when you’re talking about a family of Italians with viticulture in their veins. The son of Italian immigrants, Anthony Maieron grew up watching his father make wine with his friends in the garage of his family’s Indiana home, drinking out of juice glasses from the cupboard instead of something with a stem and generally embracing la bella vita.
“When you look at winemaking in general, that’s a very Italian thing,” Maieron says. “My mom grew up in Italy, in Naples, and she grew up on a vineyard; it was definitely the way of life.”
Today, that family tradition of culture, cultivation and unpretentious winemaking — and wine drinking — is the base upon which Maieron’s urban winery Revel OTR is built, bottle by bottle and juice glass by juice glass.
“(My dad) taught me how to make wine when I was really little,” says Maieron, who co-owns Revel with his wife Jodi, business partners John and Amy Coleman and master vintner Alex Sena. “And I thought to myself that was something that I would love to do.”
But first came college, followed by a seven-year stint near Oregon’s Willamette Valley wine country before Maieron and Jodi moved back to the Midwest to be closer to his parents.
“When I moved here, my dad asked me if I wanted to take over the winemaking and I was like abso-freaking-lutely,” Maieron says.
His father insisted he find someone to make wine with him, so Maieron tapped Coleman, a co-worker and friend from Cincinnati Bell who agreed to the prospect with a hearty “hell yeah.”
“So my parents came into Cincinnati and mom cooked a big meal and my dad went to the garage with J.C. and me and we set up everything, and he just taught me again what I used to do when I was little and we took it from there,” Maieron says. “Our first batch was in big wine jugs — it actually said ‘altar wine’ on the outside of it — and that’s how we served our wine; straight-up hooch style.”
Revel's wine served with juice glasses // Photo: Hailey Bollinger
The hobby was a hit with friends and at parties and year after year the duo improved their craft — buying better grapes, finding better barrels and continuing to make wine in the garage. Then in 2009, five years into the vino venture, a wine-savvy friend urged them to make a batch with some real production-grade vinafera, so they sourced merlot grapes from California.
“We killed it,” Maieron says. “It was a big step for us.”
Maieron and Coleman continued to import grapes from growers on the West Coast until they were able to make a consistent, repeatable quality product — a cabernet sauvignon — and that’s when their wine went from a party favor and client gift to something people actually wanted to buy.
“That’s when the liquor commission is like, ‘Well, you can’t make (wine) in your house unless you want to turn your house into a winery,’ ” Maieron says. “And that’s when it was getting crazy — J.C. wanted to do four barrels and that’s when my wife said we had to get out. It all hit at once.”
So Coleman’s wife, Amy, suggested they buy a property in Over-the-Rhine, something inexpensive they could fix up to use as a production facility and storehouse.
“We were working with a lot of people who wanted to lease to us, but the problem with us is that we really did want to own the building to have something that we could pass on to generations,” Maieron says. “We were just going to buy a building north of Liberty and distribute when we found this building. It was perfect for us because we can make our wine, it’s the right temperature down in the basement, and we can grow into the space. We can have a wine bar, have an event space, have a rooftop terrace, foot traffic. It has all the stuff you’d want in an urban winery.”
With the expansion into the now-renovated building on 12th Street in OTR came the need for an expert: a winemaker who had experience scaling production for a larger operation. That’s when a friend introduced Maieron to Sena, Revel’s master winemaker. Sena had been mentored by locals like Joe Henke of Henke Winery and Greg Pollman of Valley Vineyards. He and Maieron met for a beer on a Tuesday “and we were crushing grapes on a Friday,” Sena says.
Revel's wooden grape press // Photo: Hailey Bollinger
Currently, Revel can age 44 barrels at a time. Each shipment of grapes is taken to the basement via rope-pulley elevator and manually pressed through an old-school wood-slat basket press. Sangiovese is Revel’s flagship wine and a cabernet should be ready in a couple of months. White wines are also coming soon, Coleman says.
Working with a Cleveland-based, family-run grape broker, the idea is to stay dynamic and find out which varietals are having a great vintage to make the best, most affordable wines for customers. That’s also the thinking behind Revel’s wine list, which offers reds, whites, rosés and sparklers from other regional and international wineries. It gives guests a wide selection without stretching Revel’s production, and gives other local wineries exposure to the OTR crowd.
“We took great pains to really think through the wine list,” Sena says. “There was a certain amount of criteria the domestic and import wines had to meet: It had to be small batch or family run or actually have a really cool heritage or story.”
Even the limoncello — an Italian lemon digestif — is from Ohio, made with a centuries-old family recipe.
“That’s what’s different here and deviates from the norm,” Maieron says. “We serve other people’s wine. You don’t see that much.”
This atypical approach is manifested in Revel’s logo: a black sheep. Along with guest wines, Revel serves seasonal wine cocktails, like a fizzy mojito made with prosecco and a Manhattan with malbec and brandy, plus interesting light bites ranging from a dessert tray to meatless charcuterie. There’s something for everyone.
This easygoing mindset is even seen in the way Revel serves wine: Grab a flight of three 6-ounce or 9-ounce pours, served in carafes with a glass cup so you can drink and discover on your own time.
“There are certain things that we believe in,” Maieron says. “We’re going to do quality. We have our day jobs, so we don’t have to cut corners. And our hope is that our patrons, our customers, appreciate that, knowing that these are just some cool dudes that are making wine, serving it in juice glasses.”
REVEL OTR is located at 111 E. 12th St., Over-the-Rhine. More info: revelotr.com.
