Wine Time

By Naperville Magazine
Appears in the September 2024 issue.

By Peter Gianopulos

Geneva Winery expands its offerings

Brent Copstead, the owner/winemaker/chief taste-tester of Geneva Winery, makes it all sound so easy. Winemaking, that is. “A long as you’re working with good grape juice,” he says, “you really can’t mess it up from there.”

Copstead, a former marketing executive, is quietly building a mini wine empire in the western suburbs. He opened his first tasting room in Geneva in 2020, but his follow-up, on River Street in downtown Batavia, is even roomier, with seating along the idyllic Fox River. He purchases the juices of macerated grapes from various winemaking meccas across the globe—California, Australia, France, Germany, Chile. Over the last four years, he’s produced more than 50 different wines. It’s simple, he says: “I wanted to create a community of people who love wines and make new friends.”

He’s also learned a great deal since he picked up a home wine brewing kit, back in 2014, and started fiddling. He prefers to work in small batches, so he can experiment with different varietals and blends, but he refuses to take himself too seriously. One of his signature offerings, a British Columbia–style Pinot Noir, is called The Goat and comes complete with an illustration of a properly snockered goat on its label.

He’s already purchased a 6.5-acre plot of Elburn farmland, complete with a postcard-worthy Midwestern barn perfect for hosting special events, where he plans to move his winemaking operation and grow his own grapes. “We’ll start,” he says, “with some blends—85 percent imported juice and 15 percent of our grapes.”

But it’ll be years before that first batch is ready. In the meantime, Copstead is just happy with what he’s already built. “I love going to the winery, sitting there on a Friday and Saturday, sipping wine,” he says. “I’ve made a lot of new friends.” Something tells us a lot more are on the way.

Photos: Geneva Winery