Geneva Winery keeps on growing, with a new location in Batavia opening up last week.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Thursday at the new Geneva Winery location at 5 N. River St. in Batavia, with a grand opening event held Saturday. The new site joins the original Geneva Winery and Tasting Room at 426 S. Third St. in Geneva, which opened in the fall of 2020, followed by the Geneva Winery Bistro and Wine Bar, at 407 S. Third St. in Geneva, which followed in September of 2023.
With a fourth facility under construction in Elburn that includes a 6½-acre farm that will include a vineyard, the Geneva Winery brand has expanded quickly given that it was launched during the pandemic.
“I started the process in 2019 not knowing we were going to be hit by the pandemic. I think COVID came around, and it might have helped us,” said owner Brent Copstead, 53, of St. Charles. “More people were home, more were out drinking, and because of our place in Geneva – we had a large front yard and we could really space out seating. We were OK. We weren’t a restaurant that focused on seating people close together inside. We had the whole outdoor seating.”
Copstead said his own curiosity about winemaking fueled a career change that ended up with the opening of Geneva Winery.
“I was a marketing executive, and in St. Charles there was a homebrew shop. I walked in there one day, and there was homemade wine the owner had made that was very good. That was in 2014,” Copstead said. “That’s when I started making kit wines and experimenting, and it grew to this.”
The process of opening a spot in Batavia began almost two years ago when Copstead was approached by a property owner on River Street in the city who was already a customer at the winery’s Geneva locations.
“The owner of the building here in Batavia reached out to us in June of 2022,” Copstead said. “She was already visiting the Geneva Winery and said, ‘We’re looking for a staple to be on River Street and would you come and take a look at it?’ So, I went and looked, and I thought this is a great location. Batavia is a great place – very similar to Geneva, and with the farmers market on Saturday, it was just an ideal solution.”
The new facility in Batavia also includes a full banquet room that can be rented out, and seating along the Fox River.
About 90% of the wines at Geneva Winery are made locally right in Geneva with another 10% made in California specifically for the business. Altogether, Copstead said there are about 50 different varieties of wines offered by Geneva Winery.
Simon Foster, 24, of Geneva, who has worked as an assistant manager since 2021 at the winery’s original location, said the Batavia location should be successful.
“I hope what transfers here is the ambience we have created for the whole town there. You’re just kind of walking past and hear the music and see people having a good time,” he said about the winery’s Geneva locations. “It’s not a stuffy or stuck-up place. It is a casual, come on in, all walks of life included. We’re excited to be in Batavia because a lot of us haven’t explored it too much and there are a lot of new businesses here.”
Margaret Perreault, president and CEO of the Batavia Chamber of Commerce, was beaming Thursday afternoon during the ribbon-cutting event for the winery’s new Batavia location.
“This is a very welcome addition, and we have been waiting and waiting for them to come here. We’re so excited. They are going to be a fabulous addition to our vibrant town and a great addition to our walkable area down here,” she said. “They already have a successful venture, and to bring that here to Batavia is just so, so exciting.”
Some may wonder why Copstead and company set up shop in a location less than three miles from the original Geneva Winery, but the winemaker said it reflects the company’s slogan “Our wines, our friends, our community.”
“Our niche is a little small town. We’re kind of like a microbrewery downtown where locals can come and enjoy a glass of wine and hang out with their friends. Batavia is the same thing,” he said. “What Batavia also offered unlike Geneva is a lot more indoor seating. We’re going from a 1,300-square-foot facility in Geneva to a 5,000-square-foot facility here which allows us to have more indoor seating and get us through the slower months in the winter.”
Copstead said the winery aims to be a part of the community.
“We make sure we source our products from the best around,” he said. “I think wine has always been something people thought was a little more elegant – a little more of a high-class thing. A lot of that feeling is because there are a lot of microbreweries but not micro-wineries. We’re looking to bring that kind of local winery to everybody. I think that’s what people will enjoy.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
