Made in Indiana: Wines By Oliver Winery

About: Indiana’s most popular wine has homegrown roots. Oliver Winery, which has a 93-acre vineyard in Ellettsville and a tasting room in Bloomington, produces 725,000 cases of wine annually and sells in 43 states. Here in Indiana, it tops the wine charts: Oliver Sweet Red and Oliver Blueberry Moscato are the No. 1- and No. 2-selling wines in Indiana, respectively. These sweet, fruity wines are the most popular of Oliver’s more than 30 varieties, but those looking for a distinctly Hoosier wine experience might prefer to try the Catawba and Chambourcin estate-bottled wines made purely with grapes from Creekbend Vineyard in Ellettsville. 

The process: In order to source grapes that might not fare well in unpredictable Indiana weather, Oliver partners with growers—from as far away as California’s Paso Robles and Monterey vineyards to those in the nearby Great Lakes region. All wines are crafted in the state-of-the-art Bloomington winemaking facility, which has a capacity of 1.8 million gallons. The bottling process is also fully Indiana-based. In 2022, Oliver completed the final step in a $25 million investment to expand and enhance production spaces and cut the ribbon on a high-tech and high-capacity bottling line and a 30,000-square-foot warehouse.

History: Oliver Winery was founded in 1972 by William Oliver, an Indiana University law professor who had begun experimenting with home winemaking in the 1960s. In 2000, Kentucky became the first state outside of Indiana to offer Oliver wines. According to Wine Business Monthly, Oliver broke into the 50 largest wineries in the United States by 2018, later cracking the top 30 in 2021.

Employees: about 100

Location: Bloomington (tasting rooms), Ellettsville (vineyard)

New products: Oliver Winery this year introduced several wines, including the Sweet Red-inspired varieties Cosmoberry and Dreamberry, along with three wine-based cocktails.