The winery that became known in the 1980s for its vino made from wild blueberries is on the market for $1.795 million.
Also said to be Maine’s oldest winery, Bartlett Maine Estate Winery was established in 1983 by Bob and Kathe Bartlett, whose fruit wines and spirits have won multiple awards through the years.
The business has both a legacy and potential, said Kimberly Swan, whose Swan Agency Real Estate is representing the sellers.
“It’s super exciting to me to be representing not only a business that has tons of potential but also has an incredible pedigree,” Swan wrote in an email to Mainebiz. “The Bartletts were an integral part of the beginning of wineries in Maine and their efforts will always be remembered in the industry.”
Located at 175 Chicken Mill Pond Road in the Hancock County town of Gouldsboro, the winery is situated on 20 acres.
The property has two entrances. A public entrance has a small parking lot and a short path through the woods to a building that houses the winery’s tasting room, production areas and owner living quarters. A service entrance leads to a second building that houses storage and work spaces and a distillery, where rum is made.
The conveyance would include the land, buildings, equipment, inventory, name and training to be agreed upon by buyers and sellers.
Oenology courses
Bob Bartlett grew up in Detroit and visited Camden as a kid in the 1960s.
“Since then I always wanted to come back to Maine,” he said.
He and Kathie married in 1972 in Michigan and visited Maine on camping trips. Bartlett ended up becoming a glass artist and also enjoyed making homemade wine. He attended oenology courses — the study of wine — at the University of California Davis and Cornell University.
In 1975, the couple moved to Gouldsboro, on the Schoodic Peninsula, designing and building their own house.
Bartlett wanted to continue making wine but soon realized the cooler climate wasn’t good for growing grapes.
Inspiration hit with the low-bush blueberries that cover the coastline. With the first 600 gallons of blueberry wine, they opened a tasting room and sold out within a week.
Emphasizing quality, not quantity, they continuously tinkered with they process, trying different aging techniques and blends.
For a number of years, they doubled production annually. Today the winery presses almost 7,000 cases per year and offer more than 20 varieties, ranging from dry and semi-dry blueberry reds to pear-apple whites, sweet blackberry dessert wines and honey meads. They also debuted a small-batch rum.
The company had quite a few employees for a while, but scaled back.
“It was getting to be too big,” he said. “We were pretty much hands-on owners. I’m the winemaker, Kathe runs the tasting room. A lot of our employees have retired over the years.”
The goal is to attract a buyer who wants to continue the business and maybe even expand, he said.
“We had plans to do more, but we’re getting older,” he said. “Every summer we were always working. It’s time for a change.”
If needed, he said, the couple would stick around to train the buyer on the process and equipment, much of which is computerized and customized.
“It’s a really fun business,” he added.