Photography by Stephen Buchanan
Photography by Stephen Buchanan
Jennifer DiDonato knows quite a few folks on Kent Island. DiDonato owns and runs the island’s The Winery and she spends most of her time helping customers and shooting the breeze with them. That’s what she likes most about her job.
“It’s so much fun to work the floor and see everybody you know,” she explains. “I am catching up with people. I have a hard time with that because I talk too much. I say, ‘I am sorry, I can’t talk anymore. I have other customers.’”
The store can meet all your entertainment needs. The business—which opened in 2008—offers more than 500 craft beers, and nearly 5,000 different wines as well as a large number of gourmet foods including cheeses, meats, crackers, olives, preserves, and honeys.
“Because we have everything, people don’t have to go to the grocery store,” says DiDonato, who owns The Winery with her husband Jim and sister-in-law Victoria Hoffman.
The store also features a cigar room, and there are beer and wine tastings on Thursdays and Fridays. There’s even a bubbly room with more than 500 bottles of champagne and sparkling wines.
For whiskey lovers, there’s also a wide selection: five private bourbon barrels and a wide variety of scotches. At the top end, a bottle of 25-year-old Ardbeg scotch bottle is yours for a mere $1,000.
To learn more, we sat down with DiDonato, a Queenstown resident, to talk about The Winery.
Photography by Stephen Buchanan
Why did you decide to open The Winery? It was really the baby of my father-in-law’s (Pasquale). He really wanted to bring some of his Italian heritage to Kent Island. I wasn’t involved when they first opened. My father-in-law and husband built it. When my kids went to kindergarten, I started working there (2009). I worked a lot less when the kids were little. I would only go in there when they were in school. Part-time then, full-time now.
How would you describe your business? We are a full-service liquor store, and a wine store, too. We are more of a wine store. We have a wine specialist. A lot of customers are people getting ready to go out on their boats. We get an influx of people who keep their boats in the summer here (Kent Island). They come down on the weekends. They can come in and get everything they need. They can get beer, wine, soda, all their mixers, cheeses, and meats to make their charcuterie. We also do a lot of weddings and estimating for brides. We tell them how much they need of this and that, and we deliver it to their venue anywhere in Queen Anne’s County.
Tell me about the food specialty items that you sell? What we carry is mostly from the DiBruno Brothers. They are a cheese vender out of Philadelphia. When we first started bringing that food into the winery, no one else had it. We have a lot of Italian cheeses and gourmet meats—anything you would need to make a beautiful charcuterie board. That’s what people are really into right now. We have olives, truffles, honey, preserves, and crostini.
What are top-selling gourmet items? Prima Donna cheese. It’s such a nice, sharp cheese and it goes so well with our truffle honey that we carry. It pairs well with a lot of our wines, too. Manchego cheese is also popular. It’s a Spanish cheese. It’s more of a mild cheese and a little softer. The taste is unbelievable. I love Manchego cheese. These cheeses are real quality products.
Explain how you have the wines sectioned off. When you walk in, we have two sides: domestic and imported. The domestic is by state—most are from California, and bridal type of wines. We have wines from Maryland, Oregon, Washington, and New York. The imported side is all organized by country. I would say we have wines from 20 countries. You have the old wines from Italy and France. Then you have the new wines that are coming from Portugal, South Africa, and Chile. They are much less expensive. Our favorite part of the store is the 90-plus section. It’s 90-points or above by the wine experts. You know something there is going to be good. There are a couple hundred wines in that section.
Photography by Stephen Buchanan
Talk about the beer and wine tastings. How popular are they? We do beer tastings on Thursday from 4 to 7 p.m. and wine tastings on Fridays from four to seven. On any given night it can be up to 25 people that show up. People get excited to see what the tastings are that week. I send an email blast every Wednesday, and I think people can’t wait to get it.
Please explain what your cigar room. We started with a two-by-four-foot countertop. Then we graduated to a piece of furniture with a humidor on the ground. It was like a hutch with all kinds of drawers. You can’t smoke in the store. You can only buy them. We went small to mid-size and now we have an entire room. It’s like a fairly large walk-in closet. The things that sell best are pre-packs of five. It’s grab and go. It has become a huge success because of the golfers and boaters.
What does the Kent Island community mean to you? We are a small island. Everybody knows everybody. My husband grew up in the county. He knows everybody and that’s why they know me. I love that it is small. You can easily get to someone or reach out to them. People really help each other and that’s nice. It does have a small-town feel.
What local causes do you devote your time to? I am on the board of Bosom Buddies. It’s an all-volunteer breast cancer charity. We didn’t have a lot of mammogram machines on Kent Island. We had to go to Annapolis for all these services. That’s how it really started. I really wanted to get some quality services on the shore, and we have done that. Now, you don’t have to go across the bridge to get a mammogram. I also support Haven Ministries, our Compass Regional Hospice, and Homes for our Troops, among a lot of others. We have all of them listed on our website.
The Winery | 116 South Piney Rd, Ste. 104, Chester | 410-643-9466 | thewineryki.com
