Located on a 20-acre farm just outside of Bradford in Darke County, Twenty One Barrels is serving hard cider and wine year-round.
Shaun Pierce, who owns the business with wife, Danielle, turned their hobby into a reality in 2020. About seven years prior they started making hard cider and wine in their basement in Troy for their family and friends to try. They then sent their bottles to wine competitions around the country and after getting great feedback and receiving several medals, they decided to go full steam ahead with creating a winery and cidery.
“We wanted to do more hard cider when we started out the business, but we weren’t sure, because there isn’t much of an industry, if people in this area were going to be receptive, wanted it or if there was a market for it,” Pierce said.
They originally opened with three hard ciders and 15 wines, but quickly realized just how excited people were to have the option of ciders.
Hard cider program offers 30 to 40 flavors throughout the year
“It’s a good alternative for people that either don’t like beer or don’t want to drink beer,” Pierce said.
All of their ciders are gluten-free and vegan.
Twenty One Barrels produces everything in house. Just like beer, there’s a lot you can do with ciders. For example, they make a dry hop cider that is similar to an IPA, but doesn’t have a bitter taste. Each hop has a different flavor compound and as they are making the cider then can add in fruits and spices, Pierce said.
They have 12 taps of apple-based hard cider with 30 to 40 different flavors they rotate through in their taproom. Best sellers include the Blackberry or Blood Orange. In addition to fruity ciders, they do have apple-forward ciders like the Country Apple that’s made with a red apple blend or the Kiss My Apple that’s made with Granny Smith apples.
Pierce said everything is relatively low in sugar with eight to 12 grams per glass for the ciders.
“We’re not quite as sweet with our ciders as a lot of the mainstream national brands,” Pierce said. “We’re less sweet on that, but we think it’s a good balance. The sugar allows the fruit flavors to come out without being too sweet.”
Hard cider is 90 percent of their business compared to wine, Pierce said.
“Here in Ohio we don’t have a huge cider industry. It’s growing, but it’s not very big compared to Michigan, New York or Virginia,” Pierce said. “The amount of producers towards the end of last year was about 25. That number has grown this year quite a bit with a lot of breweries starting to get into hard cider production.
Wine ranges from dry to sweet
In addition to cider, Twenty One Barrels offers 10 traditional still wines ranging from dry to sweet and three bubbly canned wines. Best sellers are the sweet wines like the Harris Creek Red, a fruit-forward concord blend that’s balanced with a lingering fresh grape finish. This is the sweetest wine they produce, Pierce said.
Out of the three canned wines, the Sangria Bubbly is the most popular featuring a blend of red wine, blackberry, citrus and tropical fruits. During the fall and winter months, customers like the Peach Cobbler, a white wine blended with peach, cinnamon and vanilla.
Twenty One Barrels has a half-acre vineyard on the property with grapes expected to ripen in early August.
“Right now, we have not used any of the crop because it takes five years to get your first crop off of it,” Pierce said. “We planted them in 2018, so this year was the first year we’re hoping to get a small crop off of them to do an estate batch.”
The estate is expected to be ready sometime next year. Pierce said from the time they pick the grapes to the bottling process, it can take a minimum of six months, but usually it’s closer to a year. Some wines like a dry red can take two years or more to age.
Another fun offering at the winery are wine slushies. These are their best seller on a hot summer day.
Enjoy a glass in nature
If you’ve never been to Twenty One Barrels, you can expect food trucks and live entertainment.
During the summer, they have plenty of outdoor seating and customers can walk through the vineyard. You might even see a deer or bald eagle. There’s a taproom on the property that surrounded by two patios. Both patios are enclosed and heated during the winter.
“When you’re sitting on our patio, you’re in nature,” Pierce said. “You’re out here looking at the vineyard and the scene, you don’t get that in the city. It’s quiet and peaceful.”
Twenty One Barrels has plans to establish trails in its 12-acre wooded area. They were originally hoping to open it this year, but due to a March tornado it will be open next season.
The winery does not have its own food program, but they work with a variety of food trucks from Dayton to Columbus. On any given night, customers can expect food trucks specializing in pizza, fried chicken, BBQ, charcuterie or even lobster.
“We’re a destination for a lot of people,” Pierce said. “We know that and that’s part of why our hours are limited to Fridays and Saturdays. During the week, we do all of our production, our deliveries for our distribution and our sales side of our business. While we may be closed to the public, there’s still a lot of work that goes on during the week.”
What’s next?
Twenty One Barrels has plans to continue to expand its distribution. Right now, the hard cider is available in cans or on tap at about 150 locations across the region. They hope to expand more in the Cincinnati and Columbus areas.
If you’re looking for Twenty One Barrels in Dayton, you can find it at places such as Old Scratch Pizza, The Dayton Beer Company, The Barrell House, Rip Rap Roadhouse and The Local 937.
Pierce said he and his wife are proud of what they have accomplished in the last four years and feel very special to be selected as having the Best Winery and Best Patio Dining in the Best of Dayton competition.
“It’s the two of us building this,” Pierce said. “We really appreciate being acknowledged.”
More details
Twenty One Barrels, located at 9717 Horatio-Harris Creek Road, is open 5 to 9 p.m. Friday and 2 to 8 p.m. Saturday. The taproom is open for those 21 and over. The patio and outdoor seating is family friendly all year long. For more information, visit 21barrels.com or the establishment’s Facebook or Instagram pages (@21barrelswine). It also has a TikTok (@21barrels).
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