Anthony Izzo
A toast!

by RYAN DORAN

A tree may grow in Brooklyn, but Anthony Izzo of Fairfield has grown a winery in Bridgeport.

Izzo is a real-estate investor who grew up in Westport and attended college at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield.

“I’m a local guy,” said Izzo.

After college Izzo went to work for Hyland real-estate in Greenwich.

In 1993 Izzo began his own commercial real-estate business AFI Inc., located at 2150 Post Road in Fairfield.

In 1979 Izzo’s uncle began to teach him the craft of wine making.

"I grew up around people making wine, we were just doing it for fun,” said Izzo. “He learned in Italy and was teaching me. It’s nice to have roots and stick with them.

According to Izzo, his uncle had learned to make wine growing up and shared it with his nephew as a cultural bond. The pair would give away much of what they made.

As his uncle got older, Izzo took over their winemaking enterprise, and set up operations in his home.

"It was mostly a social thing," said Izzo. “We gave it to people and drank some.”

Izzo’s uncle, John Palmer, died a few years ago in his early 90s.

In 2003 Izzo weighed his ambition and decided to go public, creating in 2003 the first vintage of the Black Rock Winery.

Izzo opened up his operation in the backside of an industrial building on Burr Court in Bridgeport owned by his cousin, Joe Palmieri. The grapes are crushed, fermented, filtered and bottled all at the Bridgeport facility.

“The most difficult thing is to get quality grapes,” said Izzo. “Our Sonoma grapes are pretty high end.

“Wine making is pretty much a mental exercise. There’s a lot of things you have to think about before you actually make the wine. I like to try grapes and think about what he wine will be like in three years. ”

Izzo’s receives all of his grapes from Sonoma County, Calif. He has 700 pounds shipped east each year, the start of an 18-month process.

“The stylistic decisions of winemakers are the keys to great wines,” said Izzo. “Which yeast to use, fermentation temperatures, maceration of the fruit, which combination of barrels in which to age the wine, the length of barrel and bottle aging and finally the skill in blending, all determine the quality of a wine.”

He invites friends to help with the process of crushing the grapes and tasting the product through its stages.

“There’s a lot of work in selling the wine and we have to think of marketing more than ever,” said Izzo. “People like to talk about making wine, but there’s a lot to it.”

Izzo makes about 7000 bottle of wine each year. He says he bit off exactly what he can bottle and that’s the way he likes it.

“My theory is, let’s make a manageable amount,” said Izzo. “I’m interested more in quality.”

Izzo has made vintages of cabernet sauvignon, petite sirah, merlot and a sauvignon blanc.

“I’m trying to stick with the fundamentals,” said Izzo. “I can’t make 10 different wines, but the ones we make I want to make well.”

A bottle of Black Rock runs between $15 and $20 and can be found in liquor stores in Fairfield County, and ordered online. At this year’s Indy International Wine Competition, Black Rock was awarded a silver medal for Izzo’s 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon.

“It means the quality is good and that makes me feel good,” said Izzo.

Izzo lives in Fairfield with his wife, and three daughters.

“The girls could tell you stories about making wine in the basement,” said Izzo.

Izzo, along with some help from Wayne Stitzer, a wine consultant who caters to wineries all over the Northeast, continues to do the wine work himself. It wasn’t always as smooth as a fine Merlot. Above his testing area is a photo of Izzo from an early mishap covered from head to foot in wine, smiling ear to ear.

“This fills a part of my brain,” said Izzo. “It’s something that’s stimulating.”