Purgatory Cellars/White Owl Winery, (whiteowlwinery.com)
The four page article, entitled “Drink to That,” focuses on the partnership between two Midwestern companies, Purgatory Cellars/White Owl Winery and Huck’s Convenience Stores, owned by Martin and Bayley, Inc. of Carmi, Illinois. Purgatory Cellars created and crafts Huck’s signature wine, Five Buck Huck, which is sold in most of their stores throughout the Midwest.
The idea of a signature wine occurred when Huck’s CEO, Todd Jenney, asked winery owners, Brian and Joy Neighbors, if they could create a quality, inexpensive wine for his company. Brian Neighbors, Purgatory Cellar’s wine maker, said he could craft a semi-dry red wine that Huck’s could sell for under ten dollars. Marketing director, Joy Neighbors then raised the bar by suggesting it sell for five dollars and be called “Five Buck Huck.” The idea grew and today, Purgatory Cellars/White Owl Winery sells over one-thousand cases of Five Buck Huck a year to its distributors throughout the Midwest. The distributors, in turn, take their 30%, and sell it to Huck’ and other stores, where it retails for $4.99 a bottle.
Five Buck Huck is made from a variety of California coastal grapes. The aroma of ripe berries and black peppers tease your nose while the luscious flavors of fresh berries, with a hint of mint, round out this light-bodied wine. The Neighbors started entering it in international wine competitions this spring. So far, Five Buck Huck has won a silver medal in the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition, and three bronze medals in wine competitions including Amenti del Vino, Illinois State Fair Wine Competition and the International Indy Wine Competition.
The partnership between the two companies has been so successful, they are in the process of crafting a white wine for Huck’s.
This is not the first magazine article that Purgatory Cellars/White Owl Winery has been featured in this year. In January, the winery was included in an article on labels in Beverage World Magazine.
(Purgatory Cellars/White Owl Winery is located on the far east-central side of Illinois. It was the first winery on the eastern side of the state.)
