Who We Are
We are Tom Bosso, Dave Cassert and Justin Grana. First and foremost, we are family and proud grandsons of Annabelle and Julian (Julie J.) Grana. Second, we are wine guys. We love making wine, talking about wine, learning about wine and of course, enjoying a glass along the way. Our family has lived and died (literally, more on that later) by grapes for over 100 years. We are proud to carry on our family’s Grape Traditions while creating something of our own.
Our Vineyard Partners
We are excited to partner with Seth and Kelly Raby of Diller-Raby Farms and Vineyard. The Diller-Raby family has been farming in Niagara County since 1847 when Gideon Shippy first planted the family’s Ridge Road property. Seth’s parents and 5th generation farmers, Harry and Janet (Diller) Raby, began planting grapes in the 1970s. Seth and Kelly took over the farm in 2013, fully transitioning from fruit orchards to grapes. Today, they proudly steward 200 acres of farmland, including 50 acres of meticulously tended vines.
Origins
Our tradition began in 1919 when Theodore Grana, a son of Italian immigrants, started a small grocery store on East Falls Street in Niagara Falls, NY. The family business transitioned from a small family grocery store to a wholesale fruit and produce operation, moving from East Falls Street to Niagara Street, to a garage on Fort Avenue and ultimately a proper storefront on Pine Avenue.
Life by Grapes
The business became T. Grana and Son Fruit and Produce after Theodore’s son Julie left high school in 8th grade and joined the family business “full time” (of course, Julie was putting in his 40 hours alongside school before then). While Grana’s Produce primarily served local restaurants and hotels, it was also the main provider of wine grapes for the Niagara Falls home winemaking community. Difficult to imagine in the 21st century, home winemaking’s popularity in the midcentury was large enough that Theodore Grana would procure up to three railcars of grapes from California just to satisfy local demand. Unsurprisingly, Theodore and Julie would make their own wine, mostly from alicante, zinfandel and muscat grapes. Lore has it that neighborhood friends could fill their own gallon jug from the barrel for a single dollar.
Death by Grapes
In the fall of 1969, Theodore and his son Julie ordered their usual three railcars of grapes from California. Since T. Grana and Son did not have the space in their small garage warehouse to store the seasonal grapes, they would sell the grapes out of the detached railcars in a nearby lot. One morning, as Theodore and Julian approached the railcar, they were greeted with the unfortunate discovery that vandals had broken into the railcar overnight. Grapes (likely alicante) painted the otherwise empty lot as mangled wooden crates were strewn nearby. Theodore was so roused by the incident that he had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital. With the help of Julian’s children, Julie Ann, Karen and Ted, many of the grapes were recovered and sold at a discount. Unfortunately, Theodore wasn’t as lucky and died a month later, the day before Thanksgiving.
Reviving Traditions
Julie and his son Theodore (Ted) continued T. Grana and Son, selling grapes and making wine. While the immutable aroma of fermentation that colonized our grandparent’s burgundy-stained basement is one of our shared core memories, the rest of the home winemaking community waned. Ultimately, Julie and Ted stopped selling grapes and making wine. However, the lapse in tradition was brief. As is common among families stretched across the world, Tom, Dave and Justin were rarely all together. However, they found themselves sitting in a backyard together in a somber 2020 afternoon – the afternoon of their grandmother Annabelle’s funeral.
Maybe it was part of the grieving process, maybe it was a subconscious shared respect for tradition or just a desire to spend more time together, it was that afternoon we decided to make wine together. With the help of Ted – Justin’s dad and Tom and Dave’s uncle – we produced our first barrel of wine in Karen’s – Dave’s mom – basement. Admittedly to our surprise, the wine was delicious and we were hooked on winemaking.
Grape Traditions Continue
While we respect the traditional way our family had made wine in the past, we wanted to update our process with new knowledge. Over the next 5 years, we practiced rigorous sanitization, diligent topping off, judicious but limited sulfite additions and cool fermentations. We also didn’t crank the press until the pomace turned to “kleenex” as Ted would say.
In 2021, T. Grana and Son closed after 102 years in business. Although we were still able to obtain grapes from California, we wanted to begin exploring local Niagara options that represented our heritage. In 2024, we met Seth and Kelly Raby while we were hunting for local grapes. They were kind enough to let us pick 600 pounds of riesling from the end of the rows. Those 600 pounds produced a laser beam of a riesling with heavy notes of lime and grapefruit and a kerosene backbone that foreshadows its future delight. From that bottle, we knew we wanted to switch entirely to New York fruit.
Two years after our Riesling revelation, we begin winemaking exclusively from New York State fruit at Diller-Raby farms, continuing a 107 year legacy of living (and hopefully not dying) by Grape Traditions.