My Biz: Brothers turn great-grandfather’s farm into winery

•  Name: James Langer, winemaker and owner

   Company: Daly Creek Winery & Bistro

   Address: 106 N. Ford St., Anamosa

•  Phone: (319) 462-2525

• Website: www.dalycreekwinery.com

•  Elevator pitch: “Every cork says ‘guilty.'”

ANAMOSA - James Langer never intended to make wine.

Daly Creek Winery & Bistro opened for business in May 2004. James and his brother Michael, fourth generation Dalys, co-own the business they named in honor of their great-grandfather, Philip Daly.

Philip emigrated from Ireland in 1848 and purchased what became their family's farmland in 1864 - the same land that grows their grapes today.

Langer said the notion for starting a winery came about nine years ago after he and Michael read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the popularity of starting vineyards. They called in consultants to look over their farm, and the brothers eventually planted 900 French-American hybrid grape vines on 2 acres.

“We just thought we'd sell the grapes to other wineries,” Langer said.

He'd made small batches of wine before. But when their grapes started to come in - “It takes about 3 to 4 years before you get a harvest off a vineyard” - they thought, as they had the grapes, perhaps they should start a winery.

With Daly family propensity for business that included farming, cattle ranching, politics, real estate and now a French-American hybrid grape vineyard, Langer said his nephew - Michael's son - expressed an interest in opening a restaurant.

Returning to Iowa from Los Angeles where he had worked as a chef, the nephew developed Daly Creek's eclectic gourmet menu style for the bistro that includes items such as its signature Tuscan meatloaf drizzled with a chardonnay reduction sauce. (He moved back to California after three years.)

Daly Creek employs 14 - 3 of them chefs - and seats 50 diners in the restaurant as well as another 30 outside on their patio in the warmer season.

James Langer formerly worked in his father's Cedar Rapids-based business, Langer Manufacturing Co., which manufactured wire products.

“It's a far stretch from a wire product to a glass bottle filled with Penitentiary Red,” he laughed. “But I still consider it manufacturing. We are dealing with raw products, and we are in production.”

Penitentiary Red is Daly Creek's signature, and most popular, wine and is made on site in the area behind the restaurant and gift shop. The name for the wine is more than a little appropriate.

“Our building was originally the Anamosa Co-op Creamery, built in the early 1950s,” Langer recalled. “The part that is now our restaurant, dining room and gift shop was a workout room for the State Penitentiary Employees Union.”

Know a manager or owner, in business at least a year, who should be considered for “My Biz”? Contact business editor Michael Chevy Castranova, michael.castranova@sourcemedia.net.