Well, if you are interested, you now can be a part of a new trend—barrel ownership.  City Winery, in New York City, is selling 200 memberships starting at $5000 each for their barrel ownership program.

With the membership, you will have a winemaker help you customize your wine with grapes picked in the U.S. and South America; you can crush, de-stem, press, ferment and bottle the wine yourself (or not); you can design your own labels; you can store your 276 bottles at the facility; and you can even stop in and sample the wines during its aging process as much as you’d like!  City Winery is even going to promote a wine-trading program amongst its members, so you can share your wines with others (276 bottles of the same wine might get kind of old, huh?).

Although it’s a hefty price tag, the first-hand learning about the winemaking process could be invaluable for a serious wine aficionado.  And the price of each bottle comes to about $20, so I guess that’s not too bad.  Or better yet, maybe find a group of wine-loving friends to share the cost of membership…

Filed Under: Cool Stuff, Wine & Libations