Vinland Reserve Winery: the county's first winery

2022 — present

A winery at last: The wine half of the making record closes where the county meets its northern farmland. Vinland Reserve Winery stands at 4494 Provision Parkway, on Perry Township ground north of Dupont Road near Union Chapel and Diebold roads — an elegant, secluded piece of property, as Whatzup's opening report put it, set against a pond and woods with a tasting room and waterfront seating. The winery's own published account says it "was started in 2022 by a few friends who are entrepreneurs in the local community," who saw the region's rising support for wine and built, in their phrase, "a wine destination with an adventurous spirit" — the name reaching back to the Norse name for the grape-rich North American coast. The corporate holder is Forged Union LLC, under which the state Alcohol & Tobacco Commission's records carry the Vinland Reserve permits at the Provision Parkway address, the restaurant permit among them renewed in 2025. The doors opened in the spring of 2023, with a full-service restaurant beside the tasting room.

Wine made here, from grapes grown elsewhere: The distinction matters, and the winery states it itself: its operators "pledge to use the best grapes and juices from across the nation for on-site winemaking." Vinland Reserve is an Allen County winery in the legal and the plain sense — the wine is made at Provision Parkway — without an estate-vineyard claim; its announced model sources fruit nationally and vinifies locally. On jurisdiction, the visitor bureau's winery guide files Vinland Reserve as the Allen County winery — the only one under that heading — and the state's winery list gives Fort Wayne exactly one entry, Vinland Reserve, with an establishment year of 2022 against the 2023 opening the press and the bureau report. Both dates are printed here as the record gives them: founded 2022, opened 2023. After two centuries in which wine reached Fort Wayne only in other men's casks and bottles, the county's first winery is a going concern on its north side.

Sources:

1. Vinland Reserve Winery, published "About" text, as carried in the Risk Management Association Northern Indiana chapter's April 2024 event materials — "started in 2022 by a few friends who are entrepreneurs in the local community," the community-investment motive, and the "wine destination with an adventurous spirit" phrase.
2. Whatzup, "Vinland Reserve Winery docks in Fort Wayne" (2023) — the opening on Fort Wayne's north side, the 4494 Provision Parkway site near Diebold and Union Chapel roads, the pond-and-woods setting, and the operators' pledge to use "the best grapes and juices from across the nation for on-site winemaking."
3. Indiana Alcohol & Tobacco Commission, local board schedules (June 2025) — Forged Union LLC, "DBA: Vinland Reserve," 4494 Provision Parkway, Fort Wayne, beer-wine-and-liquor restaurant permit in renewal.
4. Visit Fort Wayne, "Your Guide to Northeast Indiana's Wineries" and "Wineries, Breweries & Distilleries" — Vinland Reserve filed as the Allen County winery, "just north of Dupont Road in northern Allen County," established 2023; Wikipedia, "List of wineries in Indiana" — Vinland Reserve Winery, Fort Wayne, established 2022, the list's only Fort Wayne entry.