Where can you sit back and sip local wine while watching over 20,000 honeybees buzz about?
At a new tasting room in Cutchogue this weekend, when Southold couple Adam Suprenant and Laura Klahre debut their business, Coffee Pot Cellars Tasting Room and Blossom Meadows.
Ms. Klahre, an established beekeeper, and Mr. Suprenant, a winemaker with 18 years of experience, have teamed up to offer visitors a different type of tasting experience.
The Main Road shop will offer tastings of four different types of wine — merlot, sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and a blend known as a Meritage -— all from Mr. Suprenant’s fully independent wine label, Coffee Pot Cellars.
He started Coffee Pot Cellars in 2008, naming it after Orient Point Lighthouse, which, because of its unusual shape has long been nicknamed “the coffee pot.” Grapes from several North Fork vineyards go into Coffee Pot Cellars wines.
While enjoying the wine, visitors can watch some of Ms. Klahre’s honeybees and learn about Long Island’s pollinator populations from signs around the room.
The storefront will feature her North Fork honey, along with homemade products fashioned out of natural beeswax from her hives. On select days honey tastings will be offered. Just like wine, honey offers different flavors, depending on the season and the flora the female worker bees are foraging.
Ms. Klahre has been a beekeeper for 15 years and keeps about 100 hives, caring for close to eight million honeybees. Mr. Suprenant has been a winemaker at Osprey’s Dominion in Peconic for the past 16 years, where he also rents space to craft his independent label.
The couple met about three years ago while waiting for tables at Noah’s restaurant in Greenport. They struck up a conversation after Ms. Klahre mentioned she was a beekeeper. Mr. Suprenant had taken a beekeeping class. The two began working on a combined concept soon after.
“We both had an appreciation for agriculture and the natural world,” Ms. Klahre said. They will be married at a local vineyard next May.
By early this July, Ms. Klahre will feature another tiny pollinator at the tasting room – the butterfly. She will have caterpillars on display so visitors can watch their metamorphosis over a couple weeks as the caterpillars enter the chrysalis phase before emerging as Monarch butterflies.
Mr. Suprenant said they wanted to offer tastes characteristic of the North Fork terroir — an area’s unique combination of soil, climate, geography and other factors that influence its produce — in one place, for many to enjoy.
The tasting room will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Monday throughout the summer. This Memorial Day weekend will feature half-price tastings.
Photo by Carrie Miller: Winemaker Adam Suprenant and Beekeeper Laura Klahre are putting the finishing touches on their Cutchogue tasting room, set to open up Friday.