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Coffee Pot Cellars’ new winasaur “Adam” made his debut in front of the Cutchouge tasting room Thursday. (Cyndi Murray photo)

The next time you’re driving down Main Road in Cutchogue, be on the lookout for a dinosaur. Actually, make that a wine-asaur.

Or as the co-owner of Coffee Pot Cellars spells it, winasaur. And she can spell it any way she wants; she invented it.

The front lawn of Coffee Pot Cellars  on Main Road is the new home of the seven-foot high, 18-foot-long structure.

Dreamt up, literally, by Laura Klahre and named after husband and Coffee Pot Cellars’ winemaker Adam Suprenant, “Adam” the winasaur is poised to become a full-fledged community art project.

“I woke up one day and I wanted a winasaur,” Klahre said. “I’m winging it, but I really think it is going to work.”

Instead of being decorated with traditional flowers and shrubbery, the brontosaurus-shaped topiary frame structure will instead be adorned with Coffee Pot Cellars’ wine corks. Over the next few years, Klahre and Suprenant are urging customers to return their corks with personalized messages and designs that will be strung together and fixed to the structure to create the winasaur.

“I started to ask people to return their corks last month and we have had a huge response,” Klahre said. “When I am in the tasting room I always have such great conversations with people. For people to bring back their corks, it tells me that they are enjoying it, too.”

Klahre’s no stranger to creative thinking. A beekeeper of 15 years, she is the owner and founder of Blossom Meadow — a retail store located in the tasting room that sells handcrafted products made with beeswax, such as candles, as well as honey. She said her inspiration for becoming a beekeeper came and in a dream too.

Klahre and Suprenant first opened Coffee Pot Cellars last year in Cutchogue, merging Klahre’s artisan business and Suprenant’s winemaking expertise.  Klahre first contacted California-based Cliff Finch’s Topiary Zoo to design the winasaur about two months ago. It took nearly a month to build the three piece steal wire topiary. It arrived at the tasting room Thursday.

“It was unique and a whole lot of fun for us to build,” said Joanie Finch of Cliff Finch’s Topiary Zoo, which has made topiaries for such places as the San Diego Zoo and Cypress Gardens in Florida.  “It is the longest dinosaur we have ever made.”

As for naming the winasaur “Adam,” Klahre said it was to honor the winemaker.

“I think it is important that people know the winemaker,” she said. “Adam isn’t always in the tasting room. I think this gives him some extra presence.”

So far, Coffee Pot Cellars’ wine drinkers from New York, Rhode Island and New Hampshire have sent in boxes worth of corks, Klahre said. She hopes Adam the winasaur will be fully decorated within the next two years.

“It is going to take a lot of wine,” she said.

To join in the winasaur art project, pick up a bottle of Coffee Pot Cellars’ wine. Return the cork with a personalized message to the tasting located at 31855 Main Road in Cutchogue.

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