Industrial Winery in Oceanside Brings Variety to Long Island

OCEANSIDE, N.Y. – Located on the edge of Oceanside's industrial zone, Insieme Wines was abuzz Sunday afternoon with patrons sipping reds and whites while seated at high-top tables lined alongside oak barrels stacked on racks.

Co-owners Massimo DeVellis, the head winemaker, and his lifelong friend Joe Divino were busy serving their new winery’s fourteen varieties of wine produced in-house with grapes they purchased from regions across America.

The four white varieties are a dry Riesling made with fruit sourced from the Finger Lakes, a pinot grigio from Long Island's North Fork, and a Sauvignon blanc and a chardonnay from California's Suisun Valley, near Napa. Most of their 10 reds come from the same valley, while others are from Yolo County in California and Wahluke Slope, a grape-growing region in Washington state.

"I get to make the things that really speak to me, that I really love, that represent my style of winemaking, and I can take my time making those particular things," DeVellis said about producing his wines in an industrial setting.

Opened in December, Insieme Wines is billed as the only full production winery with a tasting room in Nassau County. The facility at 3333 Lawson Blvd., which once housed a printing business, is a far cry from the North Fork's rolling, lush green vineyards dotted with white gazebos, barns and tractors.

The garage-like production room consists of three 1,000-gallon stainless steel fermentation tanks, a bladder tank for compressing grapes and other heavy manufacturing machinery. Without a farm, a winery with that cellar regiment must operate in an industrial zone. There, the owners can produce up to 3,500 cases of wine annually and sell bottles ranging in price from $26.99 to $59.99.

As DeVellis sees it, while the North Fork vineyards with tasting rooms are compelled to sell wines only produced on their farms, an industrial winery such as his faces no such constraints.

“I think that a lot of people love the fact that they can go to one place and taste a bunch of different wines grown in various regions across North America,” he said. “And I think that’s one of our distinguishing factors. When you’re set in an industrial setting like this, you really get to pick and choose what you want to make. And I think that really resonates with our customers.”

Without a picturesque setting, DeVellis and his wife, Jessica, aim to create an inviting atmosphere for repeat customers who can conveniently visit year-round, rather than drive two hours to the idyllic vineyards out east to drink wine under the summer sun. Jessica, who manages the winery, was instrumental in its design, from the dark-wood furnishings to the wall candles. One wall in the main tasting room is covered by floor-to-ceiling lockers stocked with wine bottles. The other walls feature murals, including a flowery composition at the wine bar, by a Massapequa artist.

Food is another means of attracting patrons. Jessica grew up working at her family's traditional Italian deli in New Hyde Park, a background that helps the winery distinguish itself further with the cheeses and meats it serves. Already popular with patrons are the charcuterie boards of prosciutto, speck, goletta salami, coppa and Italian sausage, all delicacies imported from Italy.

While DeVellis may not farm grapes, he has cultivated a lifelong passion for wine and winemaking from his Italian-immigrant family that produced homemade wines in Rosedale, where he went to elementary school with Divino.

Later, DeVellis worked in finance, married Jessica in 2000, and they became hobbyists who made wines at their Massapequa home for themselves and Divino and his wife, Ghislane. The couples often dined and drank wine together, which inspired their winery’s name "insieme," which means "together" in Italian.

In 2004, the hobbyists turned more serious when they began buying grapes from California vineyards and stepped up their production from one to multiple barrels.

"We were taking the bigger approach of getting different grapes," said Divino, who manages the winery's marketing and sales. "We wanted to get involved in making higher quality wine just for ourselves."

Their winemaking took a significant leap forward in 2008, when they rented space at a Hicksville warehouse and obtained the licenses to sell their wine wholesale to restaurants and wine shops. That year they also produced what became their signature wine, a heavy, bold ricordi blend of cabernet, merlot and malbec. After the blend matured for three years, they started giving away bottles to their friends, fellow wine club members and restaurateurs. It received rave reviews.

"That's kind of what sparked the idea that maybe we should look a little deeper into making this a real thing," Divino recalled.

After the COVID-19 pandemic hit in spring 2020, an opportunity arose for the industrial space in Oceanside. The final, long-term goal of opening a tasting room was achieved when the couples signed a lease for the facility in August of that year. They opened 13 months later, after reconstructing the facility and clearing bureaucratic hurdles. Now, DeVellis works full-time on the new business.

"I reached a point in time where I was looking for a change in career paths," he said. "I had been cultivating a change to this for a long time. Having worked in finance for the better part of 30 years, it just got to the point where I wanted to do something different and be self employed."