Yesterday, several tons of Zinfandel grapes from a Lodi, Calif., vineyard splashed into the crusher at a winery. Just a normal fall harvest day in wine country, really. Except the crush was at a new winery on Varick Street in lower Manhattan, near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.  This isn't just about fermenting grape juice along a busy urban street to get attention. It's actually a well-organized club where regular people can get their hands purple and help make a barrel or more of their own wine. When full construction is completed later this fall, there will also be a 200-seat restaurant, a wine bar and an events space. The entry-level customer can stop in, have a glass of wine at the bar and leave. The top-level customer will pay $8,000 and up, each year, for membership in the winery and for his own, custom-made barrel.  The $5 million project, called City Winery, is grand in scope and ambition. The space is 21,000 square feet in a nondescript red brick building. On the inside, construction of the main space is still underway, but a long, inviting bar at one end is complete--well-dressed New Yorkers huddled against it are easy to imagine. Overall, City Winery is the latest installment in a growing collection of wineries providing their services specifically to those who don't want to buy a vineyard and winery themselves. But this one takes things a step--or two or three--further.  "Imagine the scenario," says founder and CEO Michael Dorf. "You're making a pinot noir here with grapes we source from Willamette [Oregon], and you're able to come here with some friends and your name is on the barrel. Your barrel is next to Lou Reed's."  The former Velvet Underground front man is one of City Winery's customers, as is John Medeski of Medeski Martin & Wood.  "And then you can come in with your friends and try a barrel sample, so you can see its development. But you're now in the mood to hang out and taste wines with your friends, and that's the catalyst to sit at the table and order a bottle from Willamette or Burgundy and have some food that complements the wine. And your wine is 20 feet away in a barrel that is not yet ready to drink. To me that is the ultimate experience."  From Live Music To Wine Providing an experience, in fact, is what Dorf is all about--he founded New York's famed Knitting Factory. And just as the Knitting Factory became one of New York's preeminent live-music venues, Dorf has similarly lofty ambitions for his winery.  The crushing equipment is state-of-the-art; the 8,800-liter South African-made stainless-steel tanks are gleaming. The City Winery restaurant and wine bar will offer 500 different bottle selections and 50 by the glass. There also will be tasting classes and other events. And Dorf's full-time winemaker, David Lecomte, has an impressive resume: He's worked for Chapoutier, one of the Rhone Valley's biggest wine producers, as well as Herzog Wine Cellars in California.  Dorf doesn't just want to make wine for people, however. He wants to entertain them.  Sure enough, a huge stage for live performances sits at the back center of City Winery's main room. But it's partially out of necessity.  "The realities of the New York real estate market come into play when doing anything," says Dorf. In other words, it's lucky he knows how to put on a good show, since he believes that creating a pure custom-crush facility at Manhattan rent prices isn't sustainable on its own. "With that in mind, let's keep the custom-crush, private-barrel program a portion of the facility, make it our focal point, the uniqueness of our establishment, but let's create a hospitality side to the business that would then be absolutely unique but would complement what we're trying to do on the winemaking side."  Too Much For Tough Times? Involvement in that winemaking side costs a pretty penny. At the basic level, participants pay a $5,000 membership fee, plus the cost of grapes and the cost of a barrel, which yields roughly 260-270 bottles of wine, for a total cost of about $8,000. If you do the math, each bottle costs about $30 (wines made from the same vineyards, purchased off the shelf in your local wine shop, would cost two or three times as much). There's also a corporate program which, for $12,000, allows a company to make its own private-label wine to give clients and partners. Dorf says that City Winery was cash-flow positive from the first day, and he projects a 100% return of investment within the first three years to all its investors, and a projected return of 30% thereafter.  The costs are certainly of concern to Dorf, since the program caters to the wealthy--many of whom, until the past couple weeks, worked a couple blocks south of City Winery in the financial district. City Winery was supposed to host a holiday party for Lehman Brothers--it's been canceled (though Dorf says a pharmaceutical company took Lehman's place).  Still, Dorf believes City Winery's several different revenue streams can support each other: He hopes the restaurant and bar will keep the business afloat if customers aren't quick to sign up for custom-made wines in this economy (though half the barrels for the first year are sold already, Dorf says).  "I have not lived through 1929, so maybe I'm very naïve, but in the 24 years that I've operated businesses in New York, there have been some really bad times, and you get through them," Dorf says. "People drink during good times and bad times. Restaurants, even in the darkest days of '29, they survived. People in Manhattan need to go out to eat."  Is custom winemaking a vanity hobby or the real deal? Weigh in. Post your thoughts in the Reader Comment section below.  And Dorf expects people in other cities will want the same sort of experience, as well.  "The vision is that we can have City Winery Miami, City Winery Paris, City Winery London, City Winery Las Vegas, City Winery Chicago," he says. "You go for the city, the big urban environment where people are eating and drinking, and you create an entertainment component. I think all of those things combined, maybe with a shaky environment, is something that's going to continue to grow."  He could be on to something.  "It represents a direction that the wine industry has been going in for a few years, and it's driven by the top end, where you have this consolidation," explains John Gillespie, principal of Wine Opinions, a wine market-research firm based in Napa, Calif. He adds that most of the top-end wines in the world are now produced by the four or five wine and spirits giants, "and that's left holes in the market for micro producers to fill."  We'll find out for sure over the next few months since there's no turning back now. The grapes are already in the crusher.
A new winery allows individuals to make private-label wines--and the concept could come to a city near you.