6 Mile Cellars

Barton Towell and Patrick Walsh are two friends and Harborcreek natives whose affinity for wine led to the creation of 6 Mile Cellars. Bart currently lives with this wife, Jennifer, on the farm where the winery is located. Pat lives in Pittsburgh with his wife Angela and sons Connor and Leo. Both owners work full time day jobs, Bart as an IT Analyst and Pat as an Electrical Engineer. While they have been making wine as avid hobbyists for years, Patrick also worked as an assistant wine maker at a local winery in 2010 while Bart continued to research and network with regional growers and wineries in an effort to improve process and quality.

6 Mile Cellars

6 Mile Cellars, opening in 2012, will be the first commercial winery in Harborcreek, PA. Located on the corner of Clark and Firman Roads, the winery is just yards from 6 Mile Creek- the inspiration for our name. The location is also the furthest west in the Chautauqua Lake Erie Wine Country region, just over 6 miles from State Street in downtown Erie. The idea of opening a winery started during the 2009 harvest, one year after Bart and Pat made 75 gallons of wine for Pat and Angela's wedding. At that time, with generous support from Bart's parents, they took over what was once an apartment on the property to further their hobby of producing wine. In 2010, while pursuing his MBA, Pat wrote a business plan for the winery and ended up winning some start up money from the Northwestern Collegiate Business Plan Competition. A year later, in early 2011, Bart and Pat were committed to opening a winery in Harborcreek.

A parking lot was quickly added to the property and plans were developed for the tasting room of the newly formed 6 Mile Cellars, Incorporated. That was the easy part. Over Spring and Summer 2011, they have been working non-stop to obtain proper licensing, insurance, and township approvals. Meanwhile, they have also been procuring commercial production equipment in anticipation of the 2011 harvest.

Bart and Pat plan to make wine from the September harvest to have ready for sale in the Summer of 2012. During this first year they will bring in over 5000 pounds of various regional grapes and purchase a few hundred gallons of pressed juice for a grand total of 600+ gallons of fermenting wine (yum!). While this may sound like a large volume, in the grand scheme of things this would position us 6 Mile Cellars one of the smaller wineries in the state and definitely the smallest in the region. But hey, you have to start somewhere, right?

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