Osprey's Dominion selling vineyards, winery
The wine tasting room at Osprey's Dominion Vineyard in Peconic in 2019. Credit: Linda Rosier
Osprey's Dominion Vineyards, a crowd-friendly winery based in Peconic, is in contract to sell two of its vineyard properties and is offering the remaining tasting room, a primary vineyard and the brand for sale for $8.2 million, according to the real estate agent.
The entire business originally went on the block earlier this year for $13 million.
Osprey’s was founded as a grape-growing farm by Frederick “Bud” Koehler in 1983 after he retired from a Farmingdale construction business. The company went on to make its own wine, expanding its vineyard properties and taking on a partner in Koehler's longtime friend William Tyree. Both shared a love of flying. Koehler died in 2021, Tyree in 2012.
"The reason the owners have decided to sell is because their fathers, the original owners, had a passion for the business but [the founders] have since passed away," said Rita Rooney, listing agent for the property at Douglas Elliman real estate. "The adult children who have inherited the properties do not have a desire to run the winery business."
Family members weren't available at the winery Tuesday for comment.
The two properties under contract are a 24.57-acre parcel in Peconic that includes a 2.87-acre residential plot, and a 16.78-acre parcel in Mattituck with development rights intact, meaning they can be developed by a new owner. Rooney wasn’t able to say whether the prospective buyers would keep those parcels in as vineyards.
But she said there’s been “a great deal of interest in the tasting room location,” which remains on the market and includes 46.36 acres of planted vines and 4.46 acres for the winery and tasting room with development rights intact.
The $8.2 million price tag includes the tasting room of just over 4,800 square feet, with a mezzanine, temperature-controlled winery production building of just over 6,300 square feet, barrel-and-storage facility of 8,000 square feet, outbuildings and equipment.
When it was founded by Koehler and his family in 1983, Osprey's originally sold all its grapes to other farming families in the then-decade-old wine region on the North Fork.
Expansion began in the early 1990s when Koehler and Tyree built a production facility and began bottling their own wine. A restored farm house on Main Road in Peconic served as the first tasting room.
Soon, "crowds came in unprecedented numbers via stretch limousines and party buses, setting a scene vastly different from when Osprey’s Dominion first opened," the company said. Osprey's accommodated them, with Koehler installing a gazebo and small stage for live band performances outside the tasting room, then adding "plenty of picnic tables for summertime visitors."
Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.
'A spark for them to escalate the fighting' A standoff between officials has stalled progress, eroded community patience and escalated the price tag for taxpayers. Newsday investigative editor Paul LaRocco and NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie report.
'A spark for them to escalate the fighting' A standoff between officials has stalled progress, eroded community patience and escalated the price tag for taxpayers. Newsday investigative editor Paul LaRocco and NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie report.
