Meet Keith Ditmore and Deana Rape, the charming married couple who run Beaver County’s new small-batch winery, Harkins Mill Wines, in New Sewickley Township.

NEW SEWICKLEY — Their wines blend smoothly together, and so do their sentences.

Meet Keith Ditmore and Deana Rape, the charming married couple who run Beaver County’s new small-batch winery, Harkins Mill Wines, in New Sewickley Township.

Separate from their full-time day jobs, they’re a two-person wine operation, producing out of their home 25 varieties, some named after Beaver County landmarks, like the Crows Run Red, the Beaver River Red, the Wallrose Red and the Brush Creek White. Another of their wines, the Girl’s Night ’Aht,’ takes its name from the regional dialect.

“We’ve been making wine for about 15 years,” Ditmore said. “We started doing it as a hobby. Deana tried to get me to start a winery five years ago, but it was probably a year and a half ago when we decided to go through the process of getting a license.”

“He makes really good wine,” Rape said. “That’s why I wanted him to open a winery. I usually get what I want.”

“We pretty much cover the whole gamut,” Ditmore said. “We have fruit wines, we have …”

“… Pennsylvania grape wines,” Rape said.

“…like the Concords and Niagaras,” Ditmore said.

(Married for 19 years, they have an endearing way of finishing each others’ sentences.)

Harkins Mills Wines were poured last weekend at an upscale public dining event at Off the Rails Farm in Hanover Township and have their Tomato Wine regularly featured in signature seafood dishes at the 1810 Tavern and Eating House in Bridgewater.

Every other Monday, you can typically find Harkins Mills Wines at the farmers market in Zelienople Community Park. In a few weeks, the Northgate Bilo grocery between Zelienople and Harmony will begin selling Harkins Mill wines, Ditmore said.

A fundraiser last year in Darlington for the North Country Trail featured a Harkins Mill Wines vendor’s tent.

“They were very nice and professional and provided an amazing product,” Brian Hager, co-founder of the Darlington Trail Town Extravaganza, said. “They were very popular and people raved about their wine. I was interested in them because of their knowledge of local history and how they paired it with their wine. I think tying in the proud heritage of an area really adds to charm and care in their craft.”

Harkins Mill Wines also earned rave reviews last year at the Read Between the Wines wine walk fundraiser for the New Brighton Library.

“That was an amazing event for us, and I think they were pretty excited about it, too,” Rape said.

Harkins Mill Wines most recently appeared this past March at a locally sourced booze and food night hosted by Beaver Brewing Co. in Beaver Falls.

Launched in June 2019, the winery saw immediate success at regional wine festivals and farmers markets in Evans City, Slippery Rock and Cranberry Township, plus the night market at Pittsburgh’s Market Square.

“This year, obviously, is more of a challenge,” Ditmore said.

The Cranberry farmers market, for instance, didn’t get started until last weekend, and other wine-friendly outdoor events have been canceled by Covid-19-caused crowd restrictions.

“None of the events have been available, so we’re somewhat limited right now to the farmers markets,” Ditmore said.

They inquired about the Beaver County Farmers Markets but found the process to be a bit too complicated.

“Beaver County was a little bit harder to get into,” Rape said. “I’m not saying anything negative there; it just wasn’t an easy process.”

Not licensed to sell on their property, Harkins Mill informs customers of availability of its wines through its social media sites and its website, harkinsmillswine.com.

“We’re going to be trying some delivery things. In the time being, we are trying to find a location where we could offer a storefront and have our wines available there,” Ditmore said.

“… As well as entertainment and the opportunity to hang out,” Rape said. “Hanging out right now is sort of limited.”

The couple — she works full-time for Verizon; he works for a machine products distributor — did market research before deciding to open a winery.

“We traveled around western Pennsylvania, up north a bit and east, and really this area is a little void of wineries compared to other areas,” Ditmore said. “And so that was part of our thought process. We might be able to fit in and have something available that would attract people.”

Glatz Wine Cellars in Aliquippa produces and bottles its own wines, while Chippewa Township’s short-lived Nectar Valley Winery closed several years ago. Local wine enthusiasts from the 1990s will remember fondly the Lapic Winery in Daugherty Township.

A new hard-cider business, After the Fall Cider, has enjoyed success since launching last year in New Sewickley, about 2.5 miles from Harkins Mill Winery.

Wine drinkers who heed the “buy local” philosophy have plenty of choices with Harkins Mill.

“We have some dry red wines and some white wines. and we have some wines that are a little out of the ordinary,” Ditmore said. “We make our own rhubarb wine. We make a tomato wine. We have some novelty wines some not quite available yet (like the Girls’ Weekend, a dry Moscato with flavors of nectarine, peach and orange.)

“What we did is tried to make a wide assortment to see what people liked and what they didn’t like,” Ditmore said. “And we pretty much got nowhere with that because …

“… Nobody likes the same thing,” Rape added.

“So we have enough variety available to try different things,” Ditmore said. “Some people prefer drinking the same type of wine all the time; others are a little more wide open. So, I guess after a year, we’ve probably eliminated nothing.”