BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — You might not think of Indiana as “wine country,” but Oliver Winery in Bloomington has become one of the largest wineries in the United States.

Wine Business Monthly named Oliver Winery one of the 40 largest wineries in the U.S., and Market Watch named it one of the fastest-growing wineries in the country.

“It’s been a goal of ours for a lot of years and we’re so proud to kind of be at this point in our growth and our history,” Julie Adams, president of Oliver, told Inside Indiana Business. “We don’t try to compete in spaces where wineries on the West Coast might. We think about how can we do things that are different? And that has been a real key to our success.”

“It has been helpful for us to be out of the mainstream, to be in Indiana, to be away from the competition out in California,” said CEO Bill Oliver. “There’s 5,000-6,000 wineries in California. I don’t know if we would be able to thrive in that environment.”

What started out as an experiment by an Indiana University professor in the 1960s has grown into a multi-million-dollar business. Oliver Winery sold more than 505,000 cases of wine in 2019 — a 19% increase from the previous year. The company has expanded into 38 different states, including California.

 

photos courtesy  Oliver Winery FB page