Photos: Andrea Ceraso
Bedford Cellars and Glenville Wines are the two wine brands produced by Privatus Wines, owned by father and son Steven and Stephan Fisher, who are from Armonk.
Steven Fisher immigrated to America from Odessa, Ukraine in 1974, joining relatives who had moved to the U.S. a year earlier. “We moved to Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn,” Steven recalls. “There were so many Ukrainians and Russians who didn’t speak English, they put us in a separate class in P.S. 225! My father hustled to achieve the American dream. He worked as a dishwasher, then a taxi driver, eventually buying land and gas stations. After attending Pace, I became a stockbroker at Gruntal, worked at Shearson, and then became a top broker at JW Genesis. My wife, Diana, and I moved to Armonk 26 years ago, and raised our three sons, Stephan, Bryan, and Ross, here. All three boys went to Byram Hills, and Armonk was a great place to raise a family!”
Explaining how Privatus and their partnership came about, Stephan explains, “My parents have always been into wine, and my mom’s parents had a store in Brighton Beach. In 2009, my mom opened a wine store in Armonk called Moderne Barn Wine & Spirits. From that point on, we’ve been engrossed. …But right about the same time I graduated from the University of Miami, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Although my plan was a job in tech, I’d spent some time in the store during summers and knew that I could help alleviate some of the burden, and give my mom a chance to take care of herself while she went through rounds of chemo and a multitude of surgeries. …She’s fine now and Moderne Barn Wine & Spirits is thriving, but my turn managing the store gave me a quick and very practical business education, and a great enthusiasm about the wine industry. I built-out the store’s website, which is really what kept the business going through Covid. …I’ve always been something of an entrepreneurial kid - I majored in Business Technology, and when I was at U of M I sold fidget spinners and headphones, promoted events, gave tennis lessons, and worked as a lifeguard.”
Steven adds, “While my wife, Diana, had the retail store, and years before her cancer diagnosis, I became intrigued with the distribution side of the wine business. I began as a sales rep for a small wine distributor, then moved into supplying distributors with California wine. I learned everything I could about the business. …Fast-forward to when she’d completed chemo and was feeling strong enough to return her focus back to her store, we took a trip to Napa…and I just knew it was time for me to go all-in on the wine production business. …And Stephan is the perfect partner, as he knows everything I don’t, and I get the joy of doing this with my son! …And my son Bryan is the creative behind our labels and designs. He designs our brochures, takes photos, and edits videos for our social media.”
He continues, “We teamed up with renowned winemaker Jason Welch to oversee our production. We source all our wines from California and buy only single vineyard appellation wines. So we have varietals from Napa Valley, Alexander Valley, Red Hills Lake County, Moon Mountain District, Sonoma County, and Monterey County. We operate from a custom crush facility in Saint Helena and buy the juice from some of the most prestigious vineyards - but are under contract not to disclose their identities! Those vineyards sell the same product at several times the price we put on it!
Stephan adds, “Our Petite Sirah earned 93 points from Wine & Spirits Magazine. Our wines are distributed in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, New Hampshire, Colorado, Nevada, and Florida, and our wine is available online. Locally, our wines are available at Bedford Wine Merchants and at Banksville Wine & Liquor in Bedford, and of course at my mom’s store, Moderne Barn Wine & Spirits. It’s also poured at Modern Barn Restaurant in Armonk, and a few others in the area. And our wines are affordable, selling retail at around $19 to $50 a bottle - with the same wine under the original vineyard’s label, on the same shelf in the liquor store, selling in the $40 to $100 range.”
Steven sums it up saying, “It’s easy to say we’ll put our wines up against the award winners - because it’s actually the same wine in the bottle! Getting folks to realize the value of our Bedford and Glenville wines is just a function of getting people to drink their first bottle! Last year, in our third year of operation, we sold 25,000 cases, and we intend to be selling over 100,000 cases per year within the next couple of years. After that, we have plans to start sourcing additional varietals from Europe.”
And if the quality and value of the Privatus wines isn’t enough, just think how cool it will be - as a Bedford & New Canaan Magazine local - to be pouring Bedford Cellars!
As featured in the November/December 2023 issue of Bedford & New Canaan Magazine