City streets bustle outside winery walls

 Lush green vines don't sprawl outside the red brick walls and gated wine gardens of Easley Winery; instead, a rush of red taillights flows down College Avenue. Nearby properties are not fields and streams, but a paint shop, a pizza restaurant and a business college.

Meredith Easley, co-owner of the winery, doesn't see the lack of bucolic charm as a disadvantage.

"I don't know how much more dynamic we could possibly hope for," she says. "Talk about a melding of an ideal downtown environment -- that makes it exciting and culturally stimulating. It's just been really neat to watch it blossom around us."

Easley Winery has been a Downtown Indianapolis fixture since 1974, long before an urban winery revival started taking root in cities from New York City to Traverse City, Mich. Most people may associate wineries with long drives to rolling hills, but convenience lets urban wineries more than make up for the lack of pastoral settings, the owners say.

"I think the tradeoffs are well worth being in an urban setting, because I'm much more accessible," says Ron Shoff, who crafts about 40 different wines at Carmel's Grape Inspirations. "It allows people to make wine a bigger part of their life, because it's very convenient for them."

But Grape Inspirations couldn't be in a less soothing locale. The small winery, in a strip mall along congested Rangeline Road, doesn't offer an outdoor patio or even an indoor tasting room. Visitors sip samples at a few table-and-chair combos in the reception area or, weather permitting, in a blocked-off area of the parking lot.

Still, Shoff says, that doesn't stop people from dropping by on the way home from work to meet friends for a glass of wine and gossip -- spontaneous visits that aren't possible with an out-of-town winery.

In the fall, Grape Inspiration's tidy back rooms get a lot of foot traffic. There, the Schoffs allow visitors to craft their own version of a Grape Inspiration vintage. Four to six weeks later, after the wine ferments, they return to design personal labels and bottle their creations.

"People come in and make batches of wine for weddings and birthdays and anniversaries and Christmas presents," Shoff says. "The onslaught hits in October and November of people wanting (to make) wines for gifts."

Farther north, in Carmel's Arts and Design District, Ferrin's Fruit Winery sits just south of Main Street, in a one-story stone- and siding-clad building. No large tasting room or spacious wine garden awaits visitors here, either.

However, a shaded patio just outside the main door provides seating for 40, along with a view of quiet First Avenue SW, and a Tasting Bar inside includes tables and chairs for district shoppers who want to take a break and area employees who drop by after work.

Easley notices a similar pattern at her Downtown winery, whether she's greeting neighborhood regulars at the summer Groovin' in the Garden concerts or out-of-towners sightseeing on a winter weekend afternoon.

Inside the former ice cream factory's plain facade, a traditional winery experience awaits, with about two dozen wines produced and bottled regularly. Guests can visit the Arbor Room for a peek at the fermentation area or gather in the Tasting Room to sample old favorites or new releases.

"If they've been drinking wine for years and think they know it all, we can challenge them," Easley said. "If they're new to wine drinking, we'll . . . make them feel comfortable and not make it something that's intimidating."