00:38 - Hi. My name is Nicholas

00:39 - Lucas, and I'm the owner of Mural City Cellars here in Fishtown, Philadelphia.

00:49 - Mural City Cellars is Philly's first urban winery.

00:51 - We make a variety of wines, from grapes grown within 300

00:54 - miles of the city.

01:00 - In order to get the wines on the shelf.

01:01 - We have to go through quite the winemaking process.

01:03 - So let me take it to the back and show you where it's all done.

01:09 - So the winery is actually located

01:11 - in an old autobody repair shop that used to be trucks and lifts in here.

01:14 - We've completely stripped it down and started from scratch,

01:17 - and we created a beautiful bar with living rooms.

01:19 - And it's a great place to come and hang out.

01:21 - But let me show you where the magic really happens.

01:25 - Back here is the tank room.

01:26 - So this is actually where we make all of the wine.

01:32 - So when we started the winery about 3

01:34 - or 4 years ago, we started in my mother in law's garage in Phoenixville.

01:38 - And today we do about 5000 cases.

01:40 - But that first batch is only about 800 cases.

01:42 - So there's been some growth since then.

01:44 - And back here is where it all happened.

01:46 - So we have all of our tanks, all stainless steel tanks right here.

01:49 - This beautiful thing is going to the are great press.

01:52 - This is the, the dreamy I Love Lucy stamp on the grave.

01:54 - So nowadays we just go ahead and plug it in

01:56 - and press a button, and it squeezes all the grapes for us.

01:58 - And if we walk around here,

02:01 - we have

02:01 - just a few of our wine barrels that are also up with the 2024 vintage.

02:05 - So we have some Nebbiolo, some Barbera, some capsules.

02:09 - Most of it's coming from Chester County, just outside the city.

02:11 - And this is really quite it.

02:13 - You know, we have a tank full of Syrah.

02:14 - We have a tank full of cab stuff, some Pinot gris, some Sauvignon blanc,

02:18 - all local fruit making beautiful dry wines here in the city of Philadelphia.

02:27 - To make great wine.

02:28 - It all starts with the grapes.

02:29 - And so the first thing that happens is

02:31 - we pick the grapes from small farms just outside the city.

02:33 - What we're going to do here

02:34 - is we're going to roll up this big garage door,

02:36 - back up a big truck, and then from there on, we start processing the grapes.

02:39 - So if you think about a grape that you would find at the grocery store,

02:42 - the big bunches of grapes, that's exactly how we pick them off the vine.

02:45 - We bring in here to the city.

02:47 - What we're gonna do is we're going to run the grapes

02:48 - through a machine called the December, and that's going to remove the grapes

02:51 - from the stems.

02:52 - What's going to happen is we're going to put those grapes in this press right here.

02:56 - Right. So we're going to open this up.

02:59 - We're going to load about 2,000 pounds of grapes in this machine at once.

03:02 - And if you look inside there's like an air bladder in here.

03:05 - What's going to happen is when we close the door, this machine is going to squeeze

03:08 - the grooves and then release and it's going to rotate.

03:11 - And it does that for about an hour to two hours.

03:13 - All the juice falls into this pan here at the bottom.

03:16 - So this is our catch pan.

03:18 - And at that point all we have is this sugary sweet grape juice.

03:22 - We're going to hook a hose right there, and we're going to pump

03:24 - all that sweet juice into tank number one.

03:28 - So at this point, we'll fill this entire tank up with sweet grape juice.

03:32 - And then we're going to add yeast.

03:33 - And the yeast will eat the sugar and convert that into alcohol.

03:37 - We'll ferment in this tank for about 30 days at a low temperature

03:40 - about 51 degrees.

03:41 - That's what creates, really aromatic, ripe, juicy wines.

03:45 - And that's my style of winemaking that I like to do here at Mural City.

03:48 - So after 30 days, that juice is now officially alcohol.

03:52 - And we have wine,

03:53 - and we're going to go ahead and move it from tank one all the way over

03:56 - to tank number five.

03:59 - So we're going to go in and take number five,

04:00 - where the wine will sit here for about 3 to 6 months.

04:04 - At that point we're going to decide if we want to age that wine in a barrel,

04:07 - which we'll just go ahead and put it here, or if we're going to bottle,

04:10 - if we're going to keep it in the barrel will taste it every month or two.

04:13 - But essentially any wines that go in here, typically red wines,

04:16 - they'll sit in this tank

04:17 - probably for about a year to two years before a ready

04:19 - to actually release out into the public.

04:21 - But other than that,

04:22 - if the wine's

04:23 - going to go right out to the public, we'll go straight from tank number

04:26 - five into the bottom line, and then we'll put up a beautiful bottle

04:29 - of wine to get it.

04:41 - But in order to get to this, there are a lot of steps

04:44 - and a lot of people that are involved to make this happen.

04:47 - See, wineries are very unique because we encompass a variety of industries.

04:50 - There's farming, there's manufacturing, there's going to be marketing, branding.

04:55 - And because we're in the city,

04:56 - we have the unique opportunity to actually have a bar.

04:58 - So there's a hospitality aspect to it.

05:00 - Which I would love to introduce to the team

05:02 - and show you the machine that really is Mural City.

05:05 - So it's not just me.

05:06 - There's a bunch of us that do great things

05:08 - here, and I would love to introduce them to you.

05:22 - Hi, my name is Francesca

05:23 - Glarus, and I'm co-owner of Mural City Cellars.

05:26 - As co-owner, I'm involved in all aspects of the business.

05:30 - A lot of my day is spent behind the computer,

05:33 - working on our books, our partnerships, our wholesale program.

05:37 - I also work very closely with our 12 employees,

05:40 - and I manage our giveback program.

05:42 - I even sometimes hop in the back to make a little bit of wine.

05:55 - I. At Mural

06:00 - City Cellars we have a 300 mile promise, meaning that we're sourcing

06:04 - as much as possible within 300 miles of Philadelphia.

06:08 - All of our grapes grow locally.

06:10 - The artists that we work to design

06:11 - these beautiful labels live in the Philadelphia area.

06:14 - Our glass is made in western Pennsylvania.

06:16 - We purchased it from New York.

06:18 - This is a big part of our business to make sure that we're

06:21 - supporting our local community.

06:36 - A big part of our business is our house wine program.

06:39 - These three wines are all made with Pennsylvania grown grapes,

06:42 - and a dollar per bottle is donated back to our community.

06:46 - We've helped to plant trees in local parks, donate to local

06:49 - elementary schools, and create more public art in the Fishtown neighborhood.

07:08 - Hi, I'm Clancy Smith.

07:09 - I'm the general manager here at Mural City Cellars.

07:12 - Here.

07:12 - We always kind of rotate our wines there as, like,

07:16 - seasonally fresh, exciting, great as possible.

07:19 - We also have some great wine classes, staff education, guest education as well.

07:24 - And then we also have some great snacks for our guests as well.

07:27 - We're going to kind of go over here

07:30 - as you can kind of see, we do have a build

07:33 - your own kind of charcuterie board here with like some great local products.

07:37 - We feature a lot of like local purveyors,

07:40 - and we try to keep everything as fresh and local as possible.

07:44 - And then here you can just kind of come in,

07:47 - select some meats and cheeses.

07:51 - Also some great local products from local purveyors.

07:57 - You just kind of choose some snacks as you go.

08:00 - We have some mixed nuts, olives,

08:04 - different tinned fish,

08:07 - and if you bring it over here, we'll bring you in

08:10 - and then we will build a beautiful board for you.

08:30 - I am Katie Augustine.

08:32 - I handle marketing events and branding here at Mural City Cellars.

08:36 - And one of one thing that's very important to us here, in addition

08:38 - to sharing our love for local, locally made wine,

08:42 - is creating space for our community to come and enjoy that wine.

08:45 - So we work very hard finding an array of, vintage furniture

08:51 - and try to create some really comfy seating areas so people could come

08:55 - and their children bring their friends and relax and enjoy our wine.

09:09 - So this is our bottle shop.

09:10 - This is where people can come

09:11 - grab a bottle to go grab a bottle to enjoy one of our living rooms.

09:15 - We also have all of our merch here.

09:17 - We love our merch!

09:19 - Our most recent collection.

09:21 - We got these bright hats with our great fish on them.

09:24 - Because we're based in Fishtown, we also have some really cool shirts.

09:28 - These were inspired by Miami,

09:30 - where our co-owners actually first met,

09:34 - and all of this is actually displayed on this custom made rack that we have

09:37 - that was made out of Pennsylvania oak trees.

09:46 - Hi, I'm Leanne Wilson,

09:47 - and I'm the winemaker here at Mural City Cellars.

09:53 - As an urban winery, we work with local growers and farmers.

09:57 - So my job is to maintain those relationships, source all of our fruit,

10:01 - and then you'll find me in the vineyards, picking grapes with the growers

10:04 - and then bringing the fruit back here and processing it on site.

10:07 - And my job ranges

10:09 - from making all the wine, bringing my creativity into the process.

10:12 - And I'll also work a few shifts at the wine bar so you can see me

10:15 - behind the bar, pouring the wine for our guests in the neighborhood,

10:19 - as well as helping manage our wholesale relationships

10:22 - and doing deliveries, and making sure we get our wine out

10:24 - to the community to enjoy it.

10:32 - I'm going to take you through some of our wines,

10:35 - starting with our house, wines, all of our house wines.

10:38 - The fruit is sourced from an hour north of the city.

10:40 - We have our house bubbles, white, rosé and red.

10:43 - These are my personal favorite every day crowd pleaser wines.

10:47 - We usually say if you like easy drinking wine, you'll like these.

10:51 - And then I'll take you through some more of our fun, creative wines.

10:54 - And if you're looking for something

10:55 - a little more interesting and creative, we have our artist series.

10:58 - First one is our award winning Sauvignon blanc,

11:01 - and this is a crowd favorite, sourced from Western Maryland.

11:05 - And if you're looking for a little bit more funky rosé, we have our Malbec.

11:09 - Rosé.

11:10 - And then we also have

11:11 - two pet naps, our pet nat rosé and pet blanc.

11:15 - These are fun and fruit forward.

11:20 - Pet nat is made from a secondary bottle fermentation,

11:24 - so we will bottle these when there's a little bit of sugar left.

11:27 - And then CO2 is released through fermentation in the bottle,

11:30 - which creates a nice soft bubble.

11:33 - So that's what makes me sparkling.

11:38 - Now I'm going to pour for

11:39 - you are pet not long, which is a crowd favorite right now.

11:43 - Enjoy juicy pineapple, bright melons.

11:47 - Perfect for that hot summer afternoon.

11:55 - Well, thank you so much for coming to our little urban winery here in Philadelphia.

11:59 - I would encourage you to please come in for a glass of wine.

12:02 - We can't wait to see you at the bar. Cheers.