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Good Mansion Wines Among Wheeling’s Top Destinations

Photo by Alan Olson - Good Mansion Wines offers a diverse selection of wines, as well as an extensive and acclaimed food selection.

WHEELING — The Friendly City boasts its fair share of attractive destinations for out-of-towners, and one can sometimes end up drawing more visitors than locals.

Good Mansion Wines owner Dominic Cerrone established the business in 2006, which has grown by leaps and bounds over the last 15 years, growing from a wine business to incorporate a bakery, fresh-made food, and Italian imports.

Cerrone said the business started as a way to fill a niche Wheeling was lacking, which combined a prime business location with an untapped market in the region. The L.S. Good House, also known as the Good Mansion, was itself an attractive location to visitors, on top of the business inside.

“There wasn’t anything in town, and I had an available building,” Cerrone said simply. “It was peanut butter and chocolate. It was a good combination, a good show house to draw people in; there were a lot of people curious about the house, that had been a tour home, and wholesale (wine) lists in West Virginia had extensive portfolios that had no representation in this part of the state.”

He added that attracting buyers from across state lines in Pennsylvania was an easy pitch.

“I knew that, from day one, we’d have a very captive audience. With the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area buyers, because of the state (liquor) store system there, one of the intentions was to basically draw people from Pittsburgh into Wheeling,” he said. “It’s been very successful, but it’s been a ton of work.”

Alongside the wines, Good Mansion Wines features an extensive back end, with a wide array of baked goods, pastries, meats, cheeses and more. The food, Cerrone said, is one of their prime draws since beginning around 2014.

A Wheeling native, Cerrone developed a contact with an Italian export company, which allowed his business to secure products simply unavailable anywhere else locally.

“I grew up here, and I was fortunate to have exposure by traveling a lot,” he said. “I had a good run, I stumbled into the food importing business at a point where we’re one of a very few companies that were doing any kind of food import from Italy. That privacy allowed us to maintain some really good contacts.

“We were hooked up with a food promoter, media consultant in Rome. She really worked with us, we went around the country, hooked up with different family producers. I’m completely local. Our roots are deep, but our spread is very wide.”

A customer at Good Mansion Wines concurred. Richard Riopelle said the food sold at Good Mansion was the best he’s been able to find in the English-speaking world.

“We love Paris, and this is the closest thing around here to France,” Riopelle said. “They make the best sandwiches you could think of. Their desserts, they’re like being at a patisserie at a nice little village in France.”

On the more broad scope, Cerrone sees Good Mansion Wines as a “portal” to Wheeling, as it attracts many from out of town – with regular customers coming from Cleveland and beyond – to Wheeling, allowing the establishment to serve as their first step to the city. Cerrone touted the development of the business into a hub for visitors to Wheeling as one of his proudest accomplishments.

“Once they get into our shop, they’re here looking for other venues to go to, and we’re basically providing a valuable service in … introducing them to the city,” he said. “… Every single day, we’re getting Pittsburghers come down to Wheeling. The whole center of foodie culture has shifted toward Wheeling because of the options you can’t get in Pittsburgh, under one roof.”

Cerrone said that, at certain times of year, as much as 85% of their business comes from visitors to the area.

“… There are times of the year where probably over half our dollar value comes from out-of-towners,” he added. “I don’t think people realize that. There are serious food and wine connoisseurs who do some serious miles to come to Wheeling.”

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