Good Mansion Wines is marking its ten-year anniversary this year with a major expansion. The East Wheeling store has just begun an almost 1,000-square-foot addition in the rear of its historic home to offer a patisserie and bakery. Offerings will be incrementally introduced, and eventually include a full assortment of homemade French pastries, croissants and other viennoisseries, breads, fresh pastas and coffee bar offerings. The addition will also provide more retail and lounging space for the store, which currently houses over 2,000 varieties of wines, directly imported Italian foods, and a full service charcuterie with salumi, cheeses and sandwiches.
At the core of the new patisserie will be the creations of “Chef Olivier,” a native Parisian whose studies at the legendary Lenôtre in Paris will help him bring a large repertoire of French dessert classics to Wheeling. The eventual on site production of French breads, Italian focaccie, fresh cut and stuffed pastas, and Viennoiseries like croissants and Danish pastries will complement the patisserie items.
The last time Good Mansion Wines expanded its selection was in 2014, when the store began directly importing a carefully procured portfolio of hundreds of Italian foods. A deli in the rear of the shop also opened in 2014 with a selection of over 70 imported cheeses and salumi products.
“We’ve grown along with our customers,” says Dominick Cerrone, founder and owner of Good Mansion Wines. “Whenever we sense that something might make a go of it, we have stuck our neck out to bring new offerings to the Wheeling market.” As a result, the shop has become a regional nexus of fine wine and food. “There was a time when people in Wheeling had to go to Pittsburgh and beyond to get much of the product at our shop,” recalls Cerrone. “Now, we have regular customers from Pittsburgh, Columbus and elsewhere coming to Wheeling for things not available in their markets. We have turned the tables a bit.”
Good Mansion Wines opened its doors in April of 2006, and from the beginning, they set out to introduce new wines to the Wheeling market that were otherwise unavailable. In the first ten years, thousands of visitors from the tri-state area and beyond have found their way to the Wheeling shop.
The shop has become particularly known in the region for its vast and adventurous offerings of Italian and French wines, in addition to wines from all over the world.
That is in no small part, according to Cerrone, due to the shop management’s extensive travels in Italy and France to meet and work directly with food growers and producers. The shop has in particular honed in on Italian regional specialties produced mostly by families that elude the industrial food supply chain and often make their American debut at the Wheeling shop. “No other place in the area is going straight to the source like us. That separates us, and the quality of our imports.”
“Our customers have been asking for this for several years now,” says Cerrone. “They love the experience of coming to Good Mansion Wines. There is nothing quite like it in the entire tri-state area, and we want to expand on that experience and help put Wheeling on the national wine and food map for years to come.”