Mansfield Frazier’s signature project, which he launched in 2010, was Chateau Hough, a vineyard and winery he created — with much help from friends and neighborhoods, he acknowledged — out of vacant lots across the street from his house. Throughout the decade he kept CoolCleveland readers abreast of his progress, including awards won by the wine he produced.
2010
I want to sincerely thank all of my friends — both old and new — for helping me plant my three-quarter-acre vineyard. It certainly was more work than I anticipated, and my wife and I would not have been able to do it alone. While there’s still a lot more work to do, it can be done at a more leisurely pace since now the vines are in the ground.
The goals I had in mind for repurposing the three lots that have sat vacant for over a decade were myriad, and so far they are being accomplished. The flat new home market, especially in inner-city neighborhoods, means these lots will sit empty unless we start growing something on them.
Not only will my vineyard produce something of value (grapes with which to make wine), it will serve as a teaching venue, and hopefully will create a job or two; the more lots put under the plow in Cleveland, the more potential jobs.
2014
Vineyard: What Winning Looks Like
Our first-year Traminette (grown right here in Hough) in the first time we entered a judging won the second place ribbon in the prestigious Geauga County Fair. And it was up against some stiff competition. Wine judging is truly color-blind; no one knows who made it — and I doubt the judges would want to take the ribbon back once they found out the grapes were grown in Hough. Would they? But anyway my wife was so proud she insisted we drop a bottle off at Mayor Jackson’s house.
Four years ago I admittedly knew little about vineyards or winemaking … but what I did know was there are a whole bunch of goodhearted people — white, black, whatever — that will freely lend their knowledge, expertise and efforts to what they believe is a worthy effort. The list of people I have to thank for winning this ribbon is so long assuredly I would leave someone off.
2016
When one woman asked a male friend of hers if he had heard of our vineyard, he replied, “Yes, but unfortunately I’ve heard that the wine is undrinkable.” When Brenda read this on Facebook she almost popped her cork — blew her lid in her quiet, unruffled way. She pointed out the comment to me, and I just sort of chuckled and said, “You knew comments like that were coming, didn’t you? Pay it no mind.”
Brenda did contact the gentleman who had made the unfair remark and invited him to at least come taste our wines before criticizing them, and he did offer up an apology. But I don’t think that he’ll ever take my wife up on her offer to come visit. Nonetheless, dozens of the people who attended our fundraiser made an additional donation on the spot so they could go home with bottles of our wines.