Photos features Anthony Debevc., Sr. on a tractor in the vineyard.

Prior to establishing a commercial vineyard in 1972, the Debevc family made wine for home use and cultivated Concord grapes on the family farm.

Early view of the completed chalet. Constructed in about a year, the winery's grand opening ceremony occurred on May 27,1972.

The original winery site of Debonne Vineyards before the construction of the winery.

"(Grape vine) site selection is the number one preventative in the eastern U.S. for frost damage," Tony Debevc, Jr. explains. "Good air drainage and a higher elevation help. Also the temperature moderation of the lake effect (later spring bloom and extended fall season) and frequent cloud cover are built-in frost protectors."

Source: Putting the Finesse in the Wine Bottle (August 1976), Fruit Grower Magazine.

Building the chalet was a family affair.

Donniella (Debevc) Winchell is standing in the front of the structure holding a roof beam. Standing with a hat on the lower level is Tony Debevc, Sr.. Rose Debevc and her son Tony Debevc, Jr. are poised on the top of the scaffolding.

View of the chalet near the end of construction. The original 40 X 90-foot structure included an underground fermenting, storage cellar, and a hospitality room, which seated 25. A few years later the structure was enlarged by 20 square feet. Today, the seating capacity has grown to 150.

Construction workers building the concrete block foundation of the Chalet.

The Debevc family visited a number of successful wineries, talked to several industry experts across the country, and spent a significant amount of time planning to develop the Swiss-style Chalet.

Winter view of the Debonne farm from the deck of the chalet. Off to the right is the house that the Debevc family built decades before the winery.

Anthony Debevc., Sr. (center) and others bottling the first batch of wine, 5,000 gallons in total, in the new cellar.

In the beginning, the Debevc family purchased equipment suitable for a small winery, in particular, Frederich Morges bottling equipment from Switzerland and a French grape press.

As the winery grew in production, the family upgraded the cellar equipment to meet rising demand.

Adams is best known for his book “Wines of America”, a survey and history of American wineries. First published in 1973, Adams visited several Ohio wineries, including Markko Vineyard and Debonne Vineyard, and collected a number of stories that were featured in his popular book. Photos in both collections showcase these visits.

The original hospitality room designed by Tony Debevc, Jr., who is standing behind the bar, featured 100-year old unpainted barn plank walls salvaged from buildings found on family's 30-acre farm. The photo features the initial bar, which was fashioned from 50-gallon oak wine barrels.

View of the initial hospitality room at Debonne. When the location first opened in 1972, the wine selection included two house table wines, a Concord and Niagara.

Today, the location offers 15 varieties of white, a collection of 14 red wines, and 5 dessert and fruit wines to choose from.

Since the beginning musical entertainment has been a tradition at winery.

Exterior rear view of Chalet Debonné.

As production volume increased, the winery invested in more modern equipment to meet consumer demand.

One of the final stages in wine production, the bottling process involves assembling the bottles and washing, santizing, filling, corking, dressing, and labeling.

Tony Carlucci (right) and Tony Debevc, Jr. (left) testing wine in the cellar at Debonne.

Carlucci graduated from Mississippi State University in 1981 with a degree in enology and ran the cellar at Debonne from 1984 to 1996. Winner of over 500 medals, the Double Gold win for his 1992 Lake Erie Johannisberg Riesling at the San Francisco Fair National Wine Competition earned Debonne the prestigious honor of the U.S. White Wine Best of Show.

Since 1996, he has owned his own wine consulting businesses, Carlucci & Associates, and has taught wine education classes for the Geography department at Kent State University for over twenty years.

Tony Debevc, Jr. (right) is pictured calculating the results of the winery’s annual grape stomp.

Participants competed in three age divisions and each barefooted stomper climbed into a special barrel mounted on slanted platform and smashed 15 pounds of grapes over a period of an hour and a half. The collected juice was drained and measured and awards were provided for each division based on the amount of juice collected.

Pictured left to right: Former Governor George Voinovich, his wife Janet Allan Voinovich, Beth Debevc, and Tony Debevc, Jr..

Agribusiness support from the former governor helped expand the wine and grape industry in Ohio during 1990's. As governor, Voinovich created new investment credit programs designed to expand wine/grape acreage in Ohio and increased the actual dollar funding for wine and grape research and marketing.

The summer of 2016 marked the 34th annual Hot Air Balloon Festival at Debonne. Guests listen to music, sip wine, and dine under the stars as illuminated hot air balloons pass by. Tethered hot air balloon rides are available on scheduled days during the summer.

Tony Debevc, Sr. keeping a watchful eye on the crusher-destemmer machine process.

The device shown serves two purposes; it separates the grapes from their stems and gently breaks open their skins. The grapes are tumbled from a massive bin into a large metal hopper and then they are funneled into a destemmer, which rotates to remove the stems while at the same time lets the berries fall into a separate machine where they are lightly crushed. Typically, the grapes are then transferred to containers to begin fermentation with the skins or they are moved directly into a press.