Galena Cellars Vineyard

Galena Cellars has been in business over 20 years in Galena thanks to all of our great customers! Over 12,000 of you have enrolled in our Friends of the Winery Case Club since we opened our doors in 1984, and thousands more have visited us in Galena to taste wine and shop for gifts. Many of our customers ask about the winerys history so we have decided to share our story with you. It all started in the early 1970s when Robert and Joyce Lawlor decided to take winemaking classes in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where they lived. They had noticed the growing popularity of wine in the U.S. and had a vision to someday start their own family-run winery in the Midwest. Daughter Christine accepted the challenge to become a winemaker and after receiving her teaching degree from St. Catherines College in St. Paul, MN, she went off to California where she earned a degree in enology and viticulture from Fresno State University. Upon graduation, Christine and her parents opened Christina Wine Cellars in McGregor, IA, in 1976, in an historic, restored post office building that Robert had purchased in the 1960s. The first wine production was 500 gallons of cherry wine. Two years later Robert acquired the old Milwaukee freight depot in LaCrosse, WI, and opened a second winery there. In 1983 they saw another opportunity to open another winery in Galena, IL, and called on Scott and his wife Karan, who had been living and working in Colorado and California, to come help with the project. Scott, Christine, and their parents, restored an old granary building on Main Street and opened in 1985 with production of about 5,000 gallons of wine. By 1990 they made the decision to concentrate on Galena and close the McGregor and LaCrosse locations. As wine production grew, they acquired a farm on Ford Road outside of town so they could start growing experimental grapes and moved the wine production there. Today, Galena Cellars produces 60,000 gallons a year and 40 varieties of wine for you, our loyal