Conversations with Destiny Burns

Today we’d like to introduce you to Destiny Burns. 

Hi Destiny, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
CLE Urban Winery brings the unique concept of a working winery and tasting room to the historic urban setting of the Cedar-Lee neighborhood of Cleveland Heights, Ohio. We don’t have a vineyard – our wines are hand-crafted and bottled on-site in our craft brewery-style winery and are made from premium grapes sourced primarily from the US west coast and branded to honor and celebrate the city of Cleveland. We opened our doors on July 15, 2016. 

CLE Urban Winery offers our customers a chic, convenient, comfortable environment to taste and appreciate wine made in Cleveland, by Clevelanders. Our passion is to share our knowledge and love of wine with our customers and to offer them a unique experience unlike any other in Ohio. We share our love of wine through our unique wine tasting experience, wine-related events, wine education and appreciation programs, clubs, classes, and other offerings. We’ll change your mind about Ohio wine! We also offer our wines, gift baskets, and gift certificates for sale online at https://cleurbanwinery.com – we deliver anywhere in Ohio! 

There are “wine bars” around the city and a growing number of traditional farm vineyards and wineries predominantly located out in the Ohio countryside. We’re different – the CLE Urban Winery concept is not only unique because we produce a wide variety of high-quality, hand-crafted wines within the Cleveland metro area, but also because all our wines are named to celebrate and honor the city we love. 

Our Tasting Room: 

Handcrafted wine – right in your neighborhood! The term “urban winery” doesn’t just refer to a working winery in an urban space. The new concepts of urban winemaking, similar to the growing trend of microbreweries for craft beer, have been emerging across the country. We seek to embed our urban winemaking concepts into the greater cultural fabric of the city of Cleveland, bringing the customer closer to the winemaking experience close to home and integrating enjoyment and appreciation of wine into the fabric of the community in a more meaningful and personal way than a traditional wine bar or retail wine store. 

Our winery and signature Tasting Bar is located in a 100-year-old former auto repair garage in the Cedar-Lee neighborhood which we have turned into an urban winemaking oasis! We strive to run our Tasting Room like a community center that makes wine – come hang out with us! 

There are ample seating areas in the 3,000-square-foot Tasting Room. The rear section of the winery is an open space that can be configured in a number of ways to accommodate parties, events, receptions, and fundraisers – it is affordable, flexible, and comfortable (visit our website for details and pricing). We don’t have a patio, but our front and rear seating areas feature a roll-up garage door to let the outside when the weather is nice! 

Our Winery: 

Our wine production area is located behind glass across from the Tasting Bar and is designed and built so that our winery operations are performed in full view of our customers. We recently expanded the footprint of our wine production and bonded storage areas to almost double in size and added space for more barrel aging of our wines. You can now see the whole winery from the storefront window on Lee Road! 

Our Philosophy: 

Good Wine Made Fun: Our hand-crafted wines are high quality, approachable and affordable. With the wide variety of wine, we produce – white, red, fruit-infused, and dessert, plus our award-winning wine slushie – we offer something for everyone, available right in the neighborhood in a casual, hip, and fun environment. 

Celebrate Cleveland: We are Clevelanders – and all of our wine varieties at CLE Urban Winery honor and celebrate Cleveland and its neighborhoods, districts, traditions, and landmarks. Cleveland rocks! 

Drink Wine and Do Good: Another of the core tenets of our business is to actively support and participate in community service and charitable fundraising causes with and for the people who live in the city we love. We seek to create community through wine! 

Destiny Burns, Owner, Founder & CEO: 

Destiny is a native Clevelander (born and raised in Euclid), and she moved back home after more than 30 years to be near family and to live my dream of opening an urban winery here in my beloved hometown. She’s a retired U.S. Navy officer (she served for 20 years on active duty) and then spent more than 13 years as a business development executive in the defense industry in the Washington DC area. She is also a former volunteer firefighter/EMT, and she has great love and respect for first responders and for all those who serve our country and communities in uniform. 

Wine has always been a great passion of hers – she has lived and traveled all around the world throughout her adult life, studying and enjoying wine and food. She has advanced degrees in Business and professional experience in all aspects of business development, marketing, and management, and has also pursued formal and informal training and professional development opportunities in the wine industry. All of her experience and education – combined with her passion for wine and for her wonderful hometown – has culminated in her decision to open and run my own winery in the metropolitan Cleveland area and provide the ‘wine companion” to all the great craft beer and spirits made here! So – let’s have fun, celebrate, connect, support charitable causes and drink some great wine together at CLE Urban Winery! 

Dave Mazzone, Winemaker & VP of Operations: 

He is originally from the Cleveland area; however, he has not always called Cleveland home. His affinity for wine led him to the Napa Valley in 2003 to pursue a winemaking education. After several vintages spent learning his craft, he returned to Northeast Ohio and began making wine in the Grand River Valley. Over the years, he has also consulted for many of Ohio’s top wineries and won numerous Ohio, National, and International awards for his wines. His vision for the winery is one that emphasizes community outreach through wine accessibility, and a commitment to educate and enable all levels of wine enthusiasts. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road of entrepreneurism did never run smooth! Running and building your own business has ups and downs every single day. But a true entrepreneur is less afraid of failure than they are of having to go back and work for someone else ;.) 

As a manufacturer and retailer, I have a large brick-and-mortar operation and inventory investment. When COVID-19 hit and our storefront was closed by the Governor for an indefinite period, that was an incredible challenge to overcome. I had to lay off the majority of my staff. I had to figure out how to cover my overhead, I had to keep wine production going and protect/preserve my inventory. I had to pivot to online sales and delivery. However, there were silver linings in the mix – I trimmed expenses to the bone, was able to access grants and loans to help bolster cash flow and reorganize my debt, and I streamlined operations… these changes and opportunities have ultimately help me to create a stable baseline moving forward to help recover and grow in the years to come. 

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am the Queen of Reinvention. I have reinvented myself ten times since my teenage years in order to live a life of purpose, service, impact, and joy that is centered in my “why.” What sets me apart is that whenever I feel that I am living a life in discord with my why and my core values, I change, evolve, and grow in new directions to establish realignment. I have been an exchange student, a Mae West impersonator, a US Navy Russian linguist and Cryptologic Officer, a wife, and mother, a volunteer firefighter, a divorcee, a business development executive, an entrepreneur/business owner, and author/speaker/coach. And I am not done yet! Reinvention is a gift – and the very best gift you can ever give yourself is to live a WHY-Centered life – I am currently working on building a practice to help others follow in my footsteps. 

Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Connection with and service to other makes me happier than anything else. It is my central core value. Serving others and creating connections with people makes me feel like ME. 

Contact Info:

• Email: destiny@cleurbanwinery.com
• Website: https://cleurbanwinery.com
• Instagram: cleurbanwinery
• Facebook: cleurbanwinery
• Twitter: cleurbanwinery
• Yelp: CLE Urban WInery

Image Credits
Destiny Burns