Crossville’s Chestnut Hill Winery has closed its doors after serving the community for more than 25 years.
Trudi Stryker along with co-owner Harold Stryker, said the family has experienced stress and grief since the passing of her husband and business partner, Darrin Stryker. Trudi Stryker said her mother-in-law and husband died within a short time span, leading to the decision to ultimately sell the winery.
“It has been a difficult decision to actually let go of this,” Stryker said. “But again it’s something that we had to set our mind to and do for our sanity and our well being.”
The Stryker family has sold the building and the remaining supply of wine. Stryker said she is open to selling their award-winning wine recipes with their name.
“We have brought the Chestnut Hill Winery name to such a quality point that we would hate to see it not held to those standards,” Stryker said.
Stryker said she is thankful for the support from the Crossville community and plans to travel and spend more time with family.
Stryker said her husband was an integral part of both the business and creative aspects of the winery. Along with being a winery owner and maker, he was also a real estate agent and a national clogging champion multiple times.
“He worked very closely with the wine makers we had to begin with to create the list of wines that we had and after they moved on to other things he himself did all that and created a few things himself,” Stryker said.
Stryker said her husband first applied for the winery business license. Stryker said the winery held intimate family memories like countless holiday gatherings and child-rearing milestones.
Stryker said she and her husband sold dry to sweet wines. She said they won a gold medal for Best Dessert Wine at a Wines of the South competition. Stryker said the family would be willing to sell all of the recipes with labels and all included, but she would be picky with who she sells the recipes to.
Stryker said her family takes pride in the winery and thought long and hard about this decision.
“Ever since we’ve been here, and we like to think we’ve helped the community and put back into the community and brought in extra tourists, and tourist money to help out the community as well,” Stryker said.
The official closing date for the winery is November 15th.
