HARPERSFIELD TOWNSHIP — Peter Ferrante Sr., a leader in the northeast Ohio wine industry and founder of the Ferrante Winery and Ristorante, died Tuesday morning after a battle with cancer, his family said.
He was 86 years old, daughter Mary Jo Leaman said, and would have celebrated his 87th birthday next week.
Daughter-in-law Paris Ferrante describes Peter Ferrante as a proud perfectionist who started his career as a winemaker when he was 6 years old.
His first job was cranking a wooden basket press to juice grapes. His parents, Nicholas and Anna, sold the juice to local Italian families who often made their own wine.
Born in Cleveland, Peter Ferrante grew up in the Collinwood neighborhood before moving to Mentor. Most recently, he lived in Concord Township and Naples, Fla.
“My father’s childhood memories were about working on the farm and in the vineyard,” Leaman said. “He had his way of doing things, and we did things his way, but he wanted his family involved in the business as much as possible.”
Leaman said Peter Ferrante believed in hard work and family, and worked at the vineyard on Route 307 since the family purchased the land in the 1940s. Only when he fell ill with cancer early this year did Peter Ferrante cut his hours at the winery dramatically, she said.
“He was sad because he couldn’t go to the winery,” she said. “He was in a lot of pain, but it was still so important to him. He wanted to be there.”
Peter Ferrante’s parents opened the first Ferrante Winery at East 55th and St. Clair in Cleveland. They closed it in 1965, leaving Peter Ferrante, who was raising eight children, to work as a carpenter and deli manager in Willoughby. Peter Ferrante graduated from Collinwood High School. After high school, he served as a medic in World War II.
Son Nicholas Ferrante, now the winery’s winemaker, worked side by side with his father for 25 years.
“He was a hardworking man who stressed that we had to be the best we could be. We had to give it our all,” Nicholas Ferrante said. “He worked hard to make this winery the premier winery in northeast Ohio. He gave us this opportunity, and we don’t take that lightly.”
Nicholas Ferrante said Sunday family pasta and wine dinners and birthday parties dot his memory, but it was when the family business was burned by an arsonist in 1994 that he saw what his father was really made of.
“We had just added onto the winery in 1992, and we built a firewall. Well, dad didn’t want to build that firewall, almost to the point that he refused to build it,” Nicholas Ferrante said. “When the fire broke out, that firewall saved 5,000 cases of wine.”
“He didn’t want to admit it, because he had a stubborn nature, but listening to his children saved that wine,” he said.
With not another word about the firewall, Peter Ferrante used his perfectionist nature as he supervised the construction of the new winery and restaurant.
With his wife, Josephine Ferrante, by his side for 54 years, the couple raised their children Nicholas, Anna (Schroeder), Carmel (Arbaczewski), Peter, Mary Jo (Leaman), Lisa (DeLuca), Paula (Tucker) and Anthony.
Josephine and Peter Ferrante also have 14 grandchildren.
Leaman said her father’s legacy is more than grapes and wine.
“He will live on in each of his children and grandchildren. We are here to further his vision for our family, the winery and the wine industry,” she said.
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Wine pioneer Ferrante dies at 86
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