You might say opening a winery has been a moo-ving experience for Mike and Lynne Young, owners of Bovine Wines in Buffalo Township.

First came the inspiration to open when the Youngs attended a wine festival. Then there were the six summers he spent painstakingly renovating an old hay shed. And, along the way, he has been mentored by fellow vintner Bob Bostwick, who has a winery in Erie County.

In Mr. Young's words, "It's a hobby that got out of control."

Open three weeks, the Youngs said Bovine Wines was getting a warm reception from wine drinkers who happen across the place smack dab on Route 40.

The idea began fermenting in 1998, when the Youngs, living in Munhall at the time, were tasting at a wine festival in the town of North East, Erie County. He turned to his wife and said, "Why don't we buy a farm and open a winery?"

She said OK. Mr. Young is still not sure if she had consumed too much vino or was simply responding favorably to his request.

The couple began looking for a place and, within six months, found the Post farm, which had been in the Post family for about 100 years. Bonnie Garber, the surviving daughter, sold the Youngs the 50-acre farm where beef cattle had been raised. That's how they came up with Bovine Wines.

To this day, his neighbor, George Sprowls, who owns Sprowls Long Horn Ranch, grazes his cattle on the Youngs' property.

Cows and all things relative are abundantly clear as soon as one approaches the door to the store where a sign reads "beware of the attack cow." It is Mrs. Young's way of milking an idea for all it's worth.

The sign, like many of the cow-inspired wine names and memorabilia, are her input. She came up with the comical labels showing cows in various poses and cutesy names for wines such as Cow Pie Dry, Udderly White, Moo-lot, Half-and-Half and Pink Cowtaba. She credits the tongue-in-cheek names to her bachelor's degree in creative writing from Carlow College, which, she joked, is finally "paying off."

But with those names, Mr. Young, a fifth-grade science teacher at Markham Elementary School in Mt. Lebanon, wondered, "How is anyone going to take me seriously?"

But they do, said a smiling Mrs. Young, who resigned her job as assistant to the director of the psychology department at Chatham College to become the store's full-time manager.

The couple live in the farmhouse across Route 40 from the winery.

"It's a lot easier to run across the road to work than to travel [to Pittsburgh]," said Mrs. Young, who used to commute 42 miles each way.

As a start-up business, being taken seriously is important. And while he's still learning, Mr. Young is no novice vintner. He's been at it for 25 years, starting about age 12, when he made his first bottle and hid it in the room of his older brother, who got into trouble for it.

"That was my first attempt. [My parents] were not happy, to say the least," Mr. Young said.

While in his early 20s, he continued to experiment. "In the early years, more went down the drain than into me."

Because he is starting out and does not have all the appropriate equipment, Mr. Young buys juice from Mr. Bostwick, who owns Heritage Winery in Erie County, and mixes it, creating wines such as Mooberry, a red grape wine with natural blueberry flavor added, or Udderberry, a red grape wine with a natural elderberry flavor added.

He makes 15 wines, soon to be 17. His best selling label is private peach, or what he describes as a light and delicate wine with a distinct peach finish.

He sells it all from the former hay shed renovated as a store. When he bought the property, it had neither electricity nor plumbing and people had been dumping garbage there for years. Mr. Young installed the electricity, the plumbing and did the carpentry and built decking outside, all himself. He is still working on the lower level.

Today, it's impossible to envision the hay shed in the 3,000-square-foot store.

"When I started, my hair wasn't even gray," he said, laughing.

For Mrs. Young: "It was so long in coming, it never seemed real to me."

Besides wine, he sells accoutrements such as bottle stoppers, his own hot sauce called National Road Kill (Route 40, the National Pike, is right outside his door) and penny candy for children.

He was going for a country store flavor. While the atmosphere is definitely country, Mr. Young went out on a limb somewhat by setting up shop in Buffalo, which is as dry as a chardonnay. Assured that he would not sell wine by the glass, the township gave him the go-ahead. Mr. Young dispenses free samples in communion-size cups.

Supervisor Lloyd E. Swiger said, "We checked with our zoning and found it would be all right. They can give away a sample, but it's not a stand-up bar type thing. I'm the only supervisor who visited the place. He's a nice neighbor. He needed some help with some trees and so forth."

Mr. Young was happy to have the help of Mr. Swiger, who lives three doors away, in clearing property adjacent to the store for a parking area.

To Mr. Swiger's surprise, there's been not a peep from the neighbors.

"We have a clean, smooth-running township. Most of our meetings are just the supervisors. There's been nothing negative about this, [although] you would expect one or two," Mr. Swiger said.

That, too, surprises Mr. Young, who expected a visit from someone spouting Bible verses.

But, "We've really had a positive response so far. I was concerned with a dry community."