Since the age of 3, under the tutelage of his Polish grandfather and father, Walter Vinoski trained and tended grape vines. He has made wine for 40 years.

In 1999, the broad-shouldered electrical engineer, who has a Ph.D. in business administration, moved his family to a 10-acre property in Ruffsdale. There the South Connellsville native tends 7,000 grape vines and makes 2,000 bottles of wine each year.

"It's more or less my test vineyard," said Dr. Vinoski, who clearly enjoys living up to his surname, which means "son of wine maker."

At the start of this year, this affable 45-year-old Bacchus became the vintner at Greendance -- The Winery at Sand Hill in Mt. Pleasant, which holds its grand opening Saturday and Sunday.

Local vintners, such as Randy and Debbie Paul at Stone Villa Cellars in nearby Acme and Dennis Narcisi at La Casa Narcisi Winery in West Deer, have set the bar high, Dr. Vinoski said. Still, his credits already include 19 medals, ribbons and best of show awards.

Greendance, which opened quietly in August, features an inviting tasting room plus an attractive retail shop with nearly 200 items and outdoor tables. This weekend the winery will offer 16 different wines -- dry reds and whites as well as sweet and semi-sweet whites. Raspberry, strawberry and blackberry wine will be served, too.

Eventually, visitors will be able to sample a rotation of up to 30 different wines made from small fruits, including golden raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries and black currants.

This year, Greendance will produce about 10,000 gallons of wine.

"The best way to preserve fruit is in a 750-milliliter bottle," said Dr. Vinoski, who spent more than two decades traveling the world while working in the power generation industry for companies such as Westinghouse.

There's plenty of fruit at Sand Hill Berries, the Mt. Pleasant farm well-known for its fresh raspberries, pies, raspberry vinaigrette and spreadable fruits.

Dr. Richard Lynn, M.D., and his wife, Susan, a chemist, bought the 120-acre farm in 1981 and planted the first raspberries in 1986.

"Opening the winery was a maturation of the whole berry farm," Dr. Lynn said, adding that their decision to stop shipping fruit to wholesale buyers in the Northeast is a way to reduce their financial exposure to the market's fluctuations.

The winery's six investors believe that its black currant port and gooseberry champagne will become signature Greendance products. Sand Hill Berries produces 50,000 pounds of black currants a year.

At a wedding in 2002, the Lynns served the unusual gooseberry champagne, made from red and green gooseberries.

"Everybody wanted more," Dr. Lynn said.

In a separate area in the tasting room, Dr. Lynn said, "We're going to have a lot of imported, fairly exotic cheeses."

After the winery's investors put up $83,000, they received some help with start-up costs -- a Value Added Producers Grant of $73,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Scientists helped, too. Twenty years of advances in breeding new grapes prompted the Lynns to start planning their winery six years ago. At Cornell University and the University of Minnesota, horticulturists using the germ plasm of European grapes such as cabernet, merlot and chardonnay, have bred a hardy lineup of new, flavorful grapes that resist disease and survive harsh Northeast winters.

In blended wines, "the French hybrids are the little-known workhorses of the industry. They add a lot of body, character and depth," Dr. Vinoski said, citing such grapes as frontenac, St. Pepin, baco noir and leon millot.

One of the main difficulties in making fruit wines is that small fruits are high in pectin, lack tannins, which give a wine structure, and come with their own acid compounds. All of this results in different protein instabilities and causes additional work for Dr. Vinoski.

Mrs. Lynn loves the winery's name because it evokes all the effort of planting and harvesting.

"You are constantly adjusting yourself to nature, according to the number of sunny days.

"Nature is the leader and the farmer is the follower," she said.

Dramatic changes in weather can alter those steps quickly.

"Sometimes it's a slow dance and sometimes it's a jitterbug," Dr. Vinoski said.

"Sometimes, it's a scramble," added Dr. Lynn.

Dr. Vinoski decided to start making wine full time after his garage became choked with equipment. Growing grapes, said the father of a young son and daughter, is like raising children.

"If you have a behavior that you don't like, you trim that vine off and retrain it."