Surrounding the walls of Brotherhood Winery in Washingtonville are stacks of some of its most famous wine, but on the inside: hundreds of memories shared with visitors from all over.

"We're the oldest continually operating winery in the country since 1839," said John Wolek, a tour guide and tasting host at Brotherhood Winery. "The Brotherhood Winery started by making church wine and medicinal wines like ports and sherries. That's how we were able to operate through prohibition."

According to Wolek, that's just the beginning. Throughout its nearly 200-year life, Brotherhood Winery went through multiple owners. It all started when John Jaques began growing native grapes in the backyard of his Washingtonville store as early as 1824. Eleven years later, he had established a large vineyard, selling his grapes and eventually making wine. By 1839, he released his first commercial vintage under the label “Blooming Grove Winery.”

As the years went on, multiple new owners took over and renamed the business Brotherhood Winery. It wasn't until Francis Farrell bought out the winery that it soon became much more of a destination for tourists.

"They opened up tourism here, [and it was] one of the first wineries in the country to have wine tourism during the heydays in the '60s and early '70s," Wolek explained. "Over half a million visitors a year came here on the weekends, five to 6,000 people a day...This was the party place for the tri-state area."

Once Francis died, his wife, Eloise, took over, becoming the first woman in the United States to own and operate a winery.

"As far as I know, she operated the winery into the '80s," Wolek said. "She sold it eventually...to a consortium led by a wine maker named Cesar Baeza. [Baeza] was a very experienced wine maker, and that's when the place started making single varietal wines: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Riesling [and] Chardonnay."

After a fire burned down part of the winery, Baeza's business partners decided to move on. Baeza, however, was determined to keep the historic winery alive.

"He went back to his native country, Chile, looking for new business partners," Wolek said. "In 2005, he found the families of Luis Chadwick and Pablo Castro. They had a winery in Chile. They partnered with Cesar, they bought the Brotherhood Winery, [and] they rebuilt the stone buildings. They [also] updated our bottling facilities and our wine labs, and even brought their Chilean wines here for people to try."

As a result, each owner had brought something new to the growing business over the years, always keeping people coming back for more.

"Our blue bottle of dry Riesling is our number one seller; that is what a lot of people come here for," Wolek said. "We have our specialty wines like [our] Holiday Spiced Wine, our May Wine [and] Rosario. We have a very nice pinot noir that a lot of people enjoy. Our Cabernet Sauvignons, our Merlots [and] our Chardonnays. We [also] have a champagne that we still make in the old French traditional Method."

For Wolek, being able to share the winery's rich history is only half the fun.

"It's very special to work here because you're basically in a national historic site," he said. "You're conveying history to people that occurred almost 200 years ago up to the present time. [It's] very exciting to tell people about how we've evolved over the years; how many winemakers we've had; how many owners we've had; the traditions that are here [and] the buildings that are all standing here."

The other half: Getting to hear all the experiences visitors had from decades ago.

"The thousands and thousands of people that came here in the sixties and early seventies, we still have people coming here today that were here then," Wolek said. "They remember the parties. They remember the great times that they had here. [So,] as a tour guide, we learn from them too."

While Brotherhood Winery does not offer many of the same types of parties that were thrown in the '60s and '70s, there are many new events the winery throws to continue connecting with the community. That includes its beloved Grape Stomp competitions, which will return Saturday, Sept. 6. Teams of two people will compete against each other to see who can stomp the most grape juice within a specified time period. The team that collects the most juice wins a free bottle of wine.

"That gets a lot of people out here," Wolek said. "They have a lot of fun with that."

Brotherhood Winery is located at 100 Brotherhood Plaza Dr. in Washingtonville.