2025 - Volume #49, Issue #2, Page #20
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Pizza Hut Took Tomato Wine Viral
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“Between Pizza Hut and us, we had two billion ad impressions worldwide. We have 5,000 people on the waiting list,” says Ed Irvine, patriarch of the Irvine wine-making family.
While Irvine is unsure if Pizza Hut will want a redo, the winery makes and sells Tomato Table Wine ($17) and Pomodoro wine ($15) made from a Kansas heirloom tomato. Unlike Pizza Hut’s Pizza Wine, these wines aren’t priced at $25 per bottle with a two-bottle minimum. They also don’t have the same combination of pizza spices or carrot juice.
“Tomatoes make a clear wine, but Pizza Hut wanted it to be red,” says Irvine. “We added black carrot juice. It was natural and had no flavor, but it gave the wine the red color.”
The only ingredient not raised on the Irvine farm or in Kansas was the carrot juice. Irvine’s Just Beyond Paradise winery is entirely Kansas-based. Irvine and his wife, Cindy, began making wine as a hobby in 2011. The following year, they decided to start a winery with their oldest son, Ed Jr., and his winemaking friend, Scott Schlageck. Ed Jr. studied molecular biology at the University of Kansas to build a foundation for understanding fermentation, while Schlageck earned his winemaking certificate from the University of California, Davis.
Meanwhile, the Irvines located a 40-acre property for their winery and began planting fruit trees, berries and grapes.
The family winery prides itself on using local produce, much of it farm-raised. In addition to tomato wine, they make a variety of other fruit wines.
Why tomato? “I’ve raised tomatoes my whole life,” says Irvine. “When we started, we needed a fruit that would produce quickly, and tomato is technically a fruit. It would also give us something unique. We have something virtually no one in the Midwest offers on a commercial scale.”
They started with a recipe Irvine found online. Then, they visited the Omerto winery in Quebec. Omerto makes only tomato wines, and its production has grown from 20 to 30 bottles in 2008 to more than 50,000 bottles per year today.
“We decided if they could do it, we could too,” says Irvine.
Soon, tomato wine was followed by other homegrown fruit wines. The Irvines held a grand opening in 2021. The tomato wine caught the eye of a New York marketing agency, so the Irvines sent them a few bottles of their Pomodoro. That was followed by a request to send some to Pizza Hut headquarters in Texas. A partnership followed with the development of the special recipe wine.
Because Pizza Hut can’t sell wine, all orders would go to the winery. The promotion was a genuine partnership celebrating the winery’s and Pizza Hut’s brands.
Within a few months, a label had been produced, extra tomatoes had been purchased from Amish growers in Kansas, and the requisite wine had been fermented and bottled.
George and Austin, the Irvines’ two younger sons, are the winery’s resident IT experts. They handle the website and security and created a landing page for the new wine.
“We had 30,000 hits in 24 hours, and the site didn’t go down,” Irvine proudly says.
While the rest is history, it isn’t the end of the story. “We got millions in free advertising, and it’s one reason we’re still getting orders for our tomato wine,” says Irvine. “We’ve shipped it across the country and had inquiries from Canada as well.”
Customers report using tomato wine for cooking, especially in chili and tomato soup. It’s also popular in Bloody Mary cocktails and by itself.
“It’s not just a wine for drinking,” says Irvine. “A lot of people try it and are surprised.”
This year, they’re growing a lot more tomatoes on the farm. “We have the seed for five or six varieties,” says Irvine. “It’s always better with fruit wines to have multiple varieties for a more complex taste.”
Tomato Table Wine and Pomodoro can be purchased at the winery or ordered online and shipped to 42 states.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Irvine’s Just Beyond Paradise Winery, 13561 246th St., Lawrence, Kan. 66044 (ph 785-806-9749; team@irvinewinery.com; www.irvinewinery.com).
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