SAYBROOK TOWNSHIP – Before giving out the Lifetime Service Award at the Growth Partnership for Ashtabula County’s “Best of the County” celebration Sept. 15 in Ashtabula, emcee R. Scott Wludyga noted that the award “recognizes a lifetime – not a moment, not a project – but decades of service to Ashtabula County.”
That was fitting for the recipient, Donniella Winchell, executive director of the Ohio Wine Producers Association in Geneva, who has spent a career lifetime dedicated to the winery industry.
But that wasn’t her initial goal, Wludyga pointed out during the awards at the Norman D. Banquet Center.
“She started out with a plan to become a school superintendent,” he said. “Instead a part-time job with a small struggling group of Ohio wineries back in the late 1970s changed the entire trajectory of her life, and as it turns out, the trajectory of an entire industry. Under her leadership, that small group grew from about a dozen wineries into an organization representing nearly 300 across the state, a billion dollar industry, supporting thousands of jobs, and right here in Ashtabula County that growth has been especially remarkable. Northeast Ohio now has more wineries per square mile than anywhere else in the country. She spent her career building festivals, building relationships, and building a reason for people to visit and stay right here at home.”
As part of the awards presentation, a video was shown of Winchell’s career. It was noted that Winchell was leading the Ohio Wine Producers Association full-time by 1984.
“Donnie helped build festival by festival, tasting by tasting, relationship by relationship,” Wludyga said in narrating the video. “In 1994, she launched the Vintage Ohio Wine Festival, a model so successful it’s been replicated across the country.”
Wludyga said Winchell’s impact reaches well beyond wine, noting that she served on the Ashtabula County Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Ashtabula County Convention Facilities Authority and statewide tourism boards.
He said Winchell championed the county as a place worth visiting, worth investing in and worth calling home.
“She’s taught the next generation at Kent State Ashtabula, written for Ohio publications for decades, and never stopped advocating for the growers and vintners who made this industry what it is,” he said.
Wludyga summed up Winchell’s achievements in the presentation of the award.
“For a lifetime spent transforming Ashtabula County’s wine industry, driving tourism to our region, and giving back to the community she’s always called home, the Growth Partnership for Ashtabula County is proud to present the 2026 Lifetime Service Award to Donniella Winchell,” he said.
In accepting the award, Winchell expressed how pleasurable her career has been to her.
For nearly 40 years, she said she has never really gone to work.
“I love what I do,” she said.
Part of it, she said, is because she works in an industry that is incredibly collaborative.
“We like each other, even if we’re a bit competitive at times,” she said. “We like and respect and work together in an amazing way, probably more than any other industry I’ve ever observed. Secondly, I get to tell the world about what my partners have accomplished.”
She thanked the Growth Partnership and also her family.
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