The first big batch of wine from Chateau Hough's vineyards is coming out this week, but instead of standing in line for a taste, you might have to help get it into the bottle.

Mansfield Frazier, founder of the urban vineyards at E. 66th Street and Hough Avenue in Cleveland, needs volunteers this weekend to package his inaugural batch of Frontenac and Traminette wines. Those with time Saturday and Sunday can contact Frazier by email or call 216-469-0124 to participate in the bottling at North Coast Wine Club in Solon.

No one is being promised wine, Frazier stressed. As much as the famed vineyard-in-the-city is celebrating its first large-scale bottling – getting notice nationally so far in the New York Times and O, Oprah Winfrey's magazine -- Chateau Hough still doesn't have a liquor license to sell it, or even barter it.

"By law, you have to have a building to get a liquor license," Frazier said, "and we don't have that yet."

Chateau Hough does have enough wine to fill more than 1,000 bottles, he said. Some will be given away and others will be held back for a future auction to raise money for the project. Hundreds of vines have been planted and maintained by volunteers, by Frazier and by others like him who have served time in prison and are looking to rebuild their lives.

People might not hire an ex-con, he once told me, but they might buy a wine made by one.

On Monday, the construction company owner, re-entry counselor and online columnist had a paid crew pruning vines. Frazier was upbeat, showing how much green life was still in the wood being clipped. The local wine industry is reeling from the devastation of this year's polar vortex, fearing a near 100 percent loss of European vinifera, grapes used to grow Chardonnays, Rieslings and other "white tablecloth" wines.

But Frazier chose his varieties more prudently, opting to grow the cold-hardiest hybrids, Frontenac red and Traminette white.

"I'm feeling like a genius right now," he said. "The Frontenac can take 30 below and the Traminette, 10 below. A lot of winemakers here are in trouble. It's going to take them years to get back to full production."

Frazier has tasted the new product, which he calls "good, not great," in his comparison to California wines. "It's a C-plus or a B-minus. I'm not ashamed of it," he said.

The first big crop is a bit of a rush job. Frazier admitted he harvested for wine in the third year of the vineyard, instead of heeding common knowledge and waiting for the fourth, when vines are more developed.

"We got so much interest," he said of the early harvest, "and we got some pretty good wine."