The Wild Journey of Dr. Chris Colloca
The owner of Colloca Estate Winery in Fair Haven reflects on his path from All-American football player in Ithaca to chiropractic medicine to winery founder and events-venue operator.
By Tom and Jerry Caraccioli
Chris Colloca went from being an All-American football player and national champion at Ithaca College, to a successful doctor and entrepreneur in chiropractic medicine and the wine business, as well as a philanthropist who is making a difference in the Central New York area where he grew up.
If that sounds like a long and winding road, it has been.
But each interesting stop along his journey brought him a life-changing development that would eventually lead to other hobbies and pursuits that he is doing today.
Upon graduating from Ithaca College in 1990 where he served as the football team’s co-captain, was an All-American inside linebacker and a member of the 1988 Division III National Championship team, Colloca was ready to apply his Bachelor of Science degree in exercise science in the profession of teaching and coaching. But a battle with acute carpal tunnel syndrome, which he developed from his years on the gridiron, became a problem he could no longer ignore. He went to visit Oswego chiropractor Ed Galvin.
“Dr. Galvin explained that playing football all those years damaged the nerves,” Colloca recalled. “Providing adjustments to the spine helped alleviate those symptoms and addressed the cause without disguising it through painkillers and other medicines. After that, the carpal tunnel healed very quickly.”
His visit to Galvin and treatment not only gave Colloca relief in fixing his physical problem but ultimately led him to the first stop on his life pathway.
“I was amazed at the results I had,” the Oswego native said. “Dr. Galvin practices the use of an instrument that makes precise and precision adjustments. The benefit is, it is very specific and the instrument provides the same controlled force time after time after time. Nothing else helped me before. I was fascinated by this.”
That treatment, in which Galvin used specialized chiropractic tools and not just “old school” manual manipulation, spurred Colloca to abandon a graduate assistant football coaching opportunity at Springfield College and pursue a career as a chiropractor.
“After that, I decided to drop everything and decided to go to chiropractic college,” he said.
Colloca attended Life University in Atlanta, Georgia, and lived there for five years. Upon entering chiropractic school, the young Colloca thought that all chiropractors used instruments to aid in treatments. He didn’t know much about the manual way of working. While there he learned about the “old school” methods of chiropractic medicine, but he also wanted to explore the practice involving medical devices like the ones Galvin had introduced him to during his treatment.
Colloca analogized how we learn arithmetic with the study of chiropractic.
“When I went to chiropractic college, I found out that you learn ‘arithmetic’ the old-fashioned way and instrument usage is taught during your last year as a senior year course,” he said. “I didn’t want to wait that long because I knew it worked for me.”
So, the former All-American football player took it upon himself to huddle up some like-minded classmates and start an “instrument adjusting” club. The idea and interest really took. He became the president of the activator club, which led him to co-authoring a textbook — “Activator Methods Chiropractic Technique.” With his name now on the cover of a textbook, the young chiropractic student’s credibility within the field took hold.
“The book gave me the credibility and opportunity to stand up in front of a room at a continuing education seminar for chiropractors,” Colloca said. “Because I had written a book, it also gave me respect from my peers. I had the authority to teach them even though I was younger than most of the people I was speaking to.”
That experience provided a route which led to another life-changing development that would eventually usher in new hobbies and pursuits he is doing today.
“I was teaching for an activator company that had a stainless instrument and we researched how much force was needed to move a bone in the most efficient way to cause a muscle reflex,” Colloca explained. “We were doing research on humans and large animal models.”
After meeting a spine surgeon at a research conference, Colloca and his colleague learned what really was needed was a bigger activator — more force, different frequencies and speeds that caused different responses.
“The limitations of the stainless sprint-loaded activator led me to invent an electrical instrument we began testing, using and then getting FDA registration before taking it to market,” Colloca recalled of his then-burgeoning licensed Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine self. “After that, I started a medical device company. It was born out of the research and need.”
That invention helped launch Colloca’s practice into a worldwide frontier in which he traveled around the globe espousing his profession and the use of his medical innovation. World travel not only reinforced his medical practice but also ignited a new passion his brother, John, had introduced to him.
“In college we drank Milwaukee’s Best,” Colloca laughingly recalled. “I had a brother, John, who introduced me to wine. He was a wine collector and worked in the movie industry where he drank expensive wines on expense accounts.
“What he taught me is you can buy a good bottle of wine for $35 and then you age it. In 10-15 years, you will see those same wines on a dinner wine list for $300. I began reading more about wines. I took a liking to studying and trying different wines. At the same time, I was traveling around the world. I had an opportunity to visit different vineyards across the United States in Oregon, California in Napa Valley and Sonoma. My seminars were worldwide so we also would go to Tuscany, Spain, Africa and Argentina. It was always nice to take a couple extra days and visit vineyards.”
Hobby to Business
Colloca’s hobby turned more serious when he began thinking about having his own vineyard someday. When a property in Fair Haven became available, preparation met opportunity for Colloca’s new passion.
“When the Fair Haven property came up on the horizon, I thought it would be a perfect spot for a vineyard,” Colloca recalled. “I had to buy seven separate parcels of land back-to-back. I didn’t just walk in and buy it. I bought the waterfront first and then bought more.”
He planted vines, which cover 30 acres of the sprawling 105-acre property and began growing grapes that produce Reisling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines under the label of Colloca Estate Winery. He also grows in Australia and imports those wines back to Central New York.
“I was happy to purchase the property and plant the vines, mostly Riesling because it’s more conducive to the climate,” Colloca explained. “It’s a cold-hardy grape. We also plant Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. We make estate wines from those grapes and also buy fruit from other local growers in the Finger Lakes, as well as other Lake Ontario shore communities.”
Along the way, Colloca also understood although wine tasting is an acquired and active pursuit in Central New York, what happens when you’ve “been there, done that?” With that in mind, he learned Colloca Estate Winery was becoming a destination that needed to capture and keep curious, current and future oenophiles for longer than a tasting.
“People would come to us and take a tasting at Colloca Wineries and then say, ‘OK, now what do I do,’” the owner recalled. “We learned pretty quickly that we needed to capture our audience. The way we did that was by expanding the winery in offering more services. We built an outdoor restaurant with a bar, with a separate liquor license for full service.”
What also developed was a burgeoning venue for weddings and special events.
“We have 900 feet of lakefront property that is perfect for weddings,” Colloca said. “With the weddings, we started with white tents and then invested in an events center. We host more than 50 weddings a year that are held at the winery. It used to be that we would have 12-16 weddings held on Saturdays. After COVID, it seemed like people were all vying for the same dates, so we opened it up for Friday, Saturday and Sunday weddings.”
Today, the next iteration of Colloca’s master plan encompasses a $25 million to $30 million expansion which includes the construction of a 90-room hotel. The hotel, planning to break ground in 2027 or sooner, will eventually create new jobs to go along with the 100 seasonal and full-time jobs already in place.
“It’s a significant investment in the community, for sure. But the benefits are that we think we can increase more events and also be above the average 60% occupancy that Oswego experiences right now,” Colloca said. “And that’s with a pre-booked year in advance. It will be a destination, not a place where you pass through. We project the hotel could create anywhere from 20 to 50 jobs. They’re good jobs and I’m very proud about the job creation.”
The final piece in Colloca’s full-time move from his medical practice in Phoenix, Arizona, back home to his roots in Central New York involves a second office location in Fulton; a manufacturing facility in Dexterville, a hamlet in the town of Granby (for sales, marketing and management) that includes a new clinic catering to folks who may need medical care but can’t afford it or are underinsured.
“We started out with the idea of opening up a small winery in Upstate New York and have a place to live in the summertime,” Colloca recalled. “It became a place where we live full-time. We relocated from Arizona. We still have our headquarters in Phoenix, but we now have a second location in Fulton and are renovating a place in Dexterville that was a former school. The building in the front of that is a church that will be renovated to become a clinic to care for people in need that maybe don’t have as much propensity to be able to pay or are underinsured.”
That location also will house Colloca’s nonprofit foundation, The International Spinal Research Foundation (INSPIRE).
The nonprofit started 20 years ago with the purpose of advancing spinal healthcare around the world by raising money through different fundraising efforts, as well as educational courses and research.
The “local boy (now man) makes good” has not forgotten his roots, where he came from and the lessons he learned along the way.
“Athletics and our mentors have instilled in us values that last a lifetime and transcend from sports into life,” the entrepreneur said. “The ideas of never giving up, giving your all, integrity, togetherness, family aspect that your teammates are your family and culture, is built into our employee handbooks. We try to create that same culture in business. I credit all my success to my coaches and those leading people in my life, the mentors I’ve had in my life throughout the years that helped show me the right way. Details are important in becoming a champion and all those little things are what we try to do. We want to do those things right and make a difference. That holds true with everything I try to do.”
Tom and Jerry Caraccioli are freelance writers originally from Oswego, who have co-authored three books, mostly about hockey. They also host a monthly television and multi-platform segment on WSYR-Channel 9 (ABC) on its “Bridge Street” show called “Backroads to Bridge Street with Tom & Jerry.”
