Recently, Diane and Tim Moore stopped chasing the dream of operating a winery – and started living it.

The couple now owns Imagine Moore Winery, located in a restored 1860s carriage house in Naples.

Diane says the push the couple needed for the new venture came in 2006, shortly after Tim expressed regret that he had not yet laid the groundwork to open a winery before turning 40.

“I said, ‘Well, you know what? We’ve got a year. Let’s do it,’ ” says Diane, who met her husband two decades ago when they were students at the University of California at Davis.

“So he went after (the dream),” she says. “We bought this property and pretty much everything just fell together.”

Working from connections established through his day job as a vineyard manager and grower-relations director for Constellation Brands Inc., Tim buys grapes for Moore from Seneca and Keuka Lake growers who practice sustainable farming. For now, the winery’s production goal is 2,000 cases per year.

The Moores have taken other steps that reflect their concern for the environment. The winery’s labels, for example, are screen-printed directly on the bottles using soy-based organic inks, in colors such as shamrock green and cotton-candy pink. The synthetic corks – in the same bold colors as the labels – are made from recycled materials.

Conservation also plays a role in the tasting room’s design, which features salvaged red wood, old house parts and the original hayloft door from when the space stored horse carriages.

To convey their emotional investment in the new business, the Moores have chosen offbeat names for their seven wines. The 2006 Pinot Gris ($16.99), for example, is called Peace, while the 2006 Traminette and Cayuga White blend ($10.99) bears the name Harmony.

Echoing that theme is a large portrait of John Lennon near the tasting room’s front door.

“We realized without even knowing it (initially) that the winery is so much along the lines of his ‘Imagine’ song,” Diane says. The singer’s call for peace, she adds, “is our belief and what we’d like to pass on to the world.”

Diane hopes small gestures – such as providing seating on the deck and selling local cheese, crackers and snacks in the retail area – will encourage visitors to linger and bask in the winery’s sweeping view of the Naples Valley.

“We are trying to say our message to the world,” she says, “but in a fun way.”

Imagine Moore Winery, 197 N. Main St. in Naples, Ontario County, is open year-round, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Phone: (585) 374-5970. Web: www.imaginemoorewinery.com will debut later this year. Tasting fee: $3 for seven samples of wine and a souvenir wine glass. Not fully wheelchair accessible.

By Sheila Livadas, for www.fingerlakeswine.com.