Tassel Ridge Winery–June 2009
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Celebrate Tassel Ridge Winery’s First Dinner in the Vineyard—Saturday, June 6
Wine Tasting: 6 p.m.
Dinner Seating: 6:30 p.m.
Cost: $50 per person, plus tax
Come and enjoy a unique dining experience under a tent in the vineyard at Tassel Ridge Winery. We will begin with wine tasting and hors d’oeuvres followed by a spectacular BBQ buffet featuring beef brisket, pork loin with a chipotle apricot sauce, and other savory dishes paired with award-winning Tassel Ridge wines. For dessert, enjoy a pear-almond cobbler paired with Tassel Ridge Prairie Snow. After dinner, stroll through the vineyard and experience an up-close look at the vines. Advance reservations are required by Thursday, June 4.
Our new mechanical grape harvester will also be on display. You will be able to take a close look at this remarkable piece of machinery. See below for more information on the mechanical grape harvester.
New Finalé Iowa Red Will Be Released June 5–7
The release party for Finalé Iowa Red is scheduled for the weekend of June 5–7. This dessert wine is made entirely from grapes grown in our Mahaska County vineyards. It is intended to be used with or after dessert. We will be pairing it with dark chocolate, but you may also want to pair it with Maytag Blue Cheese.
Join us for Fathers’ Day Eve Wine & Food Pairing Dinner—Saturday, June 20
Wine Tasting: 7 p.m.
Dinner Seating: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: $55 per person, plus tax
Skip the necktie this year and treat Dad to a memorable dining experience at Tassel Ridge Winery. This 5-course dinner will feature a ribeye steak, fresh grilled summer vegetables, and other savory dishes, as well as a dark chocolate molten lava cake paired with select Tassel Ridge Wines. Advance reservations are required by Wednesday, June 17.
Tassel Ridge Winery Invests in Mechanical Grape Harvester
In the interests of producing better quality wine, Tassel Ridge Winery recently invested in a mechanical harvester. So how will a mechanical harvester improve wine quality? There are at least two major benefits to mechanical harvesting:
- We want to harvest when the fruit is at its peak. We make the determination as to when to harvest by measuring sugar levels and by tasting the grape for physiological maturity and flavors. With the mechanical harvester, we can then harvest quickly before the fruit changes and before rain storms arrive.
- Rain and thunderstorms can delay our harvest and damage the fruit. After a rainstorm, the vine takes up water with most of it going straight into the fruit, reducing the relative sugar levels. Because we usually have 2–3 days of advance warning before incoming storms, we can machine harvest a lot of fruit in a relatively short time. The mechanical harvester is like an insurance policy because it helps prevent fruit damage from unwelcome storms that appear during harvest.
The mechanical harvester offers us the potential of substantially lower harvest costs while allowing significant additional flexibility during harvest. The harvester will allow us to harvest about two acres per hour or about six tons of grapes per hour with a crew of three or four workers. This compares to about 1/10 of an acre per hour with a crew of 12 people
who are manually harvesting. It is not always easy to find twelve people on short notice to harvest and then keep them working until the job is done. Furthermore, mechanical harvesting can be done either during the day or at night whereas manual harvesting is a day-time job.
When we decide the Edelweiss is ready for harvest, for example, we will be able to start the harvest at daybreak in order to get the fruit to the crush-pad while it is still cool. We have about ten acres of Edelweiss so the harvest of about 30 tons will take about five hours. We can crush and press a white grape like Edelweiss at a rate of three to four tons per hour so crush would take seven to ten hours. This means that we can get our Edelweiss harvested and processed when the fruit is at its peak.
Our harvester is a new Oxbo-Korvan 3016XL. As it straddles the row, it shakes the fruit off the vines. It works on the fact that ripe grapes don’t adhere aggressively to their little stem or jax. Fruit drops onto a plastic platform that is sloped to allow the individual berries to roll into plastic boxes that move along a track, carrying the fruit to the top of the machine. There, the boxes are dumped onto a conveyor that takes the fruit into the next row where it is dropped into a bin on a trailer that is moving right along with the harvester. Our harvester is about the size of a combine, and it cost about as much.
We will have the grape harvester on display at Tassel Ridge Winery several days this summer beginning with June 6 at our Dinner in the Vineyard. Come on out and pay us a visit.
Edelweiss Is the Most Important White Wine Grape In the Tassel Ridge Vineyards
Note: In future editions of the Tassel Ridge Winery e-letter, we will provide articles about the varieties of grapes that we grow. This article on Edelweiss is based on an article written by Patrick Pierquet, Enology Assistant at Ohio State University, OARDC in Wooster, OH. It appeared in Wine Grower News #76 published by Iowa State University Extension and written by Mike White.
Edelweiss is very important to Tassel Ridge Winery. It is used to make our Edelweiss wine, a semi-sweet, aromatic, and flavorful white wine that is very popular. We use a tall blue bottle for this wine because it has some similarities to Riesling that is packaged similarly. We also make White Blossom, a dry white wine that pairs very nicely with foods that include tropical flavors, from Edelweiss grapes. We have a total of ten acres of Edelweiss planted and are adding slowly to the vineyards planted to this variety. Edelweiss is generally quite hardy and productive in Mahaska County, Iowa, and it presents few problems in the vineyard. We think it has the potential to become a major regional varietal.
Edelweiss was developed by Elmer Swenson who lived and farmed in Osceola, WI. He started out as a dairy farmer but his passion was grape breeding. He said that his objective was to develop grapes that tasted good! This is not a bad place to start.
Edelweiss resulted from a cross between MN 78 X Ontario that Swenson made in 1950’s. Initially, it was known as ES-40 for the 40th selection Swenson had made from his seedling populations. He freely shared his creations with others who wanted to test them. One of the first people Swenson sent ES-40 to was Dr. Elwyn Meader, horticulture professor at the University of New Hampshire. ES-40 performed very well in New Hampshire, and Meader had high hopes for its prospects in New England. In the early 1960’s, John Canepa decided to start a vineyard and winery in New Hampshire, and Meader suggested that Canepa plant ES-40. Canepa was the first to plant ES-40 commercially and to make wine from it. Unfortunately, because 
of very restrictive laws in New Hampshire related to small wineries, Canepa’s winery failed.
It was Meader and Canepa who suggested that Swenson name the grape Edelweiss after a small alpine flower that grows in Switzerland. Swenson liked that idea and in 1978, Edelweiss was formally released to the public as a joint Swenson/University of Minnesota introduction.
You can see Edelweiss growing at Tassel Ridge Winery. It is located immediately to the east of the parking lot.
Bad News! Our Steuben Vineyard Has Succumbed To An Unknown Disease
Tassel Ridge Winery has nearly two acres of Steuben planted at Newport Lane Vineyards. This entire bloc has croaked! We had an inkling that things were not right with this variety about two months ago because it was not budding normally and it just didn’t look right. We were contemplating dropping the fruit and giving the vines some time to recover from whatever problem they were experiencing. We’ve invited several experts out to look at the vines and we are cataloging their comments and ideas about what the problem might be. We plan to get some help to at least confirm or eliminate the obvious possible diseases, and in the process to start narrowing down the possibilities. It is all very mysterious at this point.
Last year, we started a new vineyard bloc which is dedicated to Steuben. It totals about two acres. We have just finished planting this bloc. We expect to have some fruit in 2010 with more fruit each year until 2012 when this bloc reaches maturity.
We make a very popular semi-sweet deep Rosé from Steuben. Our 2008 Steuben has just been released.
What Is Happening In Our Vineyards?
In early June, we will finish planting all of our new vines. This year, the planting is limited to infill where we replace vines that died or were removed because they weren’t going to be part of our future grape growing operations. We will follow up planting with installation of pencil rods and grow tubes.
We are working hard to control weeds. We have two teams in our vineyards with weed eaters and backpack sprayers attempting to control weeds that have grown vigorously in our warming, wet weather.
We are tying and suckering, mowing all vineyards (weather permitting), and spraying fungicide and insecticide.
What Is Happening In Our Cellar?
The cellar crew is bottling and labeling at least one day each week right now. We typically package 400-500 cases of wine each week. Each bottling day is preceded by a day devoted to filtering wine. We are also regularly making new batches of our most popular wines.
Join the Tassel Ridge Winery Harvest Club
Members receive four shipments of Tassel Ridge Wine each year in March, May, September, and November. We picked these months because they are usually temperate enough that we can ship wine without excessive heat or cold damage. Each shipment contains two bottles of wine which are priced at retail, plus shipping. If club members pick up their shipments at the Winery, there is no shipping charge. The average price of each shipment including shipping is $45.
We offer two wine preferences:
- Dry wines for pairing with food
- Sipping wines that are generally sweeter
Re-orders of full case quantities of the Harvest Club selections are always priced at retail less 20% when orders are placed within 60 days of the original shipment.
Harvest Club members have the first opportunity to purchase limited edition wines before they are offered to the public. They are also offered special tasting opportunities when they visit the Winery. In the future, we plan to have Harvest Club “Members Only” wine and food pairing dinners, special tastings with the wine maker, and opportunities to see how wine is made. All of this is designed to make the experience of consuming Tassel Ridge Wines especially enjoyable.
The Tassel Ridge Harvest Club is open to people 21 years of age and older. Shipments are paid for with a credit card that is kept on file.
This is a great way to stay up-to-date on our new wines. Because some of our wines are never sold through retailers, you may not see some of them unless you visit the Winery regularly or are a Harvest Club Member.
Consider a Tassel Ridge Harvest Club membership as the perfect gift for a person who enjoys wine. Call 641/672-WINE (9463) for more information.
Interested in Pairing Specific Foods With Tassel Ridge Wines?
Are you interested in suggestions of foods that pair well with specific Tassel Ridge wines? We’ve put some suggestions on our web site under Recipes and Food Pairing Suggestions. You can link directly to this page at www.tasselridge.com/recipes.htm.
Last Call on Wines About to Run Out
We are nearly sold out of Fruit Stand Cranberry wine.
We have small quantities of Fruit Stand Cranberry wine available at the Winery on a first come, first served basis. Case discounts of 10% on twelve bottles of any of our wines apply.
Our Hours:
In June 2009, we are open seven days a week for tours, tasting, and wine and gift shop sales:
- Monday–Friday, 9:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
- Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
- Sunday, Noon–6:00 p.m.
Our Location:
Tassel Ridge Winery is easy to find. It is just south of State Highway 163 on 220th Street in Leighton. From Ottumwa and Oskaloosa, drive northwest on 163 to 220th Street and turn left toward Leighton. From Des Moines and Pella, drive southeast on Highway 163 and turn right at 220th Street. Drive west on 220th about 0.7 miles from the Highway and right into the Tassel Ridge Winery parking lot. view maps
—Bob Wersen, President
Email Jody Brockway at info@tasselridge.com to sign up a friend for our e-newsletter.