Tassel Ridge Winery–July 10, 2009
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Saturday, July 11—Artist Marybeth Heikes display features watercolor and mixed media paintings
12:00–4:00 p.m.
Artist Display—Marybeth Heikes is known for her watercolor and mixed media paintings, especially for her series work “Chairs in the Jungle.” She has been published in the watercolor issue of American Artist; The Artists’ Magazine; Iowa Woman; Sunshine Artist; 
and The Best of Sketching and Drawing. Marybeth likes to complete a whole series of paintings depicting a particular idea. Thus, she has completed many paintings of her favorite subjects, chairs, barns, and glasses. Her paintings are about shapes, color and textures and how their relationships work together to form the whole unit. She likes to paint for the people who are passionate about the subject matter that inspires her. She balances her career with both landscape and still life works, and devotes her full-time to painting from her art gallery and studio in Centerville, Iowa.
Saturday, July 18—
Come and See Our Brand New Mechanical Grape Harvester
10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
Stop by to see Tassel Ridge Winery’s new mechanical grape harvester (shown here before it was unloaded from its trailer). The harvester will allow us to improve the quality of our wine because we will able to pick our grapes at the peak of perfection rather than having to wait while manual pickers get the crop in. This is especially important if wet weather is on the way since rain will cause the sugar percentage in the grapes to drop. The harvester will allow picking of grapes at two acres per hour or about six tons per hour. It works by shaking the grapes from the vine. We’ll have someone present to answer your questions.
Sunday, July 19—Asian Fusion Wine & Food Pairing Dinner
Wine Tasting: 6:00 p.m.
Dinner Seating: 6:30 p.m.
Price is $55 per person, plus tax
Join us for an Asian-inspired dinner beginning with Chef Hang’s special spring rolls and Vietnamese steam balls followed by spicy sour chicken soup, Asian grilled pork tenderloin with hoisin sauce, jasmine rice, grilled bok choi, and sticky rice with mango. This 5–course dinner will be paired with select Tassel Ridge wines. Advance reservations required by Wednesday, July 15.
Saturday, July 25—Join Tassel Ridge Winery for Dinner and Wine Tasting on the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad Dinner Train
Arrive: 5:00 p.m.
Boarding: 5:15 p.m.
Departs Boone: 5:30 p.m.
Returns to Boone: 7:30 p.m.
Price is $60 per person, plus tax
Experience an enchanted evening on the historic “City of Los Angeles” dining car while enjoying a prime rib dinner and wine tasting featuring Tassel Ridge wines. This relaxing, climate-controlled two-hour scenic ride through the Des Moines River Valley features historic 1950’s railcars used on the Union Pacific Railroad’s “City” trains. This is an event you won’t want to miss! Advance reservations required by Tuesday, July 21. Contact Tassel Ridge Winery at 641/672-WINE (9463) as seating is limited. Three spaces remain as of July 10.
Sunday, August 2—Experience a Taste of the Bayou at Tassel Ridge Winery
Wine Tasting: 6:00 p.m.
Dinner Seating: 6:30 p.m.
Price: $55 per person, plus tax
Join us for a spicy night of Cajun and Creole fare with select Tassel Ridge wines. Dinner will begin with mini muffalettas. The muffaletta sandwich originated in New Orleans in 1906 at Central Grocery, which was operated by Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian immigrant. The sandwich is poplar with city natives and visitors, and has been described as “one of the greatest sandwiches of the world.” This dinner will also feature shrimp gumbo, sweet and spicy chicken etouffée, and collard greens. For dessert, enjoy banana flambé. Advance reservations required by Wednesday, July 29. Call 641/672-9463 for reservations.
Your copy of the Summer 2009 Tassel Ridge Winery Events Program can be accessed here!
In the future, we will put our events calendars on our web site and will let you know about the fact they have been posted with a note in our e-letter. The Summer 2009 edition can be accessed here: http://www.tasselridge.com/images/Events-Prog-Sum09.pdf.
It is a 4.86 mb PDF.
Wine-a-ritas and Tickled Pink make a great summer beverage….and are featured in our commercial on the Food Network in the 
Greater Des Moines Area
Put a half package of our Wine-a-rite mix and half a bottle of our Tickled Pink in a blender and then fill the blender with ice. In about two minutes, you have five wine-a-ritas (adult slushies) that offer lots of cooling power in hot weather. And, they are great with home made enchiladas, tacos, and burritos.
Tickled Pink in a 750 ml bottle is priced at $10 retail
Wine-a-rita mix i
n a bag, $11 plus tax
(Note: many retailers carry our Tickled Pink wine. If you can’t find the
Wine-a-rita mix, we will be happy to ship it to you).
Our TV commercials on the Food Network are aired through Mediacom twice each evening at different times beginning at 5:00 p.m. If you get your video via Mediacom and live in the following towns, you should be able to view Tassel Ridge Winery commercials: Ames, Ankeny, Greater Des Moines, Indianola, Osceola, Leon, and Creston. In South Central Iowa, the markets include New Sharon, Oskaloosa, Albia, Centerville, Ottumwa, Fairfield, and Bloomfield. In Eastern Iowa, the markets are Mt. Pleasant, Fort Madison, and Burlington.
What Is Happening In Our Vineyards?
Our warm wet weather continues to make it difficult to get out into the vineyards every day. Heavy rains at night combined with hot, humid weather in the daytime, is just great 
for growing grapes, fungi, and weeds. We’re going to have a bumper crop of grapes and in fact, we will be dropping Marquette grapes in order to improve the quality of what we do harvest. And, we will be selling our excess fruit.
We are tying and suckering, mowing all vineyards (weather permitting), spraying fungicide and insecticide, and weed-eating.
What Is Happening In Our Cellar?
We are bottling once this week and then we will focus the rest of our time on moving tanks and related equipment around so the two 2,000 gallon tanks we expect next week can be moved in and installed. For the engineers among you, the tanks weigh about 2,000 pounds empty. We have to lay them on their sides to get them under the visitors’ gallery and then set them upright in a very limited space beyond the gallery. We’ve hired riggers who know what they’re doing. Once the tanks are delivered, we will have the catwalks installed so that we are ready for harvest. One of the tanks will be used for storage whereas the other will be used for cold stabilizing large batches of wine. We cold stabilize by pumping the water-propylene glycol mixture into the cooling jacket of the tank. Because the tank is also insulated, it holds the cold very well. We hope that we can get wine temperatures in this tank down to 24–25°F and hold them there for 2–3 weeks.
We Have High Hopes for the Quality of Our First Dry Red Wine Made From Marquette Grapes
2009 will mark our first harvest of Marquette grapes. We have high hopes that we can make a really good dry red wine from these grapes. The reason is that Marquette has native tannin, something that is missing in all other cold climate grape varieties. Furthermore, the acid levels are lower than other cold climate varieties and the pH is higher. Finally, Marquette is genetically about 70% Pinot Noir so we have lots of things to manage.
Our strategy is to minimally manipulate the wine in the Old World wine making style in order to preserve the Iowa terroir (grape variety, weather, and soils). Here are the steps we will take to make the wine:
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Machine harvest, select berries by hand
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Gently macerate (crush) the fruit with 20% whole berries
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Cold soak for 3–5 days (to allow juice to extract flavors from the skins)
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Saignée—remove 15-20% of juice (to concentrate the flavors)
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Initial fermentation in open bins with natural yeasts (to provide complexity to the wine) up to about 4–5% alcohol
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Move to 200-gallon French Oak barrels when wine gets to 4–5% and add yeast
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Complete controlled fermentation in 200-gallon French Oak barrels with no temperature control in about five days
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Pump over twice daily during fermentation and remove seeds on each pump over. This is called délestage.
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Ferment to point wine is completely dry and fill barrels with Marquette that is being made in stainless tanks.
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Inoculate with malo-lactic bacteria with wine still on the skins so that skin extraction continues.
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After the malo-lactic fermentation is done, press the wine off the skins, return the wine to the cleaned barrels, top-off, and age in oak for about 12 months. During the ageing period, rack the wine every 3–4 months, cleaning the barrels each time. The objective is to create flavor complexity and better oak integration with the tannins.
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We will fine the wine.
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We will cold stabilize the wine.
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We will filter with our cross flow filtration system.
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We will age in the bottle for 12 more months.
We plan to invite our customers interested in dry red wines for barrel and then bottle tastings on a regular basis as this wine develops in the cellar. If you are interested in participating in these tastings, please stay tuned to the announcement of our web URL where you can sign up for these by-invitation only tastings. We want to include you in the development of this exciting new wine.
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.
Our Hours:
In July 2009, we are open seven days a week for tours, tasting, and wine and gift shop sales:
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Monday–Friday, 9:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
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Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
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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.