Last Saturday, we processed the Marquette. That involves weighing-in the grapes and then dumping them in the elevator hopper. The elevator carries the fruit up above the destemmer-crusher where any stems are removed and the grapes are crushed. The grapes are then pumped into a tank in
Read more →You can’t have too many burger recipes! Try a Tassel Ridge Greek Feta Burger Tassel Ridge Iowa Silky St. Croix is a semi-sweet red that will complement both the meat and the feta in this burger and the yogurt-based sauce on top.
Read more →We harvested St. Pepin on Monday. This variety is time-consuming to harvest because it is located in three of our vineyards, all located around Oskaloosa. We have to move equipment to each vineyard. We expect to harvest Edelweiss and Marquette later this week. These varieties also take
Read more →The Cellar Team is testing and tasting grapes on a daily basis and we will harvest right when they are ready. Brianna is likely to be the first grape harvested. Meanwhile, the bin dumper needs to be attached to the crush pad forklift, the scale will be
Read more →2008 Iowa St. Croix is a dry red wine with pepper, plum, and black cherry on the nose; plum and black cherry on the palate; and subtle oak and spices on the finish. This wine is made entirely from St. Croix grapes grown in our Mahaska County,
Read more →Looking for a new chicken recipe? Try Rosemary Lemon Chicken Breasts! These Rosemary Lemon Chicken Breasts have lots of flavors, including rosemary, lemon, and Dijon mustard, and the fruit notes in Tassel Ridge Iowa St. Croix Rosé are a nice complement to these flavors.
Read more →We will very carefully scrub the inside of our new press by hand with scrub brushes. The scale will be moved to the crush pad and we will get a preventative maintenance visit for our Titrator. Our two new 4,000 gallon tanks will be carefully cleaned. We
Read more →We are taking samples of grapes every day or so now and are running chemistries in our lab as well as tasting the fruit. We are also picking samples that we will take to Iowa State University to test for Yeast Assimilable Nitrogen. The results will tell
Read more →This is the time of year when we collect petiole samples (stems of leaves) and send them to a lab for analysis. We collect the stems of certain leaves because the stems are the pipelines of a grape vine. All of the nutrients in the vine travel
Read more →We’ll be doing some cleaning and equipment maintenance before we bring our hopper, fruit elevator, destemmer-crusher, and must pump from the warehouse to the crush pad. Then, we’ll get that equipment cleaned and ready. We have a bit of wine in the tanks that we’ll be moving
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