We expect to finish pulling mulberry trees in the Tassel Ridge vineyard this week. When the temperature is below freezing at night, we can only pull trees in the afternoon after it warms up because the trees snap off at the ground and we fail to get
Read more →On Thursday, November 19, we will release our 2020 Iowa Nouveau. This is the first wine of the season—these grapes were still on the vine on September 1. It is a young, very simple wine that is very fruit forward. There is no complexity here, just great
Read more →With good weather forecast for this week, we expect to finish pulling the Mulberry trees at Tassel Ridge. We are almost done and finally, this vineyard block no longer looks like a young forest. We will also mow all vineyards. We will start our spraying of herbicide
Read more →We have about 540 cases of Cranberry Wine to bottle this week. In addition, we have lots of cellar operations to perform. We will rack Edelweiss off a fining agent and begin cold stabilization of Edelweiss. We will also rack St. Pepin off a fining agent. We’ve
Read more →We expect rain this week but weather permitting, we will continue pulling Mulberry trees at Tassel Ridge. Fortunately, the wet ground facilitates tree removal. We are also planning to continue cutting off Edelweiss and Marquette trunks at the ground so we can grow new trunks on those
Read more →This week, we will bottle American Steuben and get Cranberry Wine ready for bottling next week. We will also be monitoring some fermentations. We purchased some barrels made from American oak that have high levels of whisky lactones. We will be ageing a special batch of Iowa
Read more →At the beginning of last week, the leaves on many of the vines in our vineyards were bright yellow and had been yellow for a week or so. We’ve seen this before however this year, we saw more autumn color than ever before. Then, the nights got
Read more →We bottle the 2020 Iowa Nouveau, our first wine of the season, this week. This is a very fruity, dry red wine that lots of Iowans consume with Thanksgiving dinner. It will be released on Thursday, November 19. Last week, we received Concord juice and started its
Read more →The rain last week softened the ground enough that it became easier to remove Mulberry trees in A and B Blocks at Tassel Ridge Vineyard. One team is removing trees and the other is cutting off the Edelweiss as we get ready to bring up new trunks
Read more →Cooler weather has arrived, reminding us that winter is just around the corner. Our vineyard crew continues to pull mulberry trees in the Edelweiss blocks at Tassel Ridge and we continue to cut down and remove old Edelweiss vines in the A Block. In the spring, we
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