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
Read more →Fermentations of Iowa Steuben, Sabrevois Rosé, and Sabrevois Special (temporary name for a new wine) are complete and we will rack these wines off the dead yeast cells and grape solids this week. We will do the same with two different batches of Marquette. We will chill
Read more →Now that all fermentations are finished, we are moving on to finishing wines and getting some ready for bottling. We’ve kept our Marquette in two batches in order to assess the differences in wine made from vines that were hedged and those that were not hedged. We
Read more →We are making progress in pulling mulberry trees from Tassel Ridge Vineyard. We have a lot to pull so this is going to take some time. We are also cutting off Edelweiss vines at Tassel Ridge Vineyard. We will use the suckers that come up from the
Read more →Our last wine to finish fermentation is Sabrevois and it is almost done. That is a big milestone for the season. We’ll be racking Foch, a batch of Petite Pearl, LaCrosse and La Crescent off yeast lees. Then, we taste and decide what the next steps are.
Read more →Our Edelweiss has produced a weak harvest for the past two years and it appears that the number of older vines in blocks A & B of the vineyard is part of the problem. Many of these vines have just one arm, others have died and haven’t
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