Episode 52: Mexico (Bonus Episode 1)

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn Bonus Episodes, Bordeaux Varietals, Rosé1 Comment

¡Bienvenidos amigos, al episodio cincuenta y dos del podcast Make America Grape Again! ¡En este episodio, volvemos a hacer uva de México con el Rosado 2017 de Casa Madero, la bodega más antigua del Nuevo Mundo!

Okay, sorry for my horrible Spanish there. Welcome to Episode 52 of the Make America Grape Again podcast, where we’re going to sneak across the border and explore the 2017 Rosado from Casa Madero, which happens to be the oldest winery in the New World! Founded in 1597 as Hacienda San Lorenzo, Casa Madero has been producing wines intermittently in the Parras Valley of Coahuila over the course of the last 422 years. There have been times when the vineyard was left fallow, but the winery is currently producing again.  I wanted to do at least one Mexico bonus episode, so I was stoked to stumble across this bottle randomly at Total Wine in Phoenix.

The 2017 Rosado is made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, and for more information on production, we do a ceremonial reading of the tech sheet in this episode. (I should also note that I will have at least one more Mexico episode in the future… probably.)

Mexico is a wild frontier for winemaking, with only about 7,700 acres under vine. As I mentioned above, the history of Mexican wine begins with this winery. Winemaking here, and in other vineyards in New Spain produced such fantastic vintages that King Charles II decided to prohibit the production of wine in Spain’s colonies, except for the making of wine for the Church in 1699. This prohibition stayed in force until Mexico achieved independence from Spain in 1821. Naturally, this meant that from the end of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th, most wine production was done by clergy. The Santo Tomás Mission, founded in Baja California in 1791 by the Jesuits, reactivated larger-scale production of wine in Mexico. In 1843, Dominican priests began growing grapes at the nearby Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Norte mission, located in what is now called the Valle de Guadalupe.

Today, the Valle de Guadalupe is largely touted as the premium wine-producing area of Mexico.  No longer just a gag in Frasier, vintages of wine from this are, along with the neighboring San Vicente and Santo Tomás Valleys produce 90 percent of all Mexican Wines.  The region has become famous for wines made from Nebbiolo, Mission, and Zinfandel. Part of the reason for this region’s popularity is the ease of travel to this area from tourist ports and towns in Baja Californa, such as Ensenada.  In addition to the wine regions in Baja, wines are also being made in Durango, the aforementioned Parras Valley in Coahuila, Aguascalientes in Zacatecas, and Queretaro in Central Mexico. Wine Folly does have a brief intro guide and overview of Mexican wine on their website. In short, Mexico is producing some good wines, and those vintages are well worth exploring.

If you like the work we’re doing here at the Make America Grape Again Podcast, please kick us some wine money over at our patreon, located at https://www.patreon.com/TheMakeAmericaGrapeAgainPodcast

2017 Rosado
In this episode, we explore a little bit of the wine scene of America’s southern neighbor, while drinking the 2017 Rosado from Casa Madero.

Episode 51: Washington D.C.

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn Mid-Atlantic, Other Wine Styles, red blends, Red Wines, Washington DCLeave a comment

We’re not quite done with season one yet! Sorry for the late post; it’s the height of crush and harvest here in Arizona, and I’ve been working myself raw. Our last non-bonus episode for the season is focused on Washington D.C.  In this episode, Michelle Petree (a friend of mine who dates all the way back to freaking Grade School) and I drink the 2017 Cuvée Noir, from District Winery; which is so far the District’s only urban winery and tasting room. This wine, a blend of Grenache and Petit Sirah, is their house take on Rhone-style blends, sourced from vineyards in California. (I affectionately referred to this wine repeatedly as a GPS, because boy howdy do I love puns.) In this episode, Michelle and I tackle some of the “darker” sides of the wine industry: wine additives and the grape trade. It turns out that we feel one of these is much darker than the other.

That being said, let me be emphatic right here: the trade of grapes and bulk wines from California is NOT necessarily a bad thing.  It’s all in what you do with what you get. I, for one, really enjoyed my experience at District Winery so much that I actually sent them my resume. They’re doing good stuff. It’s not their fault that nobody grows grapes in Washington D.C. anymore!  They are also wonderfully open both on their website and in the tasting room how things are done. And frankly, there’s no getting around the fact that sometimes, you absolutely have to source grapes from elsewhere because of market demand, a bad harvest, or because the grapes you want to work with don’t grow anywhere near where your winery is.  It is really hard, after all, to make a Barbera in, say, Maine. Also, let me be clear: the only “additive” in the wines from District is the Sulfites which are pretty much standard in everything; they’re not using Mega-Purple (which, dibs on that name for my future wine-themed metal band by the way) or anything else, but our conversation just went that way. (This reminds me: I need to do an episode about why Sulfites Are Not Evil at some point.)

Now that the disclaimers are out of the way: once upon a time, as I alluded to above, there were vineyards and wineries in Washington D.C. It is, as far as I could find out in my research, unknown what varietals were grown in the area.  Space was limited, of course, and after Prohibition hit, these vineyards were torn out, and the land where these vineyards once grew was urbanized.  Today, there simply just isn’t the space to grow vineyards in Washington D.C. itself. However, this aspect didn’t stop the founder and winemaker of District Winery, Conor McCormack, from opening the first winery in the area since Prohibition in 2018. As I alluded to above, many of the grapes being made into wine here are sourced from vineyards across California, but he is also sourcing grapes from vineyards in New York and nearby Virginia. (In fact, the amazing amber wine made of Virginia-grown Petit Manseng was the bottle that I took home for “research” and shared with some local Arizona wine folks. Frankly, it was really hard to choose just what to drink for this podcast.)

Anyway, stay tuned for the next two bonus episodes… then a short break before Season Two begins!

2017 Cuvée Noir
Michelle and I drank the 2017 Cuvée Noir side by side with a Châteauneuf-du-Pape; the only Rhone wine she had in her cellar. Such a tragedy.

 

Episode 50: Tennessee

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn American Hybrids, complex hybrid grapes, Other Wine Styles, Podcasts with Winery guest stars, Porchpounder-style wines, Rosé, Southeast, Vinifera CrossesLeave a comment

While more famous for being the heartland of country music, Tennessee actually has a thriving wine industry. The Volunteer State is home to one of the largest wine industries in the American Southeast, with just shy of 50 vineyards and tasting rooms. Our wine focus for the state is the White Zinthiana Blush from Amber Falls Winery, located in Hampshire, Tennessee. This wine is made from 100% Zinthiana, which is a cross between the Cynthiana clone of Norton, and Zinfandel, recently released from UC Davis.

This wine, as you may also have guessed from the name, is a Southeastern take on the whole “White Zinfandel” phenomenon of semi-sweet pink wines known as blushes. (A general rule of thumb: pink wines with under 1% residual sugar are labeled as rosé; anything over that tends to get labeled as a blush). Zinthiana is a varietal that I had never even heard of, and it is always fun to meet a new grape; I’m kind of boggled at how to classify it, because while it is technically a hybrid cross, it’s not quite like some of the other hybrid varietals we’ve looked at over the course of this podcast, like those in our previous Iowa episode for example.

The state of Tennessee was home to a reportedly vibrant wine industry in the 19th century that was greatly impacted when that old bugaboo and nemesis, the Volstead Act, was introduced in the early 20th century. However, unlike in much of the Southeast, amateur winemaking and grape growing continued to thrive in the region, which allowed for a renaissance to begin starting in 1980 with both Highland Manor Winery and Tiegs Winery opening in that year. In 1985, the state legislature passed the Tennessee Viticultural Policy act, which greatly assured the stable development of the industry; perhaps this state support is why Tennessee has so many more wineries than most of its neighbors. Like elsewhere in the American South, humidity and associated grapevine diseases are the major challenges associated with viticulture in the region, so many of the varietals grown here are growing French hybrid and native grape varietals, but the state does have some Vinifera varietals grown in higher elevations. So far the only AVA in Tennessee is the small portion of the Mississippi Delta AVA that extends into the southwestern part of the state.

I acquired this bottle from the winery website, myself, for this podcast.  We actually acquired two bottles: one for Gary and one for me.  If you like this podcast, Gary and I would greatly appreciate it if you rated us on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use, and please do remember that we have a Patreon which can be found at https://www.patreon.com/TheMakeAmericaGrapeAgainPodcast. (I know that I haven’t been terribly good at putting things on Patreon, but I promise I will try harder for season two. Speaking of, while we have indeed completed fifty states, there are still three more episodes coming to wrap up season one, so we are not done yet!)

white zinthiana
The White Zinthiana from Amber Falls Winery in Tennessee is our 50th wine of the podcast. Zinthana is a hybrid cross of Cynthiana and Zinfandel, and is our introduction to the “blush” concept.

Episode 49: South Carolina

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn Muscadine Wines, Podcasts, Porchpounder-style wines, Red Wines, South Atlantic, Southeast2 Comments

Welcome to Episode 49 of the Make America Grape Again Podcast, where we explore The Palmetto State, South Carolina.  Our wine focus for this episode is the Lowcountry Red from Deep Water Vineyard, located on Wadmalaw Island.  The Lowcountry Red is made from 100% Ison grapes; a red muscadine varietal, grown in Charleston County, South Carolina. In this episode, featuring Peter and Sophia Gardner, we focus not only on the history of wine in South Carolina, but upon the use and theology of wine within the Eastern Orthodox Church which the three of us have in common. You see, Ison–the grape varietal used in this vintage–shares the same name as a major feature of Byzantine Chant… We also talk about synesthesia and wine tasting, which is a fascinating examination of just how subjective wine description can be-complete with how this wine tastes in song form.

The modern wine industry of South Carolina begins in 1953, with the establishment of Tenner Brothers, which focused on muscadine varietals.  Next to open was Truluck vineyards in 1978.  The owner, Jim Truluck, was instrumental in getting a farm winery bill passed in 1980, which allowed tastings and sales of wine on estate premises.  Despite this, he closed his winery in December of 1990. Most ambitious was the attempt made by Oakview Plantation in Woodruff; to make a 600,000-gallon winery.  Sadly, as this was prior to the farm winery bill, wholesalers opposed the winery.  Montmorenci vineyards opened in Aiken in July 1990, and as of the writing of Wines of Eastern North America, by Hudson Cattell, was the oldest still-operating winery in the state.  Deep Water Vineyard, formerly Irvin-House Vineyard, opened in 2012, and is situated on 48 acres of muscadine varietals.

Wine in South Carolina, like most of the deep south, is a difficult proposition. Hot and humid summers require growers to adapt their forms of canopy management so as to minimize direct sunlight on the grapes,  Furthermore, these grapes are often harvested earlier in the summer, to avoid possible risk from Hurricanes which can strike later in the season. This humid climate in the lowlands of South Carolina means that most grapes grown in the state are muscadine varietals (such as in this particular case). There are also many fruit wines being made in the state. A few vineyards located in the mountains are growing vinifera varietals.  Currently, the state has approximately 21 wineries, and there are no American Viticultural Areas in South Carolina.

This bottle was kindly donated for use in the podcast by Deep Water Vineyard themselves after I reached out to them. Thank you for providing this fantastic vintage!

deep water vineyards
The Lowcountry Red from Deep Water Vineyards is made from 100% Ison, sourced from their estate vineyard on Wadmalaw Island.

Episode 48: Iowa

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn American Hybrids, complex hybrid grapes, French-American Hybrids, Great Plains States, Midwest, Podcasts, Podcasts with Winery guest stars, Vinifera Crosses, White Wine, White wine blendsLeave a comment

Iowa may be a state that is associated in pop culture with endless waves of corn and soybeans, but the Hawkeye State has a vibrant wine culture too! Our first wine from this state that we will be looking at is the Iowa Candleglow White, from Tassel Ridge Winery, located in Leighton. The Candleglow White is a non-vintage dry white blend of La Crescent, Brianna, and Edelweiss grapes grown in Mahaska County, Iowa.

We have met La Crescent before during our exploration of the Tectonic from Iapetus Winery, but Edelweiss and Brianna are new varietals to the Make America Grape Again podcast. Like La Crescent, both Edelweiss and Brianna are complex, cold-hardy, French-American hybrid varietals. Both of these varietals came into being as a result of Elmer Swenson, and the University of Minnesota’s cold-hearty grape breeding program. Indeed, the genetic history of these grapes is pretty tangled, as seen in the diagram below.

brianna pedigree
The Pedigree of Brianna, like that of many complex mixed-heritage varietals, is mindbogglingly complex.

Growing wine in Iowa is filled with challenges.  Warm summer days can create conditions conducive to promote fungal vine diseases, while the extreme cold nights of winter can kill many other grape vines; this is why there are relatively few plantings of Vitis vinifera in Iowa, versus complex hybrids and native American varietals.

There was some viticulture in Iowa prior to prohibition, but records are spotty at best.  Prior to 2000, there were only thirteen wineries in the state, and eleven of them were in the Amana colonies, which was a religious communal society which had originated in Germany and settled in Iowa in the 1850s.  These wineries benefited by a native wine law which passed after Repeal, which allowed them to sell wines to anyone.  It was in the year 2000 when the Iowa Grape Growers Association was formed, and this group wasted no time in creating an action plan for the growth of the wine industry in the state.

The group decided that the three main things which were needed were favorable legislation and basic education relating to viticulture.  Within a year, the team had gained the involvement of the Iowa Department of Education involved, along with some basic assistance from Iowa State University.  A year later, funding for viticultural research and promotion became a reality with a five percent tax on wine.  In 2003, the team created a ten-year plan, with the aid of interested parties, and within a mere four years, 62 wineries had emerged in Iowa.

 Today, despite the challenges of growing in the harsh conditions of the high plains, the state of Iowa contains 100 commercial wineries, with more than 300 vineyards that cover approximately 1,200 acres. There are no American Viticultural Areas that are solely in Iowa, but Northeastern Iowa is included within the area covered by the Upper Mississippi Valley AVA.

This bottle was kindly provided to the podcast by Greg Gonnerman of Laramita Cellars, who also guest-starred in this episode.  He acquired it from the Tasting Room directly.

iowa wine
The Candleglow White from Tassel Ridge Winery in Iowa is a dry white blend of La Crescent, Edelweiss, and Brianna, sourced from Iowa vineyards.

Episode 47: Maryland

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn American Hybrids, complex hybrid grapes, Dessert Wines, Mid-Atlantic, Natural Wines, Other Wine Styles, Vinifera Crosses, White WineLeave a comment

Welcome to Episode 47, focusing on a state that I think has one of the best flags in the country: Maryland. In this episode, we will be focusing on the 2017 Vin Doux Naturel from Old Westminster Winery, located in Westminster, MD. This particular bottle was one of three chosen by the winery as part of a #Winestudio event for the month of June.  Mind you, all three of the wines involved in the series were fantastic; especially the Cabernet Franc.  I’ve also been to their tasting room before and have picked up bottles and cans from this winery specifically for this podcast… which may well still appear in future episodes, or I may just drink them on my own without sharing.

All that being said, the opportunity to review a dessert wine and talk on the podcast about the intricacies of making dessert wines along with the various styles thereof was too good a chance to resist. And so, here we have the 2017 Vin Doux Naturel, a dessert wine made of 100% estate-grown Valvin Muscat (a cross between Muscat Ottonel and the hybrid Muscat du Moulin, for the record) which was fermented with wild yeasts and fortified during fermentation using neutral grape spirits distilled from estate grapes. This particular vintage is made in a way reminiscent of wines coming from the Muscat de Beaumes de Venise AOC in France. 

Here, as with the Valvin Muscat from Old Westminster, fermentation is stopped by the slow addition of up to 10% of a 190 proof (95%) grape spirit. This additional alcohol basically slowly kills off the yeast, as most yeasts cannot stand an overly high concentration of alcohol. Port, as well as other similar fortified wines, are also made in this fashion. (Madeira is, too, but is then literally baked in hot steam rooms, or historically on the decks of ships; sweeter sherries are made this way also, but then develop a living coat of yeast known as flor while aging in barrel. I really should find American vintages made in both styles, as they are really fascinating wines to talk about and drink, but I digress.)

One can also create a sweet wine that isn’t fortified by halting the fermentation before completion through chilling the wine to the temperature where yeast goes into stasis, and then sterile filtering.  A second way of creating a sweet, desert-style wine is by adding sulfites to the wine at a high enough level where the yeast cannot survive, and then sterile filtering. Sterile filtering is important for the production of sweet wines of this sort, because, without filtering, any yeasts that survive will feed on the residual sugar.  This will either make the wine ferment to dry in the tank, or worse: if bottled, the CO2 created by the yeast as a result of fermentation can cause corks to pop or bottles to explode from the pressure.

A final way of making a sweet wine that could qualify as a dessert wine is to back-sweeten the wine after it has finished fermenting to dry with a sugar solution or honey.  The TTB classifies a dessert wine as any grape wine containing over 14% but not more than 24% alcohol by volume. Citrus, fruit, and agricultural dessert wines must be further identified as to the fruit that was used. 

I’ve rambled a lot about dessert wines here, and how to make them, so I’ll have to be brief about the history of the wine industry in Maryland here. The oldest continuously operating winery in the state is Boordy Vineyards, located in the rural region of Hydes, Maryland. This winery was bonded in the 1940’s by Philip & Jocelyn Wagner. Philip Wagner is one of the most important figures in the history of American wines that you’ve probably never heard of, as he quite literally wrote the first major book on the subject: American Wines and How to Make Them. The book was revised and republished as Grapes Into Wine, and it became the definitive book on winemaking in America for decades.

Old Westminster Winery is much newer in comparison (planted first in 2011, and is rapidly expanding with the acquisition of Burnt Hill), but is part of the rapidly expanding industry in Maryland which now contributes an estimated $50 million dollars annually to the local economy. Today, Maryland has over 40 wineries, and three AVAs thus far: the Catoctin AVA (named for an Algonquin word meaning “speckled rocks”) is located in Frederick and Washington Counties, while the Linganore AVA, part of the Piedmont Plateau, includes parts of Frederic and Carroll Counties. Lastly, the Cumberland Valley AVA we met in passing extends from Pennsylvania into Washington County in west-central Maryland.

As mentioned above, this wine was provided by Old Westminster Winery for the #Winestudio event. As far as I’m aware, this wine is not available to be purchased by the general public yet, but I plan on acquiring another bottle when it does become available.

Old Westminster Winery Vin Doux Naturel
In this episode, we talk a bit about dessert wines with the 2017 Vin Doux Naturel; a 100% Valvin Muscat from Old Westminster Winery in Maryland.

Episode 46: Arkansas

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn Porchpounder-style wines, Red Wines, Southeast, Vinifera WinesLeave a comment

Welcome to Episode 46, where we focus on the Natural State, Arkansas. Arkansas is known for the state’s natural scenic beauty, clear lakes and streams, and abundant wildlife, but also has quite a few wineries. It is also one of the few states that even has a “State Grape” as well: Cynthiana, one of the oldest clones of Norton in existence. However, the wine we’re looking at today isn’t a Cynthiana vintage; it’s the Majestic Merlot, from Hot Springs Winery, located in Hot Springs, Arkansas. (I tried really hard, for the record, to find a Cynthiana from Arkansas, but nobody would ship one to me here in Arizona.)

Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty of the history of wine in Arkansas, let’s talk about that much-maligned varietal: Merlot.  We’ve had a few blends with Merlot in our podcast so far, but never on its own, and it’s time to fix that.  The grape became maligned after the movie Sideways, with the main character stating, bluntly, “I will not drink any fucking Merlot.” This film caused the market for Merlot to tank precipitously. In fact, Merlot is used to create some of the finest vintages in Bordeaux–including the vintage that Miles drinks in a styrofoam cup at the end of the film. The name of the grape comes from the French word for Blackbird, both for the dark color of the grape, and that these birds really do seem to love gorging themselves on the ripe grapes still on the vine. In reality, Merlot is actually pretty popular: it’s the second most abundantly planted wine grape in the world, coming in just after Cabernet Sauvignon with 657,300 acres planted across six continents. One of the reasons for the popularity of Merlot with winemakers (and wine drinkers) is the “softness” and “fleshiness” of the flavors, which combine well with the sterner character of the later-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon.

The history of wine in Arkansas begins to the first French Catholic settlers, who were then followed by German and Swiss settlers who came to settle in the town of Altus. This region began making wine commercially beginning in the 1870’s, and today the four oldest-running wineries in the state are located here.  (One of the notable settlers and winemakers of the area is Jacob Post, who emigrated in 1872, and his descendants are sixth-generation winemakers at Post Familie vineyards today.) At one time, Arkansas had over 100 wineries and was producing produced more wine and grapes than any other state. Prohibition, however, intervened, (oddly enough, regarding the wine industry in the state, after prohibition ended elsewhere) and the industry in Arkansas has yet to fully recover with only fourteen wineries in existence as of 2019.

If there is one person responsible for stabilizing the precipitous drop in wineries in Arkansas and thereby setting the ground for future growth, it would be Alcuin C. Wiederkehr, of Wiederkehr Wine Cellars, who was responsible for penning and supporting many bills relating to wine in the Arkansas State Legislature. Despite the lackluster growth in Arkansas wine in the last few years, the state does have three viticultural areas, nestled inside each other like matryoshka dolls. The Ozark Mountain AVA, the sixth largest AVA in the US, surrounds the Arkansas Mountain AVA, which in turn surrounds the Altus AVA.  As I mentioned above, the area surrounding Altus is where wine in Arkansas began.

I acquired this bottle from the winery website for this podcast, where it was shipped to me here in Arizona.  I was not able to encounter any other wineries in Arkansas that shipped here, though I hope to get more bottles from Arkansas (including a Cynthiana) later this year when I will (hopefully) be passing through the state. If you like this podcast, please donate to us over on Patreon, at https://www.patreon.com/TheMakeAmericaGrapeAgainPodcast

arkansas wine
The Majestic Merlot from Hot Springs Winery/Bath House Row Winery is our introduction to the Arkansas wine scene, as well as Merlot.

Episode 45: Montana

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn Country Wines, Great Plains States, Mountain West, Other Wine Styles, Unusual wines1 Comment

Welcome to episode 45 of the Make America Grape Again Podcast, where we examine the wine scene in Big Sky Country: Montana. Our wine of the episode is the Dandelion Wine from Hidden Legend Winery, located in Victor, Montana. Now, we’ve looked at some particularly odd “Country wines” (as they’re known in the UK; in the US as I’ve discovered, they’re known more mundanely as “Agricultural Wines”) in previous episodes before, but this wine style, admittedly, is something I’ve always personally had on my bucket list.  I never expected to find one being made in commercial volumes, so I had to snatch this vintage up, despite the fact that Hidden Legend also produces award-winning meads and vintages made from Montana-grown grapes.

The fact that there are Montana-grown grapes is, in and of itself, miraculous.  The landscape and climate of Montana is harsh and unforgiving often in the best of times, which means that most wine-making in the state until fairly recently has focused on fruits such as huckleberry, cherry, and apples, along with vegetables such as rhubarb… and dandelions.  (Dandelion wine actually does have a long history associated with prairie settlement, apparently.) In other cases, wineries in Montana would bring in grapes from Washington or California to make wine: a facet of the industry we will cover in a future episode, I promise.  However, thanks to the tireless work of viticultural scientists at the University of Minnesota, cold-tolerant “hybrid” varietals have been bred that can tolerate or even thrive in the harsh Montana conditions.  There are no American Viticultural Areas in Montana yet, but today, the state has eight licensed and bonded wineries.

I acquired this bottle directly via the website for Hidden Legend Winery, specifically for this podcast. I also want to make a shoutout to Derrek for sharing a link to my other blog, who has an interest in Dandelion wine. As for this wine itself, the winemaker, Joe Schultz, reports that “Our dandelion wine is made by combining dandelion flowers and cane sugar with water and fermenting with yeast just like wine. The flowers are removed after the right amount of time and the wine finishes fermenting and is racked and clarified just like grape wine. We strive for balanced flavors concentrating on acidity, alcohol, and sweetness/dryness. It is then filtered and bottled.”

Next Episode: It’s time for Miles’ least favorite Varietal.

Montana Dandelion Wine
The Hidden Legend Winery Dandelion Wine is our introduction to the wine scene in Big Sky Country.

Episode 44: Mississippi

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn Mead, Other Wine Styles, Podcasts with Winery guest stars, Southeast, Unusual winesLeave a comment

Hello, and welcome to another splendid episode of the Make America Grape Again Podcast, centered around the Magnolia State: Mississippi. In this episode, we drink the 2018 Delta Dry mead from Queen’s Reward Meadery, located in Tupelo, Mississippi. Now, there’s a fair bit of argument in the drinking community on whether or not mead truly counts as a style of wine, but I’m going to err on the side of the TTB on this one, which defines mead and honey wine as being the same thing. And even if you are a purist, and feel mead should truly be its own entity, the fact of the matter is that the 2018 Delta Dry is technically what is known as a pyment; a mead (or if you want to be super pedantic, a melomel) made from honey and grapes. In this case, the Riesling in the Delta Dry was sourced from Oregon, while the honey was local wildflower honey sourced from just down the road.  The grapes and honey were fermented together to produce this beverage.

So… what do these terms all mean, anyway?  Before we cover the history of the industry in Mississippi, let’s clear some mead terminology up. Mead, which etymologically comes from the Old English meodu, is an alcoholic beverage created by fermenting honey with water, often with the additions of various fruits, spices, grains, or even hops.  The key defining characteristic of mead is that the majority of the beverage’s fermentable sugar is derived from honey.  That all being said, there are different styles of mead under that umbrella. Cyser, for example, is a mead made with honey and apples or pears. A mead that uses spices or herbs (or both) is often referred to as a metheglin. As mentioned above, meads made with fruits other than apples and pears can be referred to as a melomel, and a mead specifically made with grapes can often be known as a pyment. As if that wasn’t enough, Wikipedia has an even bigger list… suffice to say, Mead is rather more complicated than it seems at first glance.  Anyway, I digress: onto history.

At one point in time, Mississippi ranked rather high in terms of American viticultural production. Muscadine grapes were grown in many locations throughout the state, but the dramatic loss of life from the Civil War, combined with a statute enacted in 1907 which banned the manufacture and sale of Mississippi Wine, meant that the industry went into a nosedive. Due to the long-lasting effect prohibition created in the deep south, Mississippi was, as it turns out, the last state to repeal the Volstead Act in 1966, and many counties in the state remain dry through present day.

This means the wine industry in Mississippi still has yet to recover. Along with Queen’s Reward Meadery, the state has only three other wineries: Almarla Vineyards, Gulf Coast Winery, and Old South Winery. The State does have one AVA: The Mississippi Delta AVA, formed in 1984, is shared with Mississippi’s border states of Tennessee and Louisiana. However, this AVA has not attracted any large-scale viticultural endeavors as of yet. This is due to an additional factor along with the long history of Prohibition in the region: climate.

Mississippi’s location, between 30 degrees N and 35 degrees N in latitude, produces a sub-tropical climate with long, humid summers and short, mild winters. This means that Fungal diseases like mildew and Pierce disease are often widespread. In addition, unpredictable weather patterns stemming from the proximity of the state to the Gulf of Mexico also present a large risk for growers. The unpredictable Mississippi climate makes it difficult to grow most varieties of grapes, other than those within the Muscadine family–which are often not associated with “fine” wine production. (Though as we’ve discussed before, most of us who are associated with this podcast rather enjoy them anyway.)

I acquired this bottle online through the meadery’s website, specifically for this podcast.  In addition, we were lucky enough to catch Geoff Carter, the mead-maker and co-owner on the phone for this episode, to answer a few of our questions. (We now realize, after seeing just how complex of a topic Mead can be, that we probably should have asked more of them.)

Delta Dry
The Delta Dry Grape Mead from Queen’s Reward Meadery in Tupelo, Mississippi is not only our introduction to the wine industry in Mississippi, but also to mead as a whole.

Episode 43: Oklahoma

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn Podcasts, Red Wines, Southeast, Sparkling Wines, Unusual wines2 Comments

Welcome to our 43rd episode of The Make America Grape Again Podcast, where we visit a state we should have visited Sooner: Oklahoma. Our featured wine in this episode is the Glitz, a sparkling Norton and Pinot Gris blend sold by Whirlwind Winery, located in the town of Watonga.  This particular wine was not made by the crew at Whirlwind–coming from a second, now defunct winery, but the owner, Brad Stinson thought this wine was fascinating enough to be worth saving from oblivion and thus acquired all remaining inventory.  We’ve met Norton before in our very first episode of the podcast, so it is fascinating to see this grape in an entirely different mode.

According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, by the late 1800s and early 1900s, Oklahoma had thousands of acres of domesticated table and wine grapes. The acreage of grapes planted in 1907 and 1908 were estimated to be 3,700 and 5,425, respectively, which happens to be about ten times more than is planted in the state of Oklahoma today. The first report on varieties of grapes that were suitable for the state was released as early as 1894 by what was then known as the Oklahoma A&M College. (A later publication detailed other aspects of a whopping 175 varieties!) The oldest documented winery in what is now Oklahoma was opened in 1898 by Charles Fairchild, though I could not find any information on the name of this winery. In 1926 the USDA and Oklahoma A&M co-published Grapes in Oklahoma. Yet the end was near as both the Dust Bowl and the introduction of Prohibition into the state’s constitution sounded the death knell for the Oklahoma wine industry. The industry slumbered until 1982, when Cimarron Cellars in Caney, Oklahoma opened.

A survey in 2006 showed that growers in the state preferred red grapes, which took up a majority of the acreage. Vitis vinifera-derived varieties, in turn accounted for 80 percent of all plantings. V. vinifera varieties are the most widely grown in Oklahoma because they are generally considered the premium grapes for winemaking; however, observation and research has shown most of these varieties are highly susceptible to cold damage and fungal infection. In the 2006 survey interspecific hybrid grapes made up less than 15 percent of vines, American species grapes approximately 7 percent, and muscadine grapes less than 1 percent of the total. Today, the state of Oklahoma has about 52 different wineries, and ranks thirty-first among the fifty states in terms of wine production.  There is also one AVA which extends into Oklahoma: the Ozark Mountain AVA.  The sixth largest American Viticultural Area in terms of total size, this appellation covers Northwest Arkansas, southern Missouri, and extends into the northeastern part of Oklahoma.

This bottle was graciously donated to the podcast (along with several other vintages) by the winemaker and part owner of Whirlwind Winery, Brad Stinson. Some of these bottles will be covered in later episodes.  Thank you once again!

oklahoma wine
The Glitz, a sparkling NV blend of Norton and Pinot Gris sold by Whirlwind Winery, is our introduction to the wine scene of Oklahoma.