Tag: Vignoles

Season 2, Episode 30: Natural Wines and Where to Find Them

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn French varietals, French-American Hybrids, Georgian Wines, Great Plains States, Midwest, Natural Wines, Podcasts, Podcasts with Winery guest stars, Red Wines, Skin-Contact White Wines, Southwest, Sparkling Wines, Unusual wines, Vinifera Wines, White Wine, wine conceptsLeave a comment

We’ve explored a few natural wines over the course of this podcast and the associated blog, but we haven’t delved as deeply as we could have into this often-controversial topic. The fact is, Natural Wines are not something I know a great deal about, and nor do many of the podcast cohorts that I usually drink and record with. We needed an expert. Luckily, Friend of the Podcast and occasional guest Elizabeth Krecker knew just the man for the job.

Meet Timo Geis, the owner of Selection Sauvage. Selection Sauvage is a wine import company that focuses on select producers of natural wines across the world, focusing on filling the Arizona market for these vintages. Living in Sedona, Timo was a great fit for us to talk to about the topic, and his encyclopedic knowledge of the Natural Wine world helped me and Elizabeth to make sense of the topic. Timo is also a student at Yavapai College, where he’s hoping to translate his knowledge of Natural Wines to make some of Arizona’s first examples; one of which we drink in this podcast!

We hope you enjoy this thorough introduction to this topic. The wines in this podcast are coming from such varied places as New York (Channing Daughters Winery), California (Florez Wines), Nebraska, (Junto Winery), Arizona (Rune Winery, Page Springs Winery, and Cactus Cru), and the Republic of Georgia. Cheers!

Images of wines from this episode. My personal favorites, for what it was worth, were the Skeletons from Junto Winery, and the Gewurtztramminer from Channing Daughters… though all were fantastic!

Episode 28: Indiana

On By makeamericagrapeagainpodcastIn American Hybrids, Midwest, Podcasts, Vinifera Crosses, White Wine, White wine blendsLeave a comment

Welcome to episode 28, where we focus on Indiana!  Our featured wine for this episode is the Creekbend III, from the Creekbend label of Oliver Winery, located near Bloomington, Indiana.  This wine is a blend of barrel-fermented Vignoles and Chardonel, along with some stainless-steel fermented Vidal Blanc.  Oliver Winery, as it turns out, is one of the oldest post-prohibition wineries in the state of Indiana, opening its doors in 1972.  Oliver winery was founded by Professor William Oliver, who was instrumental in passing the Indiana Small Winery Act in 1971, kickstarting the Indiana wine industry. Today, Oliver Winery is entirely employee-owned, which is pretty impressive considering that it is among the largest wineries east of the Mississippi River in terms of production.

Prior to Prohibition, the wine industry in Indiana was surprisingly fruitful, being the  10th largest state in the country in terms of wine production.  In many cases, the wines being produced were hybrid varietals, with Catawba (a grape we have not met yet) being a popular option.  It took the Indiana Small Winery Act of 1971 to change the winery landscape, and now the state is a success story; as of 2015 there were 76 wineries in the Hoosier state. Today, Indiana produces about 1.4 million gallons of wine a year and grows approximately 650 acres of grapes, from a variety of French-American Hybrids (such as the three varietals used in vinifying the Creekbend III) to vinifera varietals such as Cabernet Franc and Gewürztraminer.  There are also two AVAs in Indiana: the Ohio River Valley AVA (which actually happens to be the second largest wine appellation of origin in the United States, covering 16,640,000 acres of portions of the states of Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia, along with Indiana), and the Indiana Uplands AVA, which has 17 wineries totaling around 200 acres under vine.  (Oliver Winery is located within this AVA)

In this episode, I am again joined by Megan and James, and we talk a bit about the two major varietals in this wine (Vignoles and Chardonnel), as well as some techniques for white wine vinification: Malolactic fermentation, barrel-fermentation, and sur lees aging.  My occasionally crippling dyslexia also shows up as well, as does James’ penchant for bad jokes.  Enjoy!  (And thank you, Oliver Winery, for including the tech sheets! You have no idea how much that is appreciated!)

This bottle was acquired by yours truly, online through the Oliver Vineyards website.

indiana episode 1
The Creekbend III from Oliver Winery is our introduction to Indiana wines and several wine-making techniques used for white wines.