By Craig Moorhead
Special for the Argus
“For 125 vines, close to 3000 pounds is it’s potential,” Robin Schlegel said as she looked at the vineyard. She and her husband Jim have established the grape vines behind their rural Hokah home near, but not at, the base of a hillside. “When the vineyard is fully mature in five years, we’re looking at about a ton and a half of grapes.”
The vines are trellised, and they reach some six feet or more into the air, walls of green leaves in neat rows. Jim, who likes to work with the plants, has kept the vineyard spotless. The young vines sprout cleanly from the cultivated earth.
To say that Robin likes to make wine might be an understatement. She has a passion for her hobby, just as Jim enjoys working in the vineyard. It makes for a potent combination. Robin’s Edelweiss wine took first place at the Houston County Fair this year.
“I entered the VESTA program (Viticulture and Enology Science and Technology Alliance) in 2008, through the University of Missouri online study program,” she stated. “Wine making is said to be art, but quality wines do require a degree of knowledge in chemistry and biology to produce a good wine consistently.” The two year program is not so much a “how to make a few jugs of wine in your cellar” course as it is training for professional wine makers.
Robin has set up an impressive array of equipment in her basement to aid her in creating high quality wines. “With technology and the internet a home wine maker has access to the same resources, methods and practices of a commercial winery to produce a high quality wine,” she noted. “This is where the passion becomes more expensive. My husband thinks I have a close relationship with the UPS man because he’s here on a weekly basis.”
How did the wine making bug bite the Schlegels? Robin says that she and Jim drove to a Coon Valley Wisconsin vineyard a few years ago with some friends from just down the road, looking to buy some grapes and make a few bottles of wine. Impressed with what they saw, the Schlegels and their friends, Phillip and Teresa Nielsen, decided to plant their own grape vines.
The Nielsens have taken to raising grapes just as seriously as Robin has taken to wine making. They’ve opened their own vineyard, planting over 700 French/American hybrid cold-hardy wine grapes on one and a half acres. They call their business “Emerald View Vineyard.”
“These are in their second year,” Teresa Nielsen explained as she walked towards the new sign at the edge of the vineyard. “Next year we’ll get just a few (grapes) and then the next year, hopefully, we’ll have a pretty good crop. It takes four to five years. These have been bred to withstand 35 below wind-chills. We owe it all to Elmer Swensen, our grandfather of grapes.”
Wine grapes, especially delicate French varieties, were once thought impossible to grow in Minnesota. In the 1940’s Elmer Swensen began crossing French hybrid grapes with wild grape species found near his 120 acre farm outside of Osceola, Wis. His goal was to develop species which could withstand winters in the Upper Midwest. Just as La Crescent apple pioneer John S. Harris had helped an earlier generation of fruit growers, Swensen’s work eventually paid off for grape enthusiasts.
In 1969 he took a job at the University of Minnesota, caring for fruit crops. Swensen maintained his enthusiasm for viticulture while working on other fruits. He produced varietals of grapes in conjunction with other researchers while at the university. Swensen died in 2004 at the age of 91. The university has continued his work on cold-hardy grapes.
In recent years, Swensen’s efforts have paid huge dividends. He is said to have helped develop 23 varieties of cold-hardy grapes, most of them French hybrid crosses. These grapes are now grown throughout the Upper Midwest, as well as other areas once considered too cold for most wine and table varieties, such as Maine. One of Swensen’s first wine grapes to be offered to growers is called Edelweiss, co-released with the University of Minnesota.
“This is the Edelweiss,” Robin said as she poured a glass. “It’s the wine I entered at the Houston County Fair.” The wine is light, yet bursting with the flavor of the fruit. “This is one that went off to be judged next week at the Minneapolis Wine Fest.”
Will this become a “growth industry” for Houston County?
“It already has,” Robin replied. She cites a 2008 report by the Minnesota Grape Grower’s Association which says the grape industry in Minnesota has doubled in the last five years and continues to grow. All over the Upper Midwest, cold hardy grapes are being planted. California is still said to produce 90 percent of the grapes grown in the United States, but that may well be changing. Most of Swensen’s varieties are geared towards the wine industry, but some cold-hardy table and juice varieties are now on the market.
“It’s better than importing grapes from Chile,” Jim and Robin said, noting that the market for locally produced grapes has hardly been tapped. Their desire is to make wine, but they see the potential for other growers to produce for all grape-related markets. Some California vineyards, according to Robin, are packaging pallets of frozen grapes specifically for wine making enthusiasts. Why not produce those locally, she asked?
The Schlegels say that of the five vineyards they know of in Houston County, all but one is less than five years old. Local production is still in it’s infancy.
Teresa Nielsen would agree. Looking out at her young vineyard; “We’ve got our work cut out for us,” she said. There will be a lot of pruning to do next year, along with keeping weeds out, amending the soil to meet the needs of the vines, and building a deer-proof fence around the vineyard.
“It works out perfectly because this is what I love to do,” she said. “My husband and I both. We’re outside from March until now (October).”
Robin looked at her friend. “I’m the wine side of it and you’re the grape side,” she chuckles. “Teresa’s more versed on the grapes and the history.”
Teresa says that within three to four years she and husband Phillip hope to be harvesting 12,000 to 13,000 pounds annually. “We’re planning on selling commercially for the home brewer,” she said. Established wineries may buy their grapes as well.
Will the neighbors start up their own commercial winery someday?
“We haven’t decided,” the Schlegels said. Robin is considering working in the wine industry as a consultant when she finishes the VESTA program. “I may do some commercial wine making,” she added.
“With these grapes…the French/American hybrids, they’re grapes that will allow us to make wines with a lot more complexity. Not just your standard porch wine or table grape,” Robin noted.
The Minnesota Grape Growers Association report sums it up. “The grape industry in Minnesota is changing rapidly. Growth has occurred in the number of vineyards, vineyard acreage, and the number of vines. New varietals are being planted in large quantities.”
If Elmer Swensen was a prophet as well as a viticulture pioneer, the future in our area could be interesting for grape growers. One of Swensen’s varieties is called La Crosse, another La Crescent.
References: Minnesota Grape Growers Association, University of Minnesota, Wikipedia.org, winesandvines.com, redtrailvineyard.com
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