History of Midwest Wine: Vevay Wine

The history of Indiana wine goes back 200 years, longer then many other places in America. As stated last time, wine in the Midwest started just south of the Ohio river in Kentucky. John James Dufour, the creative spark behind the Firstvineyard in Kentucky arranged for the purchase of land for other Swiss wine makers immigrating to escape the Napoleonic wars. In Southern Indiana, he found a location with just the right conditions and the right price for his colony. In 1802, the Swiss immigrants founded the town of Vevay and proceeded to clear the land, build houses, and plant crops and vines.

Using the same Cape grape as at Firstvineyard, the Vevay winemakers had a moderate level of success until the Panic of 1819 changed the Agriculture landscape of the Midwest. Cheap liquor flooded the market and drove Wine prices down. Many of the Swiss colonists planted fewer grapes and more cash crops. As the original colonists grew older and the work fell to the next generation who was born in America, interest in wine making waned further. The newer generation, having not grown up around the wine culture of Europe, instead choose to pursue the American dream of prosperity by planting cash crops. No one's quite certain when, but by the 1850s, wine making in Vevay and the surrounding Switzerland County was a ghost of its former glory. Shortly after, the Cape grape died out and as of today, no known vines of this grape exist.

Today, the city of Vevay celebrates its wine heritage with the Swiss Wine Festival each year on the last weekend in August. The festival includes grape stomping, various booths, a parade, River boat rides, and capes off with a fireworks show. Here, the early history of Indiana wines is celebrated and remembered for a weekend.

After over 150 years, wine making returned to Vevay, Indiana. In 1995, the Ridge Winery produced its first vintage. The Ridge Winery makes a number of Country Wines and as typical in Indiana, a number of Fruit Wines.

What I'm Drinking: Creekbend Traminette

After drinking Easley Winery's Traminette, I was won over by this hybrid grape which has gained popularity in the midwest and especially Indiana. But had I just found one bottle that I loved, or had I found an entire grape?

With that, I searched for another bottle of Traminette, which was no easy task. I lucked out and found the Easley Winery's Traminette in my local Grocery store, but there were no other bottles to be found. I finally found a couple bottles at a local wine store, Vine and Table. The first was Huber Orchard's Traminette, and though I'll have to return to try it, I opted for Creekbend's Traminette (2011 vintage). 

Creekbend is actually a sub-label of Oliver Winery, but aims at a higher end market, which is evident by its vintage bottles, 'Estate bottled' text on the label, and higher price tag. While some bottles can fetch upwards of $50 new from the winery, their bottle of Traminette is still reasonably priced at $15.

The wine has a light straw color to it. It is very clear in appearance and unclouded. The aroma has a strong hint of summer flowers. Despite it being a white wine, which I prefer in warmer months, the spice and floral aroma are a nice reminder in winter months of warmer days to come. While Easley Winerie's Traminette was certainly semi-sweet, this wine is much more on the dry side, but still retains some sweetness. 

I bought this bottle of wine to determine if my previous bottle of Traminette was indicative of the grape's style, and thankfully it is. Overall, Creekbend's Traminette is more complicated and an overall better bottle, but given its higher price point, I'd have to only rate it slightly higher at 80 out of 100.

History of Midwest Wine: Firstvineyard

The History of wine making in the North America is a story of many false starts. Shortly after Europeans settled North America, European grapes were planted in attempts to make wine. The Jamestown colony attempted to grow grapes, only to find them attacked by mildew and black rot. For the next 200 years, others tried to grow grapes in North America.

There were three main failings of these early vineyards. The first two were mildew and black rot, diseases native to North American grapes that the European varieties had no resistance too. European grapes could survive for a couple of years, but eventually mildew or black rot would find their way to the vines and decimate them.

Early settlers jumped to conclusions about North America's climate that also hindered their ability to grow grapes in the region. Climatology did not exist as a science 400 years ago. People simply looked at a map and said, "Hey, France and New England are at the same longitude, so surely New England's weather is much like France's". This assumption proved deadly for many settlers unprepared for New England winters. This also proved difficult on the warm weather vines brought over from Europe.

But, one of the first successful vineyards attempted to revolutionize North American wine making. Established in 1799 in Northern Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Indiana, Firstvineyard grew grapes and made wine from grapes that survived and were healthy in North America instead of continually trying European vines. John James Dufour and his family, who came over from Switzerland, tended this vineyard until it closed down about 15 years later. But here, at Firstvineyard, the American Wine Industry was born.

Here at Firstvineyard, the Cape grape thrived. John James Dufour bought his clippings from a vineyard on the Eastern seaboard. At the time, it was thought the Cape was a European variety that thrived in South Africa, but modern opinion holds that the Cape was a hybrid between a European variety and an American variety. Today, the only way we know what the grape looked like and tasted like is from historical documents, as this grape is extinct and has not been seen in over 100 years.

From Firstvineyard, the Dufour family went to Vevay in Indiana and started a number of vineyards there. From the birth of the American wine industry, it spread first to the Midwest before encompassing the entire country.

After 200 years, Firstvineyard has been restored on the location of the original vineyard. In 2007, the original grape terraces were rebuilt. A few months ago, a tasting room was opened at the site. Here in Nicholasville, Kentucky, the early history of American wines is being remembered and celebrated.

Know your Grapes: Traminette

Traditional wine grapes, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, and Pinot Noir are all old world grapes that have been cultivated and nurtured for centuries. There's a number of new world grapes which are very hardy and disease resistant and make wonderful wines, including the Concorde, Catawba and Niagra. But there is wide array of hybrid grapes that combine the traditional flavors of the old world and the hardiness of new world. Traminette is a wonderful combination, combining one of several Seyve grapes and Gewürztraminer into a hardy and flavorful white grape. First created at the University of Illinois in 1965, this young variety has in quick time won over many of the hearts of wine makers and a number of wine drinkers.

Wines made from Traminette thrive very well in the Midwest, especially in the hot summers and cold winters of Indiana, where it has been named the signature grape of the state.

In a wine, Traminette adds a floral and spicy flavor, much like Gewurztraminer. Like Gewurztraminer, Traminette best stands up to spicy and complex dishes, such as many Asian dishes or a Pork dish.

Traminette, being a white grape, is best suited to white wine styles. This means that that the grapes should have as little contact with the stems and grape skins during the fermentation process as possible. In fact, Purdue scientists determined that prolonged exposure to the skin and stems creates an unfavorable wine. Fermentation of the wine takes around 2 weeks, making for a rather quick process. The scientists also recommend adding residual sugar to the wine regardless of the style, as Traminette tends to run on the very dry side.

A far number of Indiana Wineries produce a Traminette wine. Easley Winery produces a floral, spicy variety that is reasonably priced. Oliver Wineries Creek Bend label also has a Traminette priced around $15 (which I'm sipping as I type) that has a stronger and more complex flavor that is also very tasty. This wine varietal is growing in popularity with dozens of Indiana wineries making wines from Traminette grapes.

Reusing Wine Bottles

My wife has a collection of wines that are off limits to me. She doesn't plan on ever drinking these bottles herself, she just really likes the labels on the bottles. If you, like her have a wine bottle or label you'd like to keep, but want to actually drink the wine, there are a few projects you make using old wine bottles.

One option is to make your own lamps or lights out of an old wine bottle. Such a project might require a bit of hardware and time, but can add a personal touch to decorations. However, this might not be a viable option to use if its the label of the bottle that interests you. If you don't have the foggiest idea where to get started, the book Wine Bottle Crafts might point you in the right direction.

If you want to use your old bottle as a lantern, but want to keep the label, LED bulbs can be a safe alternative, as these bulbs are cold to the touch. There are many sets of instructions online for cutting wine bottles and inserting strands of LED lights, but for my project, I used portions of a 70 bulb strand to light up three bottles.

(Here's the first bottle)

(Here's the final product. There are obvious bulbs outside of the bottles...)

(The bottles in their final location. The baskets and artificial flowers act to hide the extra bulbs. Alternatively, if your light strand allows it, remove the extra bulbs.)

If you can still find clearance Christmas lights, than it is a simple matter to pick up LED lights for this project.

If you would rather have a bigger home made project, there are many wine bottle chandelier kits' available to assemble at home. You'll have to supply the bottles, but such a light can add a unique twist to a room (and a great conversation starter).

Finally, if none of these ideas tickle your fancy, you can either place your empty bottles in a decorative wine rack, stack them on the wine rack, or do what I do and place them in a special wine bottle basket. This adds additional elegance  to the bottle and the basket.

Space Themed Wine Accessories

My wife and I have not known a time when there was not a Space Shuttle. Space holds a particular fascination as well as all things NASA. (As I write this, I'm starring at my 2003 Lego model of the International Space Station, which looks wildly different from its current configuration.) But behold my surprise to find that there's a Space Shuttle wine on Amazon.

A more fictional representation of space ship is on display in this Space Ship corkscrew bottle opener. The cokscrew portion looks like flame or plumes comig from the engine, giving the whole device an animated appearance.

Thinking of the Space Shuttle always reminds me what happened to my wife in I in February, 2003 and how we were able to brighten someone's day. Growing up, my wife had an Astronaut Cabbage Patch Doll like this one. She decided to part with it in early 2003 and listed it in late January, 2003. It sold a couple days after the Columbia disaster on February 1st, 2003. When she went to package it, she noticed the mailing address was a NASA facility in Texas. Hopefully, that doll went on to brighten a few people's days in an otherwise dark time.

What I'm Drinking: Easley Winery's Traminette

For a while now, I've been itching to try a bottle of wine made from Traminette grapes. Traminette is a unique hybrid of Gewurztraminer and a hybrid by renown biochemist Joannes Seyve. It's a white grape that has been breed to be hearty and thrives in the Midwestern climate. So much so, that Traminette is the signature wine of Indiana.

There's a number of wineries in Indiana that produce a Traminette wine due to the promotion of the grape. The first that I found to try is made by Easley Winery from Indianapolis, Indiana. Easley Winery is known more for their Reggae line of wines, but they have a large number of wines under their own label as well.

My first glass of Easley Winery's Traminette was straw colored with a strong floral aroma with a hint of grass mixed in for good measure. The wine itself is on the dryer side (at least dryer than any other wine I've tried recently), but the alcoholic content feels on the lighter than expected. The wine is more acidic than most with very little to no tannins. A bottle of Easley's Traminette runs around $8. For the price range, this is an excellent bottle with more complexity than many of the other wines I've had in this price range. Overall, I'd rate this bottle an 80 out of 100.