Club Assets:

The WVA owns some equipment for winemaking, tasting and judging, among other items. These fixed assets, and their locations, are listed below and are available to all members. Just contact a board member for availability. Also, consider contributing equipment that may be of value to others, but no longer useful to you.

Fixed Asset / Location

Floor Model Corker / Joanne Ziarek
Wine Filter, 15 cartridges / Erv Herman
Plastic Primary & 5 gal Carboy (for Potpourri) / Jerry Horzewski
Large Wine Press / Purple Foot
Wineglass Dryer w/2 hair dryers / Purple Foot
Tasting Glasses for Judging (approx. 114) / Purple Foot
Electronic Sign Board (50:50 w/Barons) / Beer Barons
Cordless Microphone System, new 2004 / Joanne Ziarek
Foil Die for Ribbons / Paul Opichka
Medallion Mold / Bergamot Brass Works, Delavan
Bottle Pouring Tips (10) / George Scovronski
Beer Keg Dispensing Equipment / Tom Courtney
Large Wine Glasses (12) / Purple Foot
Past President Glasses (6) / Chuck & Mary Howell

Grapevines Available

The Great River Vineyard of Lake City, MN has four varieties of grapevines available for purchase.

Sabrevois - An Elmer Swenson Hybrid,  very disease resistant, very hardy, vigorous red wine grape producing a complex, full flavored wine with some tannins.  Several hundred still available.

King of the North - A very vigorous red wine grape that is vigorous, heavy bearing and is among the hardiest vines we offer.  It produces an grapey and aromatic concord-style red wine that can be quite delicious.  Also makes a good eating, jelly and juice grape. Less than 200 still available.

Bluebell -  Long appreciated as a delicious tasting early ripening concord-style eating grape, fully cold hardy, extremely disease resistant, vigorous and heavy bearing.  Recently becoming popular as a red wine grape producing a light red grapey wine that can be quite delightful.  Several hundred still available.

Valiant - The hardiest vine we offer, able to endure temperatures below -40 F without bud loss.  It grows vigorously and bears heavily producing a bright red, grapey, concord-style wine.  Good for jelly and juice as well. It is disease prone and a good spray program is necessary to successfully grow this hardiest of vines.  Several hundred available.
A
ll varieties are $4.00 apiece in orders of less than 100 and $2.50/vine on orders over 100.  Valiant is available at $3.00 & $2.00.  No royalty on any of these vines and shipping will be free.  Call our toll-free # 877-345-3531 as we take all major credit cards or send a check made out to GRV to the address below.

Great River Vineyard/Nursery
35680 Hwy. 61 Blvd.
Lake City, MN 55041
Toll free: (877)345-3531
www.greatrivervineyard.com

 

April 07 Meeting Critical Wine Evaluation Results:

The April 2007 Wisconsin Vintners Association meeting was a critical wine tasting of members wines. We had a good turnout of 45 tasters. We were able to have seven tables with a table captain at each one. Thirty one wines were submitted for evaluation and scoring. The high score and average for each of these wines are:

1 - Gooseberry-20 high and 12.1 average
2 - Pinot Grigio- 19 high and 14.1 average
3 - Strawberry, Pear and Concord- 17 high and 11.5 average
4 - Pear - 15 high and 10.3 average
5 - Concord- 16 high and 11.2 average
6 - Cabernet/ Frontenac- 18 high and 12.0 average
7 - Riesling/ Niagara- 15 high and 13.2 average
8 - Symphony- 16 high and 13.3 average
9 - Pinot Gris/ Viognier- 19 high and 15.8 average
10 - Cranberry- 14 high and 9.3 average
11 - Elderberry- 13 high and 9.4 average
12 - Pear/ Cinnamon- 13 high and 9.0 average
13 - Concord- 15 high and 9.5 average
14 - Concord- 17 high and 11.3 average
15 - Strawberry/ Rhubarb- 18 high and 14.7 average
16 - Pear- 13 high and 7.3 average
17 - Strawberry- 17 high and 11.8 average
18 - Pear- 12 high and 7.5 average
19 - Sparkling Vidal Blanc- 18 high and 13.0 average
20 - Red Blend/ Frontenac - 17 high and 12.4 average
21 - Concord- 16 high and 12.4 average
22 - Wild Grape - 9 high and 4.8 average
23 - White Hybrid - 13 high and 11.0 average
24 - Raspberry- 20 high and 16.7 average
25 - Cranberry/ Apple- 18 high and 13.1 average
26 - White Wine- 15 high and 10.8 average
27 - Elderberry- 19 high and 14.0 average
28 - Red Vinifera Port- 15 high and 10.8 average
29 - Lime- 20 high and 14.5 average
30 - Noiret/ Dechaunac- 18 high and 14.1 average
31 - Black Raspberry Fortified- 17 high and 15.3 average

Thank you for bringing in your wines and thanks to the table captains for making this a very good meeting.

Howard Hasselkus
 

Advanced Winemaking Project:

The Wisconsin Vintners Association is sponsoring a program to evaluate some of the practices we use to make homemade wine. This program will involve a member making two batches of identical wines except that the second batch will have one change of procedure or ingredient. Examples could be two different yeasts, oaks, toast of oaks, malolactic fermentation, different acids, temperature differences or other ideas that members will propose.

The winemaker will keep good cellar records and when the experiment is complete the wine is his except for three bottles from each batch that will be submitted to a membership meeting for comparative tastings and the results will be published in the Vintner’s Press. Upon completion of the experiment the member will be reimbursed up to $30 toward the purchase of ingredients for the second batch. Each experiment should be two 5 gallon carboys, but in some cases it could be two 3 gallon carboys.

All WVA members are eligible to participate in this program by submitting a proposal, using an application form and having it approved by the committee. Please talk to any committee member with questions or ideas. The committee member are Howard Hasselkus, Dave Brandt and Lou Benedetto.
 

Click here for Project Application Form.
 

Click the Links below For Information

Aroma Wheel User Guide

Basic Wine Making With Fruit

Cellar Room Preparation
(Create a wine cellar, The Wine Enthusiast)

Conversion Guide
(Page also contains a pretty slick piece of software that is free)

Vineyard Trellis
(Constructing a Vineyard Trellis, Paul Domoto, Iowa State University)

Wine Descriptions and Information
(This links you to a Wine Info website by Lisa Shea)

Wine Making Book
(The Home Winemakers Manual by Lum Eisenman)

Yeast Strain Chart