by Michele Slott
Prairie Berry Winery

While other people are out shopping, today winemaker Sandi Vojta is starting the new vintage of Raspberry Honeywine.

“Honeywines really need to be babied,” she says as she stirs.

The honey comes from the Sturgis Honey Company, owned by the Stolle family, shown at left handling a drum of the sticky stuff.

As the honey comes out of large drums, it is poured into totes where Sandi adds warm water and her father, Ralph, stirs. A hose attached to a pump moves the sticky, amber liquid into a fermentation tank. “It’s already at 70 degrees!” Sandi says happily.

The smell of the honey is rich and intoxicating, all on its own.

Ralph laughs at the sticky streams on the floor. “You should have seen my house the first time we made this back in Mobridge. What a sticky mess! It was unbelievable.”

Sandi agrees, “It was the first wine we started as a commercial winery, back in 1998, and it was a challenge.”

by Sandi Vojta - Winemaker

Our 2008 South Dakota grape season came to a close with the harvest of the Frontenac grapes this past weekend.  Frontenac grapes have always been the ones to hold on to summer with “white knuckles” and ripen last.  According to Greg Stach of Lewis & Clark Vineyards, this was the first year, out of the past 4 years, that the vineyards did not receive a “just before harvest” drenching rain of 3 - 5 inches.  

I’ve been producing wines for Lewis and Clark Vineyards for 5 or so years now.  Midwest winemakers and winegrowers learn quickly that Mother Nature loves to throw us curve balls, with consistency rarely pitched across home plate. Her inconsistency has given me the “opportunity” to produced many styles of wine from the Frontenac grape (as well as all the others), including dry oak-aged, to the more recent nouveau style.  I can attest to the absence of this years pre-harvest drenching rain, in that the grapes were not as willing to give up their deepened, garnet colored juice.  Hmmmmm…definitely not looking to be very nouveau-ish this year…..

 

Embrace vintage 2008!

           Sandi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Michele Slott

I got the pleasure of visiting Lewis & Clark Vineyard near Yankton this past weekend to shoot photos and video. Greg Stach was a proud papa, showing off the grapes he raises.

The nets cover all of the grapevines that still have maturing fruit. As Greg explained to me, small birds like robins, can be a real problem, making one little peck in each berry of the grape cluster, which can ruin the fruit for wine. Measures must be taken… Thus the nets. Turkeys for the most part, are a blessing — keeping the grasshopper population down. Although, true to their name, they can be “turkeys,” working together to get under the nets and get at any grapes hanging low enough to jump up, reach and eat. They eat the whole berry, though, without damaging what remains behind.

The nets are difficult to move, and come harvest time, Greg is ready to do some uncomfortable, if not necessarily heavy lifting, for HOURS at a time — as he lifts nets to allow picking of the grapes underneath.

“I do yoga and lots of stretching,” he says, to keep in shape for harvest.

The folks doing the picking tell him to “go faster” as he works his way down the row with his arms above his head holding the nets on either side.

A shot of a Frontenac grape cluster at Lewis & Clark Vineyard.

Not quite ready for wine yet, these Frontenac grapes get a closer look from Greg.

by Sandi Vojta- Winemaker

The 2008 St. Pepin and St. Croix grapes are now harvested and being processed this morning.  Greg and Murial Stach from Lewis and Clark Vineyard have converted the vines to the Geneva Double Curtain trellising system.  It has resulted in the grape bunch sizes being much larger this year.  Juice samples will be taken, run through various tests in the lab and fermentation strategies determined. 

The Brianna 2008 has finished fermenting and will be moving on to its next winemaking stage.

Cheers!

Sandi

by Sandi Vojta- Winemaker

The Brianna grapes at Lewis and Clark Vineyards are nearing the desirable sugar, acid and taste levels.  The first grape harvest of 2008 is about to begin!

Sandi

by Greg & Muriel Stach, Grapegrowers, Lewis & Clark Vineyards, Yankton

Veraison is well in progress already, much to our surprise. We had thought veraison (when the grapes start changing color, signaling that they are no longer growing, but beginning to ripen) would be 1.5 weeks later since bloom did not occur until mid-June but indeed, it is right on our usual schedule, surprisingly. July 31/Aug 1 timeframe is when veraison generally occurs and that is exactly when veraison occurred this year.

Frontenac is turning the crazy combination pink/blue transitional color with Frontenac Gris turning that pretty violet color, although it is a day or so behind Frontenac. Brianna is already yellow and set with a wonderful, full crop this year. It is hard to tell about St. Pepin and LaCrescent since their color change is more subtle. The St. Croix is its usual tardy self with no color change showing but that will occur this week.