Those that follow this blog know that we kicked off a customer survey the beginning of this month.  If you have not taken the survey yet, you still have time, it will be available for a week or two yet.  Click Here to take survey

The results have started to roll in.  We really appreciate everyone who has participated.  There have been some wonderful comments, and Valerie and I are thrilled with how everyone seems to like the time they spend here.  We have also gotten some really good ideas.  I thought I would share one set of answers that might be interesting.

The question here is “What kinds of wines do you prefer?”  Here are the results do far.

The winner by a nose is off-dry whites, but there are a few that are bunched just behind including dry reds, off-dry reds, and sweet wines.  I was particulary interested in the number of people that mentioned they like Ice Wines.  Just in case you are not familiar with Ice Wines, I will write about them in a future blog page, but it is something we will look into.  I will also share more survey results later.

Thanks again everyone for helping us out with the survey!

Robin

We are pretty blessed at Wyandotte.  Our customers are wonderful people, and getting to spend a little time with them is one of the things that makes the business fun.

We are looking for ways to make our customer’s experience at Wyandotte even better.  Valerie and I are always coming up with things we think are good ideas, and the hard working folks at organizations like the Ohio Wine Producers and the Ohio Grape Industries are a big help. All that is great, but we are hoping that our customers can help us to understand more about what they want from the winery, and that we can use that information to help set goals for 2009 and beyond.

To that end we have setup a customer survey that we are hoping as many of our customers, and potential customers, will take a few minutes to complete. The Wyandotte Winery 2009 Customer Survey will not take too much time, and will help us to provide the products and services that our customer’s really want.

Just in case you missed the link above, click here to take the 2009 Wyandotte Winery Customer Survey.

In later blog entries I will review the results and share the plans that we put in place based on the results.

Thank you all for helping us out!  Happy New Year!

There is a lot going on in the wine world around the Riesling grape.  If you like Riesling wines, you know what I mean.  If you are not familiar with the grape, Riesling is a fruity and aromatic wine which may have aromas of green or other apples, grapefruit, peach, honey, rose blossom or cut green grass, and usually a crisp taste due to the high acidity.  You can get Riesling wines from dry to sweet, and even sparkling.  We are pretty proud of our Riesling at Wyandotte where we make it in a less sweet version that brings out the great character of the wine.

If you are intersted in learning more I just found a website that is kind of fun.  The Riesling Rules website has a book that you can order about Riesling, but also has lots of fun information.  Articles on serving Riesling, movies to see with Riesling, how to sound like a Riesling geek, etc.  Check it out sometime.

Oh, and my favorite Riesling geek saying?

“The TA on this baby is so high you can’t even feel the RS.”

You may not know that December 5th of this year marked the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition in the United States.  While it may sound obvious to say that prohibition had a huge influence on the Ohio wine industry, you may not know how big the effect really was.

Back in the early 1800’s a guy named Nicholas Longworth began to plant Catawba grapes near Cincinnati and the Ohio River.  What may surprise you is that by 1859 the southern Ohio region had become the leading wine producer in the country with more than 3,000 acres of grapes.

Between crop disease and the Civil War, wine production in Southern Ohio was virtually destroyed.  But in Northern Ohio, German immigrants were bringing their wine making traditions to the lake islands where the unique climate from the Great Lakes was perfect for grape growing.

Unfortunately, the next blow to Ohio wine making and grape growing came from prohibition, and it took many years for the industry to come back after prohibition was repealed. Today the wine industry in Ohio is again flourishing and growing.

It may also interest you to know that Westerville, one of the communities very close to Wyandotte and a major suburb of Columbus, has a large part in the history of prohibition.  An 1859 town ordinance forbade the sale of alcohol in Westerville. By the 1870s, a burgeoning conflict between pro- and anti-temperance forces boiled over into the so-called “Westerville Whiskey Wars.” Twice, in 1875 and 1879, businessman Henry Corbin opened a saloon in Westerville, and each time the townspeople blew up his establishment with gunpowder. Westerville’s reputation for temperance was so significant that in 1909 the Anti-saloon League moved its national headquarters from Washington, DC to Westerville. The League, at the forefront of the prohibition movement, gained its greatest triumph when prohibition was ratified in 1920. The League printed so many leaflets in support of temperance and prohibition—over 40 tons of mail per month—that Westerville, by now known as “The Dry Capital of the World,” was the smallest town in the nation to have a first class post office. The League’s Westerville headquarters was given to the Westerville Public Library in 1973 and now serves as a museum attached to the library.

Even today getting permission to serve liquor of any kind in Westerville takes a majority vote of the residents.

So, take a moment to clink your glasses together for the anniversary of no more prohibition!  Hopefully with a glass of Wyandotte Wine!

The cold weather has finally come to central Ohio, and we are winding down the year at Wyandotte.  That does not mean that things get any less busy.  As a matter of fact the last quarter of the year is very busy for us.

With the harvest comes the time to bring in the new juice and get fermentations started.  I spent a good portion of September and October hauling many gallons of juice back to the winery.  We have some apple cider that has finished fermenting and the apple wine should be ready sometime early next year.  We have a 2008 Chambourcin in the tank to supply our next release of “Our Heritage” wine.  The “Ice House” Gewurztraminer is close, and “Sweet William” will be available again soon. 

We have also been doing a lot of bottling, and I need to thank our friends that have volunteered to help us out.  In the last month Gene and Kerry have been there a couple of times to help, and earlier in the year Tim and Amy lent a hand.  Thank you very much!

On top of all that we had our Holiday Open House last weekend, we are hosting a bunch of Holiday parties at the winery, and the Capital City Wine Trail has an event three weekends in December.

Busy times, but worth all the hard work!  Come in and see us soon!

Robin Coolidge, Winemaker

Hello, Friends!

July 2008 marked the end of the first full year in business with Valerie and I as owners of Wyandotte Winery.  It has been a good year.  We continue to meet more and more wonderful people, and they seem really be enjoying the wine we are making.  We are meeting our goal of making a variety of wine styles that allow everyone to enjoy something, and we exceeded our goals for production and sales thanks to all of you.

When we purchased the winery Valerie and I both felt very strongly about being able to share any success we had with other people.  We wanted to share our blessings with our community.  Really that feeling is just an extension of our everyday lives.  Valerie has a great gift of faith and uses that and her degree in theology to help other people in their faith journey.  I am lucky enough to have a little skill in music, and there is nothing I like better than to use the joy I get from my music to bring a little joy into other’s lives.

One of our greatest accomplishments this first year is being able to make a donation to cancer research.  Some of you may have seen the report on NBC channel 4 last week featuring Valerie talking about our recent donation to the Jim Tressel fund for cancer research.  I think this has been the most satisfying event in our first year, and has helped make our sharing goal a reality.  We were proud to be able to present the Tressel fund with $1500 from our sales of our first vintage of Hope pomegranate wine.  The new vintage is on the shelf, and we plan on continuing to make this a fundraiser, and to be able to continue to help out wherever we can.  If you would like to learn more about the Tressel fund check out their webpage at http://www.jamesline.com/waystogive/funds/tressel/

So, thank you all for your support, wish us a happy first anniversary, and come in and see us at the winery soon!

Robin Coolidge

Winemaker

While I agree with my husband Robin to a certain degree that you should drink what you like with what you like I must add a serious BUT…

Nothing signifies a culinary symphony so well as a wine perfectly paired with the proper food. I have been fascinated by the wonderful fact that wine paired properly can make the meal, and vice versa. For example, the past two weekends we hosted the Capital City wine trail. We had many visitors who each had the opportunity to do a mini wine pairing with us. I paired our Statehouse wine (a blend of cabernet sauvignon and merlot) with an appetizer of a toasted baguette with angus roast beef topped with melted blue cheese. Mind you, some of our guests did not like dry red wine, others did not like blue cheese. However, I was please that on several occassions the attendees raved about how the two together tasted so good, that people not liking red wines, remarked that they could drink it paired with the roast beef, and even those saying, “I don’t like blue chesse,” remarked that with the wine it was wonderful. Another pairing that brought suprise from our guests was the pairing of our Ohio Catawba wine with pepperjack cheese. Once again, people who normally don’t like a sweeter wine were delighted when they tasted the wine with the contrasting spiciness of the peperjack cheese. Finally pairing our Raspberry Summer wine with chocolate turtle cheesecake is a match made in heaven!

Likewise, it is good to know what foods to AVOID with certain wines. For example, avoid seafood, fish and spicy dishes wih a Cabernet Sauvignon, avoid red meat with Champagne and avoid chocolate desserts with Sauternes.

So if you are content drinking your favorite wine with your favorite food, I salute you. You probably wouldn’t be doing it if the pairing wasn’t pleasing. However, if you are of an adventurous spirit as I am, and you like the excitement of trying new foods and wines, I am providing you with a food and wine pairing guide that I have assembled (with a little help from Smokey Bare, food editor, a wonderful book called What to Drink with What You Eat (Andrew Dornenburg & Karen Page), and the Missouri Wine Council.) Use the chart as a general guide adding your personal favorite pairings.  

Wyandotte Food and Wine Pairing Guide

I welcome you to write in with some of your own discoveries, as you delve into the marvelous and expansive possibilities of food and wine pairings!

As a winemaker and winery owner, I often get asked to fill out requests for information to be included in publications and winery lists.  Of course Valerie and I always jump at the chance for a new way to reach prospective friends of Wyandotte, but sometimes we can get some very interesting questions.

Take, for instance, the most recent request for information from a nice lady who is writing a book on Ohio Wineries.  One of the questions was:

“Philosophy quote from the winemaker/and or Life Quote from the owner.”

Wow!  There is a question for you!  I stared blankly at that one for awhile.  Philosophy?  Do I have a philosophy?  I believe in lounging on the sofa and taking long naps whenever possible, but I am not sure that could be called a “philosophy”.  And a “Life Quote”.  I certainly do not have one of those.  Oh my gosh, should I have one?  Have I left myself unprepared by not having a “life quote”?  Besides, it seems like all the good ones have been taken. “No worries”, “Damn the torpedoes”, “Eat my shorts”.  How the heck was I supposed to figure out how to answer this one?

Finally it came to me.

Valerie and I constantly get people who come into the winery and want to know “What is the right wine?”  What should they eat with a certain food, when should they drink a certain wine versus another wine, what is the best wine, etc.  Some seem to want to apologize that they do not drink the “good wines” and instead like to drink sweet wines.  It seems like they believe the dryness of a wine somehow defines the quality or value of the wine, (poppycock, I say!)  Everyone seems to get caught up in the romance of wine, the mysticism, if you will, of wine drinking, and they loose track of what is important.

So now you are probably wondering what is important.  Ok, maybe you were not wondering, but since I have to come up with a “Philosophy quote from the winemaker”, I am hoping since you have spent this much time reading you won’t want to have wasted all that time and will go just a little further.

Here it is… (drums roll, trumpets blare, little children toss rose petals on the ground……)

 “Drink What You Like!”  

Ok, I did not say it was profound, or life changing, but it does apply to the people who are worrying about drinking the “right” wine.  As soon as I tell them that I believe the right thing is to “just drink what you like”, they almost immediately relax, almost as if I have given them permission to like any wine, or made it OK not to worry about what is “right”. 

Of course, if they want to know, I will suggest what foods go best with a specific red or white wine, and there is nothing at all wrong with knowing those accepted pairings.  Getting the right food with the right wine can make for an awesome experience that brings out the best qualities in each, and everyone should have at least a peripheral knowledge of what goes good with what.  The “drink what you like” philosophy does help some people by taking the pressure away from every day wine drinking and lets them enjoy whatever sounds and/or tastes good.

So, go ahead, drink a Riesling with your burger!  Open that Merlot with your next chicken dinner!  Drink a sweet fruit wine with your pasta!  Pop the cork on that $800 a bottle 2002 Cahteau Talbot with your frozen TV dinner!  (Oh, wait, rewind, I think I went to far with that one). 

Just remember there are no wine police, and you are not breaking any rules.  You can get the full enjoyment out of any wine you enjoy anytime without having to worry about being right or wrong.

Ok, so now I am off to come up with a “Life quote” before someone else asks me that question.  Maybe I will just steal this one from Emily Dickinson:

Love—is anterior to Life—
Posterior—to Death—
Initial of Creation, and
The Exponent of Earth—

I am not sure what that means, but it sure is pretty!

Drink what you like!

You may wonder what it’s like to bottle our wine, so I thought I run through it for you. It takes hours to sterilize all of the parts necessary for the bottling process, the hoses, the tubes, and the bottling and corking equipment. Next we call in the troops. Ryan is almost 17 and Sean is 15. They are always eager to help out…lol. The wine, which has been previously filtered is pumped in to a holding tank. From there a smaller pump supplies the wine in to the semi-automatic bottler.

After filling, the bottles are placed on a table ready for corking. We are pretty excited about our new semi-automatic corker we just got from Italy, thanks to our friend Claudio at Firelands! Anyway, once the adjustment is set for the bottle you simply insert the bottle and press two black buttons, one with each hand, and voila the bottle is corked.

Next, the bottles are placed in a case, and carried to another table, where someone is waiting to clean the outside of the bottles, and begin the labeling process. We just recently purchased this machine too, again from Itily, via St. Patrick’s in Texas. This definately takes some time, but it’s much faster than before!Finally the capsules are shrank across the top and the wine is placed in to a marked box. The wines need to be stored upright for the first couple days and can then be turned upside down for longterm proper storage. For good or bad, we’ve never had to store wine for long!

Last week, on an exceptionally beautiful sunny spring morning, I was smitten by the spectacular show and sheer abundance of the common, and often loathed dandelion. This year however, my reaction to the bright yellow flowers was different. Since my husband and I are the new owners of Wyandotte Winery, we are now wine makers. This year when I saw the masses of golden hues, instead of thinking of the weed and feed I needed to put on my lawn, I was actually contemplating harvesting the sun-kissed beauties. I saw them as an opportunity, as a gift from God, and well…free. Now mind you I have NEVER drank dandelion wine, and quite frankly I was a bit of a snob when I heard others speak of a wine made from the weeds. Why? I would ask them… when there is plenty of good grapes, and fruit available. So, inspired by the revelation of this charming beauty, growing in abundance, just begging to be plucked, I went to the Internet and started researching how to make dandelion wine. There was no shortage of information. I also found some books lying around the winery with some additional recipes. I hadn’t decided for sure to embark on this lofty endeavor, so I decided to sleep on it and see if I still felt the same the next day.

Rising early, I drove Sean to DeSales, came home, worked out, then attended morning Mass. After Mass, I often go to Tim’s for coffee with friends. This morning was no exception. I met Fran and Ken and a new friend to our group, Ed. Ed is 85 years old, from Brooklyn, and a recent widower. The sun was shinning, and I was plotting from which field I should glean the harvest. Ed, had a little car mishap on the way to coffee, scraping the entire drivers, and he was upset. I figured that a little dandelion picking might help him to forget his accident. “Besides,” I told him, “Wouldn’t you like to gain experience as a dandelion harvester?” Quite unexpectedly, Ed said, “OK.” So I went home, grabbed a couple buckets, and ball caps, and Ed and I headed to the Meijer’s lot literally bursting with fresh blooms. Ed and I had the most lovely conversation for hours. It was as though we were not even working…well, when we checked the buckets, it looked like we had not been working! Do you know how hard it is to harvest dandelions????? You must pluck the petals from the base. No green allowed, only the slender petals, that weigh next to nothing. By noon, I was ravished and getting a sun burn, so Ed and I parted ways. Our efforts only yielded a mere 8 cups. I needed three times that amount! yikes

I ate lunch, then ventured back out to pick more flowers. This time, I used my neighbors lawn, with flowers the size of merigolds. Quickly plucking the flower heads I needed to get out of the sun. With several gallons of flowers I used a sharp knife and whacked the bottoms off the petals. By 5:30 PM I finally was able to bring the flowers in a pot of water to a simmer. Then I turned off the heat, and allowed the flowers to steep for about 4.5 hours. I then added sugar to water, brought it to a boil and cooled it. Then I strained the blooms from the liquid, added yeast nutrients, natural tannin, pectic enzyme, and some SO2. The mixture must sit for about 24 hours before adding the yeast. Primary fermentation should take 3-5 days, until the PA reaches 3-4%, then I will rack the wine into a carboy (glass container) and fit it with an airlock. I will check the progress in a couple days! Dandelion wine takes a full year. Who knew?