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Letter to the editor

Napa Valley, Midwest style

Wineries are popping up in states where you might not find grapes. These "locally produced" bottles capitalize on our desire to find a unique vintage.

BARNEVELD, Wis.

People who may never travel to California or New York's Finger Lakes are touring vineyards and doing tastings at wineries in Wisconsin and other seemingly unlikely states. The number of wineries nationwide has more than doubled since 2000, to 4,712 from 2,188, according to WineAmerica, the National Association of American Wineries. Some of the most rapid growth has been in states not known for growing grapes, such as Oklahoma and South Dakota. "What you're looking at is an explosion of craft wineries, small wineries that are producing a unique product," WineAmerica president Bill Nelson said.

The wineries import much - sometimes all - of their grapes or grape juice from California, Washington and a handful of other grape-growing states. They ferment them on site, allowing them to market "locally produced" rather than "locally grown" wine.

Their success has been driven by drinkers who take pride in discovering little known vintages and sharing them with friends, Nelson said. The Internet has helped as states and trade groups have been able to market regional wine tours.

"I think the real driver is that people enjoy visiting wineries and learning about them," Nelson said. Those with vineyards are "really the only farm that most people go to."

Steve Johnson produced about 25,000 bottles of wine last year for Parallel 44, the winery he opened this spring outside of Green Bay, Wis. He hopes to bottle 50,000 by 2009. In comparison, the nation's 50 largest wineries each produce more than 6-million bottles per year, accounting for 85 percent of the wine sold.

Rich Hahn, 37, has had a bit of a tougher sell at Hahn Creek Winery outside Sioux Falls, S.D. He is trying to grow grapes in an area where they nearly died out during Prohibition.

"You'll get the whole gamut where they'll receive it with an open mind," Hahn said, "and then you get the opposite of the spectrum where they have a closed mind: No one in South Dakota can make a wine."

Hahn sells a variety of grape, berry and honey wines for $10 to $15. He plants his vineyard with hybrids that combine the pleasant taste of European grapes with a resistance to the cold and imports Riesling and other more sensitive fruit from Washington state.

[Last modified August 23, 2007, 00:42:18]