Amazing Minnesota wines
Drew Horton, an enology specialist with the University of Minnesota Grape Breeding and Enology Project, was our guide for UMRA’s July 20 wine-tasting workshop.
More than 50 UMRA members and guests enjoyed a delightful late afternoon together learning about wine and wine tasting and then tasting three excellent Minnesota wines on July 20. Our guide for this much-anticipated workshop was Drew Horton, an enology specialist with the University of Minnesota Grape Breeding and Enology Project.
A former California winemaker, Horton works on developing grape varieties at the U and helping Minnesota wineries enhance their products. Fun fact: Horton was an extra in Sideways, the 2004 movie that, he told us, put Santa Barbara wine country “on the map.”
At the start of our virtual workshop, we reviewed some basics about wine and wine tasting:
- White wines are pressed before fermentation; only the juice is fermented.
- Red wines are pressed after fermentation; they are fermented with the skins, seeds, and pulp.
- Rosé wines are made with red wine grapes that are kept with the skins for only a short time.
- Orange wines are made with white wine grapes that are fermented with the skins, like red wines.
- Dry wines have no residual sugar after fermentation (i.e., the yeast has converted all the sugars to alcohol. Off-dry and sweet wines leave some of the sugar unfermented.
Enhancing the experience
You can enjoy wine by simply drinking it, but using some simple wine-tasting techniques can enhance the experience.
- Begin by looking at the color, swirling the wine, smelling it, and then tasting it. Swish it around in your mouth and note the beginning and finish.
- Pro tip: After swallowing, breathe in through your mouth and out your nose. You’ll be rewarded with an enhanced experience of the wine’s taste and aroma.
- Pro tip: To develop a vocabulary for describing wine you can consult an aroma wheel, which shows both general ways to describe the wine (e.g., nutty, fruity) and specific ways (e.g., almond, apricot).
After learning about the basics, we split into breakout rooms to taste three Minnesota wines, all made with Minnesota grape varieties, many of which were developed by the University:
- Petit Ami, a dry white wine from Carlos Creek Winery in Alexandria, made from a cold-hardy grape that is a cross between Muscat and Swenson Red
- Frontenac Gris, an off-dry orange wine from Parley Lake Winery in Waconia, made from Frontenac Gris grapes, one of three Frontenac varieties
- Minnesota Marquette from Chankaska Creek Winery in Kasota, a dry red made from Marquette grapes
When we had finished, we had two big takeaways from the day: (1) Virtual wine tastings work. We all bought the wines in advance from local stores and enjoyed discussing them. (2) Minnesota wines can be good! Amazingly, some Minnesota wines can compare with wines from anywhere.
He also offered a book recommendation if you would like to learn more about wines—Wine Folly: Magnum Edition, the Master Guide by Madeline Puckette and Justin Hammack. It’s available from University of Minnesota Bookstores. You can purchase the book by contacting the Bookstores at 612-626-0559 or [email protected], or by ordering it online via the books/cooking section of the Bookstores’ website.
—Ron Matross, UMRA president-elect
Tasting Minnesota wines with winemaker and enologist Drew Horton
Tue, July 20 2021, 4:30pm
Drew Horton
Research winemaker and enology specialist
Department of Horticultural Science
Event to be held via Zoom.
It is said that grapes are a food of place, and the taste of the wines that are made from them is very much a product of the local climate, soils, terrain, and cultural traditions. The Grape Breeding and Enology project of the University of Minnesota Department of Horticultural Science has long been working with wine producers in our region to develop the qualities of grapes that can be grown here sustainably and make delicious wine.
UMRA’s late-afternoon workshop on Tuesday, July 20, when the sun is pouring its energy over the grape vines in the vineyards, will be a visit with Drew Horton, research winemaker and enology specialist with the U of M Grape Breeding Project. He will speak with us about how to properly taste wine and what it takes to breed wine grapes in Minnesota. He will also review the U of M grapes that are being used to make the best local wines today.
Please register and NOTE THE SPECIAL TIME for this workshop: Tuesday, July 20, from 4:30 to 6 p.m.
Horton will recommend three Minnesota wines that we can each purchase in advance to have the experience of tasting them along with him in a virtual wine-tasting environment. So, invite a friend or loved one to join you on your porch or a comfortable couch and share the experience of “tasting a place” with Drew Horton and fellow members and friends of UMRA.
This workshop will be on the Zoom meeting platform, so we will be able to see and visit with each other on our screens. The event is free, but you will need to purchase your own wines for tasting. After you register, we’ll send you a list of the wines with suggestions for where to purchase them.
Learn more about Drew Horton and his colleagues in a short video produced by the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences.
From Santa Barbara to St. Paul
Drew Horton has been active in the wine industry for 25 years, earning the rank of cellarmaster and eventually winemaker starting in 2004. He produced award-winning wines in Santa Barbara County, California, before moving to Minnesota in 2010 when he began working with cold-hardy hybrid grapes as founding winemaker for Chankaska Creek Winery. In 2015, Drew moved from commercial winemaking to research winemaking and providing outreach as a field specialist enologist for the Midwest Grape and Wine Industry Institute at Iowa State University in Ames.
As an enology specialist with the U of M’s Grape Breeding and Enology project, Horton produces more than 100 micro-lots of research wine and ciders annually. He also engages with and provides University and Extension resources to winemakers across the state. He has broad experience and expertise in winery design and equipment, fermentation techniques, barrel-maturation, filtration and blending. We are pleased to welcome Drew Horton to our UMRA Summer workshop.
I look forward to sharing this experience with you on July 20.
—Jan Morlock, UMRA president-elect
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