From Maryland Syrah to Rocky Mountain Riesling, exciting wines are turning up in unexpected places thanks to intrepid American producers. Raise a toast to our nation’s bounty with these off-the-beaten-track bottles.
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In 1996, Jerry Eisterhold was running Eisterhold Associates Inc., his design firm, when he became fascinated with the idea of growing native grapes in Missouri for winemaking. He soon got his hands on cuttings from 60 grape varieties native to North America, largely identified by Thomas Volney Munson, an early 20th century viticulturist, and launched a vineyard with those unique – and almost forgotten – varietals.
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Almost every wine available to you comes from a single species: Vitis vinifera. Native to Eurasia, this grape has colonized the world’s vineyards and become the standard for all wine production. The classic European cultivars of this grape - Pinot, Cabernet, Chardonnay, etc. - are the most well-regarded, to the point that other species of grapes are often frowned upon, if not outright banned.
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Starting in the 1870s, Thomas Volney Munson, a Texas viticulturist, identified 31 undiscovered grape species, all but three indigenous to the U.S. Two of the best known are Vitis riparia, which played a role in the creation of “French-hybrids” like Frontenac and Baco Noir, and Vitis labrusca, known for grapes like Concord and Niagara.
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What grows together goes together. Green Dirt and Vox have partnered on a unique tasting room in Weston, Missouri, that lets people come in and taste Vox wines; enjoy cheeses, ice cream and sandwiches from Green Dirt; and shop a selection of locally made products from other Missouri makers. It’s a perfect pair.
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Although craft beer garners a ton of attention here these days, Kansas City has a rich grape growing and winemaking history that dates to the 19th century. In fact, by the 1870s, Missouri and Kansas together constituted the second-largest grape-growing and winemaking region in the U.S., just behind California.
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With the help of a rented plane, Jerry Eisterhold found the perfect place to start a vineyard with grapes native to the Midwest, grapes that no one had cultivated for more than 150 years. A soil scientist by training, he liked the dirt on the Missouri River bluffs north of Kansas City, Missouri.
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Grape growers and winemakers have centuries of experience with classic grapes such as Pinot Noir, Cabernet, Chardonnay, and Syrah, offering them a professional understanding of how and where these grapes grow, and the characteristics of the wine they make. But how do winemakers—and wine drinkers—approach grape varieties that have been out of use for generations, such as the American heritage grapes that are now being re-discovered?
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Pop a cork and raise a glass to Missouri’s top-of-the-line wine. Not only is the state’s wine industry booming, but it is also a leader in growing and developing resilient wine grapes. Overall, Missouri is home to 1,700 acres of grapes and over 130 wineries.
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I learned a new acronym when I was in Kansas City, Mo., a few weeks ago for the Jefferson Cup Invitational Wine Competition: DNPIM, or Do Not Put in Mouth, a term judges use to describe particularly unpleasant wines. “We used to get wines like that all the time,” said Patricia Wamhoff, a Missouri-based wine wholesaler and Jefferson Cup judge. “But it’s much rarer now.”
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This wine is from one of the more interesting wine projects in the U.S. Jerry Eisterhold of Vox Vineyards and TerraVox Winery near Kansas City is rediscovering long forgotten American grape varieties, most of them first cultivated by the legendary grape breeder T.V. Munson in the late 19th Century. The project has been under development since 1996 but went commercial in 2015. Wines such as Lenoir, Wetumka, and Lomanto are not familiar to most wine lovers but Eisterhold seeks to change that.
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It’s great that so many people had spiritual experiences on the day of the totality. I can’t say that my eclipse journey was wholly satisfying. We traveled 45 minutes or so out of the city and into the rolling hills of Platte County, where we joined a few dozen other people enjoying the day at the Vox Vineyard and hoping for a midday, school's-out dazzle.
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Wine aficionados regularly sip the products of a Cabernet, Pinot Noir, or Chardonnay grape, but what about the fruits of an Albania, Lenoir, Wetumka, or Starkstar? Today’s most familiar and famous wines derive from Europe’s ancient grape varieties, but America has a rich diversity of indigenous—and far lesser-known—grapes of its own beyond the familiar Vitis labrusca Concord.
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The award-winning Green Dirt Farm will open its creamery and tasting room in downtown Weston on Sat., June 4 followed by a grand opening celebration on Sun., July 3. The long-planned extension of the sheep farm and cheesemaking operation will sell a full selection of Green Dirt Farm cheeses and yogurts.
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Jerry Eisterhold is listening and observing. At his Vox Vineyards in Platte County, Missouri, near Kansas City, he’s listening to the rare American heritage grapes he’s growing in his laboratory vineyard, hoping he’ll hear from them and see that the varieties he has studied for more than 20 years and planted are thriving and suitable for fine wine.
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As the executive cheesemaker and founder of Green Dirt Farm, Sarah Hoffmann had a happy problem – she needed more room to grow her business. To that end, Hoffmann plans to open a new Green Dirt Farm creamery at 1099 Welt Street in Weston by mid-April.
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Stories about husbands and wives who each have pretty cool jobs are hard to resist. Case in point: Jerry Eisterhold and Kate Garland. One designs museum exhibitions and the other restores art masterpieces. Together, they’re partners in a different venture altogether. As part of our effort to cover the arts more fully, KCPT has teamed with KC Studio Magazine, which profiled Jerry in their January/February issue.
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Noted exhibition designer Jerry Eisterhold is also a producer of award-winning Missouri wines. As a student in the early 1970s at the Kansas City Art Institute, Jerry Eisterhold found himself pondering wine in addition to graphic design. It was a brief phase, yet one that foretold the future.
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