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September - Iowa’s Emerging Wine Industry
2007-11-04
The more than 200 members of the Iowa Grape Growers Association want to restore both wine and table-grape growing to the prominent and profitable place it once enjoyed in Iowa agriculture. Before Prohibition and 2,4-D herbicides knocked it flat, Iowa’s grape industry ranked sixth among the states.
In Indianola, Somerset Winery produces twelve kinds of red and white wine from ten different varieties of predominantly French-bred, disease-resistant, winter hardy hybrids. Owner Ron Mark sees a solid prospect of selling 200,000 bottle vintages in a few years, and he believes many others will share his success.
But what he’s really selling, says Ron, is a feeling of the good life he had when he lived with a winemaking farm family in Italy. “Bringing good things out of the earth, celebrating the cycle of the seasons, eating, drinking, singing, laughing—living simply and joyfully and gratefully—that is living well!”
