A Wine Stomping Good Time

Maggie & I met Rocky's sister Tammy and some of her girls at a South Dakota vineyard & winery. Yes, you read that correctly, a South Dakota Vineyard. I didn't realize this winery actually grew its own grapes. There is winery in Billings, MT that gets its grapes from other vineyards around the Northwest and I assumed this winery was no different. But I was wrong. Outside Volga SD, not far from Brookings, is Schade Vineyard & Winery. They have a number of rows of grapes, growing near a corn field. They use all locally grown fruits, including Black Chokeberry, Elderberry, Buffaloberry. My mother-in-law enjoys the berry wines, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that they also make "real" [grape] wine as well.

On Saturday, they hosted their annual Grape Stomp. For $5 a car and 2 buckets of harvested grapes, you get to stomp some grapes and take home either a gallon of grape juice or a bottle of wine. We got their early and helped harvest the Valiant grapes. Maggie wasn't quite sure what she thought of this part if the "fun," but she was a trooper! And what a deal for the vineyard! Lots of people paying for the privilege of harvest! People were lined up waiting for their turn as we finished and turned in our buckets & harvest tools.

 

Once we turned in our 2 buckets each, we headed back to the winery to STOMP! This was definitely Maggie's favorite part. They had music, food and later in the afternoon, a wine press demonstration, but we were ready to head back to Watertown around lunch time.

 

At the end of our turn, Tammy and I headed inside to taste some of their wines (Maggie & Taylor stomped some more). Schade has a great selection of grape and berry wines. I'd like to taste their grape wines again, especially not after drinking grape juice! Their juice is a little sweet and a little tart, and not Welches ;) I picked out a bottle of their Honey Wine [a sweet, light bodied wine with a bold finish -- waiting for a cool fall evening open this one; love a nice warm Mead] as my prize and purchased their Goldsmith White, which is a semi-dry white blend. I'm sure I'll be writing about their wines more in the future as I be these are very easy to find in the Brookings area.

 

Check out all the photos on Facebook.

Definitely going to make this an annual event and maybe get some of my wine loving friends to come out for the weekend to check it out!

 

Salut!