Prairie Storm, Strawbale Winery

A couple of weeks ago, my mother in law & I decided to take a tour of eastern South Dakota wineries. Rocky had picked up a flyer from a rest stop on our trip to Montana with a map of the SE Winery Trail. Last Sunday, we headed south on I-29 and of course, I forgot the map! So, we decided to play it by ear and go to the ones we could find easily off the interstate. The first one we came to was the Strawbale Winery in Renner SD. Despite having grown up in South Dakota, I don't believe I'd ever heard of Renner.

The winery is set a couple of miles off of the interstate and was a very beautiful drive. We really picked a good day to go. It was slightly breezy, warm. Sunny with large fluffy clouds. Strawbale [called Strawbale because they use bales of straw to insulate their buildings] was having a Sangria Sunday with live music. There were quite a few people there, but it wasn't crowded. I had actually thought it was too bad we didn't bring the girls because they would have loved running around and chasing the cats and chickens.

We walked into the tasting room and looked around at the wide variety of wines. Pretty much every fruit available is made into wine here. A tasting is $5 for 5 tastes and you get to keep the glass. We decided to share our tastings and tried to not double up on the wines! We attempted to keep track of the wines we tasted, but I have misplaced my list. I did have 3 favorites:

Black Raspberry Wine. It is a semi-sweet fruit wine. It wasn't overly sweet as I typically expect in these fruit wines, but had the tart-raspberry aroma. I think this would be a great deck wine, served chilled on a hot summer day.

Brown Cow. This is a blended red table wine fortified with brandy and flavors of chocolate, coffee and orange zest. Tasted like an orange Tootsie Pop. In a good way. This is a sipping wine -- I think this might be really good mulled with some additional orange zest -- perhaps after Thanksgiving dinner.

And now my favorite: Prairie Storm. Strawbale uses cold-climate grapes such as Frontenac, Kay Gray, Frontenac Gris, La Cresent and Valiant. Some are grown in their vineyard and others they purchase locally, which means fresher grapes! Prairie Storm is 75% dry red wine and 25% Black Currant. The tart black currant was a great finish to the dry red wine (which I assume is mostly Frontenac).

I purchased a bottle of Prairie Storm and Brown Cow. Bonnie and I decided we would definitely return to Strawbale and I'd love to take a tour.

We didn't make it to any other wineries. As we had left the map at home, we decided to try Schade winery outside of Volga, but they had already started their fall hours and are closed on Sundays [we missed the wine stomp this year]. So, when we got home, we opened the bottle of Prairie Storm and enjoyed a final glass of the day!

Delish Sauvignon Blanc

I joined a new wine club! While in Sioux Falls in July, we did some wine shopping at the Little Cellars Wine Company. For around $30/month, Nancy selects 2 wines to share. She also provides tasting notes from the winery, a page for your own tasting notes and a recipe selection. I've opted for the Wine 101 level, mostly because the idea of opening a $30 bottle of wine on a Tuesday still scares me a little!

Tonight I decided to open Delish, a Sauvignon Blanc. Today it was warmer than I expected and a cool white sounded really really good. This is a crisp, tangy Blanc with an apple, pear, lemon taste. A beautiful golden yellow color.

I enjoyed this wine. It was refreshing on a warm September evening. I think this is definitely on the list to purchase again -- though perhaps I will wait until spring as I don't think it will go well with the comfort food just around the corner!

Free the Grapes in South Dakota!

The subject is coming around again! Legislators in South Dakota are discussing compromises to allow South Dakotans the freedom to choose what wine (and possible other alcoholic drinks) they want to have available to them.

I have nothing against wine and liquor stores working with wholesalers on what to stock on their shelves. I encourage it! The wholesalers give these stores, and consumers, the best bang for their buck. They will open the doors to new and exciting choices, from established wineries and will continue to stock the old favorites, so you know you can pick up your favorite bottle. But what about the consumer in a small town with limited access?

I live in Brookings. A medium sized town. We have a few options for purchasing bottles of wine: Wal-Mart and Hy-Vee each have a small section for wines; the city of Brookings owns the liquor store with the best selection; and the Pheasant Restaurant, which offers some amazing selections when I'm looking for a true splurge (Chateau Montelena, anyone? Great wine, but at $50 a bottle, I'm probably not picking up too many). These 4 options definitely keep my wine fridge filled, and now that I'm participating in the Little Cellars Wine Company Wine of the Month Club, I shouldn't want for a bottle of wine to enjoy any night of the week.

But (of course there is a but), since leaving Virginia, I haven't had a single Virginian wine. Simply because it isn't cost effective for retail stores to work with the smaller wineries to keep bottles on the shelves. They need wine that is going to move! And I understand. I get it, really. But why should this prevent me from ordering my choices directly from the winery? I'm willing to pay a little extra to Chateau Morrisette in order to enjoy a bottle (or 2) of Our Dog Blue a couple of times a year. This is a win-win-win: I get the wine I want, the winery has a couple more sales each year and SD brings in some revenue.

The current compromise would require wineries to register with the state and pay some of the taxes that wholesalers currently pay. More details are in the Argus Leader story.

I'm hopeful the state will be able to come up with a compromise. This seems to be a good compromise from this consumers point of view. Of course, I guess I could attempt to get a job as a wholesaler and get my choices into the stores that way (anyone know how I go about applying?)

Wanderlust White, Outdoor Vino

A couple of years ago, my good wine buddy Diane introduced me to Outdoor Vino (part of the Naked Winery), which she found on a trip to her brother's in Rapid City (they have tasting rooms in Hill City & Custer, SD -- perhaps next summer, we'll make a trip to the Black Hills & visit them!. The plastic bottle is unusual, and is keeping with my willingness to try wines in vessels other than the traditional glass bottle. The plastic is light weight and recyclable (which is great as we have curbside recycling here in Brookings).

I haven't been able to find any Outdoor Vino in Brookings but finally found it at my new favorite wine store in Sioux Falls (Little Cellars Wine Company -- more on them later as I recently signed up for their club). Last trip to SF, I picked up this Wanderlust White, a crisp, slightly sweet wine; a hint of apple and honey, perfect for a warm summer evening on the deck. Or sitting inside watching "Captain America, Winter Soldier" because it's too cold to actually be ON the deck this early September evening.

A bottle runs a little under $20. Great value. I plan to contine picking up bottles each trip!