More Deliberate Every Day

Local Wine, Oh Boy!

Despite my grumbling about the difficulty in finding local wines in our area and assertions I have previously made that we are interested in sourcing our sustenance locally only to a degree, I was beyond excited yesterday when I realized that there are not one but two wineries located within 100 miles of our homestead in the Memphis Tennessee area.  A tip received from a fellow Slow Food member pointed me to Old Millington Vineyard and Winery where we can not only visit and enjoy a deeper understand of grape cultivation and wine production but also taste and purchase wines.

Also discovered, through the Old Millington website, is Cordova Cellars just off Macon Road, which according to Wikipedia is "a 4 1/2 acre Chardonnay and Vidal vineyard founded in 1989. Named as one of the best wineries of North America by Gault Millau in 1993."  According to an archived article in The Memphis Flyer,

Mary Birks, who owns the Cellars with her husband Randy, recalls that the very first commercial batch produced seven years ago didn't come so easily. She says that she and Randy had applied for a permit from the Alcoholic Beverage Commission and had to attend the commission's once-a-month application review in Nashville. But before they could do this, the local Construction Code Enforcement decided, says Birks, that the winery was erroneously zoned and halted the completion of their building, which they needed to be done in order to get an occupancy permit, which, in turn, was needed for a permit from the ABC. Meanwhile, the grapes were harvested, and the Birks brought in a lawyer to deal with code enforcement. Because they couldn't make alcohol legally without the permits, they transferred their product to another local winery, where the grapes were fermented and then trucked back to Cordova once the permits were obtained. Says Birks, "Our first commercial crush was an interesting one. I would never like to do that again."

Regulations, says Birks, are just part of the game. For instance, the Birks comply with the law that their wines be composed of at least 75 percent Tennessee-grown grapes. The other 25 percent, she says, is really where they get to be creative, such as bringing in grapes from as far away as Washington state. As for their own crops, they began a tradition in 1991 when they asked for volunteers to help them harvest. About 50 people showed up, and it went so well, they've kept it up. "We've had volunteers harvest as much as 16,000 pounds of grapes from 7 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon, and after the first year, all they got was lunch," Birks says. She adds that they also get a good crowd for their spring and fall concert series and for their wine tastings.

More to come as we take the rugrats out to visit these and many other fine local establishments.

Tennessee Wine

The Nashville Scene, a local newspaper down the road in Nashville, recently published a profile by Maria Browning of Ross and Deborah Proctor, winemakers at Chateau Ross Vineyard & Winery near Springfield. The Proctors coax classic wine grapes from the soil of a rather harsh Tennessee due to their love of making and drinking wine and have discovered a reasonably strong demand for their products in the Nashville area.  Suffice it to say, it's tough finding local wines in west Tennessee:

The reason more area wineries don’t take a page from Chateau Ross is that what the Proctors are doing is not easy. Tennessee’s climate is extremely tough on the tender European grapes that Chateau Ross cultivates. It’s too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, and too wet when it shouldn’t be—the vineyard lost virtually all its 2006 crop because of the wet spell that hit at a crucial time last August. Tennessee is also fungus central, not to mention heaven for bugs. “Japanese beetles can take out a vine in 24 hours,” says Deborah. It costs about $3,500 per ton to produce these grapes, which could be purchased from a West Coast grower for a quarter of that price.

But rather than being discouraged by such difficulties, the Proctors seem to regard them as a challenge and part of the joy of winegrowing. “You just gotta throw the book out,” says Ross, describing how they’ve learned to ignore standard advice about stressing the vines—“There are so many stressors here already”—and focusing on the most prolific vines, to offset the high degree of loss. They accept certain limitations, acknowledging that they tried to go organic and “just got killed.” It’s likely they’ll always have to source some of their grapes from outside Tennessee, but they continue to experiment with new grape varieties and to shoot for bottling wine with about a 75 percent local grape content.

L and I have spoken extensively about a desire to source our products locally and the challenge that the desire presents.  And while we're making great strides in identifying providers for some of our needs -- great farmers and ranchers who we can identify by name, where we now how the items are grown and raised -- wine and cheese are still challenges and items we dearly love.  Perhaps, the next time we travel up to Kentucky to visit the grandparents, a stop by the Chateau Ross winery is in order.  Not within a hundred miles, but also not so far off of a well-travelled path.

You can find the profile of the vineyard and the winemakers here.