Wine is Wisconsin contest shows state vintners’ skills
The judges were intently examining, swirling, tasting and spitting dozens of wines in the inaugural Wine is Wisconsin competition, held at Babcock Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The judging — and I was one of the judges for the final rounds — took place Aug. 7 with 93 entries from 20 state wineries. The tippy-top award for Best Wine of Wisconsin went to Door 44 Winery’s 2015 Sparkler, a semi-sweet, Prosecco-style pink made with La Crescent, Louise Swenson and Marechal Foch grapes. It sells for about $21 a bottle and can be purchased online. “This competition is only for Wisconsin wineries, and all wines need to be produced from 75% or more local grapes, fruit or honey,” said enologist Nick Smith, associate outreach specialist in the Department of Food Science, who organized the now-annual event. These locally grown, cold-hardy grapes come with names like Frontenac and Marquette for the reds, and Brianna and La Crescent for the whites. Locally grown in this instance means sourced from Wisconsin or designated areas of nearby states. And, yes, from strawberry to cranberry, the judges took on the state’s ever-popular fruit wines. Beyond medals and bragging rights, Smith said, “this competition is being used as a tool to assist the outreach efforts of the Fermentation Sciences Program at UWMadison. In addition to comments supplied by the judges, we’ll further provide analytical analysis to entrants. Our goal is to promote wineries producing high-quality wines, and identify quality issues that may be limiting other wineries.” It was a blind tasting, with double gold, gold, silver and bronze medals awarded in various categories. Best of Class awards were given for fruit wine, red wine, white wine, dessert wine, sparkling and cider. Go to foodsci.wisc.edu for results. Smith noted that in the three Best Wine of Wisconsin categories — Best Wine (grape), Best Fruit Wine or Mead, and Best Cider — only 100% Wisconsin wines were eligible to win. So Sparkler, for example, was made with all Wisconsingrown grapes, without any grapes from neighboring states. Winemaker Steve Johnson, who with wife Maria Milano owns Parallel 44 Winery in Kewaunee and Door 44 Winery in Sturgeon Bay, said the Best Wine of Wisconsin medal “means the world to us — and the feedback from the judges is as valuable or more valuable than the medal itself.” Parallel 44 and Door 44 were the biggest winners in this competition, earning 20 of the roughly 80 medals that were given out, including Best of Class White Wine for their 2016 Parallel 44 Frontenac Blanc and Best of Class Dessert Wine for the 2015 Parallel 44 Ice Wine.
Johnson has a knack for gathering medals. In the 2017 Ultimate Wine Challenge competition in New York, for example, Parallel 44 Frozen Tundra White was judged to be one of the top 40 wines in the world. And in this year’s professional wine competition at Wisconsin State Fair, Parallel 44 Frontenac Blanc won Best in Show and Best Wisconsin Wine.
This talented winemaker, who admits to being impatient, is eager “to put Wisconsin on the world map for wines” — and to that end, he’s says, he’s “experimenting with methods and protocols” from around the world to see what works best in the Upper Midwest. He believes that as quality continues to improve, better marketing and public relations have to come into play. “We have to drop our Midwestern modesty,” he said. Another winemaker with a big smile on his face is Jake Drefs at Apple Barn Orchard & Winery in Elkhorn, owned and operated by Steve and Judy Jacobson and daughter Selena. Their non-vintage Honey Crisp Apple Harvest Wine took top honors in the category for Best Fruit Wine or Mead of Wisconsin. It retails for about $12 a bottle. To get your hands on this wine, head to the orchard store in Elkhorn.
Best Cider of Wisconsin went to White Winter Winery in Iron River for its Bois Brule Hopped Cider, which is made by “cold steeping” hops in traditional cider. This slightly carbonated hard cider, named for the nearby Bois Brule River, is sold in four-packs of 12-ounce bottles. It retails for about $12 and is available at Milwaukee-area beverage shops.
White Winter Winery is best known for its meads, and it produces about 18 versions of these honey wines.
As a final note, a glass should be raised to the enthusiastic volunteers from the Wisconsin Vintners Association, which is a home winemaking organization. They organized, poured and served the flights of wine and also pitched in for cleanup.