Fri 8/3-Sat 8/4
Most people don’t know that Ohio was once the premier wine-making state back in the 1850s when settlers were arriving and making their homes on the Ohio River. The state has a deep wineries heritage, and if you’re in doubt about our ability to make wine, check out Vintage Ohio during the weekend of 8/3-4 at Lake Metroparks Farmpark in Kirtland. From 1-10pm each day, you’ll be able to sample wines from eighteen Ohio wineries.
You’ll discover sweet wines and dry wines, fruit and honey wines, wines made from estate-grown grapes and wines made from juice brought in from other states. For example, if you go to Chateau Tebeau’s booth, you’ll discover the nuances of French hybrid grapes grown and turned into wine right on the property where vines were first planted in 2008.
Gervasi Vineyard in Canton is a destination winery which is growing three grape varieties on land that was once a tree farm but is also making wine from European varietals not grown on their vineyard, like my favorite — the dry red Abbraccio Cabernet Sauvignon.
If you stop by the Valley Vineyards’ booth, you’ll find wines made from grapes in the historic Ohio River Valley Appellation, and you may also find meads and fruit wines in addition to grape wines. Every winery that you encounter will offer a variety, and they will all be different.
Some of the wineries, like Heinemann’s at Put-in-Bay (the oldest winery in the state), are historical and have a significant presence in Ohio. Others, like Kinkead Ridge in Ripley, which opened in 2017, are new to the wineries scene and are starting to win awards and build their businesses.
Vintage Ohio is just the beginning of the world of Ohio wines. We have over 200 wineries in the state and you can drive from winery to winery in an afternoon. If you’ve ever explored Ohio’s wine trails, you know about the Geneva area, but if you head down to Dover or out towards Sandusky or toward Youngstown, you’ll find clusters of wineries within 30 miles of each other. It is at the wineries that the stories unfold.
When I go to a winery, I find out who’s serving the wine, and depending on whether I’m talking to the owner or an employee, I try to find out how the winery got started, when the vineyards were planted, and what the motivation was. I hear stories like that of Tony Kosicek, whose family has been growing grapes for years and it was time to start making wine. Or the story of Vermilion Valley, whose four original owners had the dream of building a winery that used organic growing methods and green architecture in their building. And all those dandelions that grown around Breitenbach Winery prompted an experiment with dandelion wine and lead to the Dandelion Wine Festival.
The other thing about going to the wineries that is different than being at Vintage Ohio — you can discover new wines. Ohio’s winemakers will tell you that many of their customers expect sweet wines in Ohio, which leads them to feature sweeter wines at the festivals and at the groceries. But if you visit a winery, you’ll be able to explore their drier wines. And when that happens, you begin to think about the effort of growing European-style vinifera grapes in a region where an entire vineyard can be lost during a sub-zero winter and how important it is to blanket the roots during winter.
I love to hear the stories of hope and following dreams and continuing the heritage. The losses can be great for it’s a risky and expensive business, but Ohio’s grape growers and wine makers carry on the almost 200-year-old tradition of Vinland, which was what settlers called Ohio as they passed vineyards lining the Ohio River.
If you’re headed out to Vintage Ohio, visit the wineries’ websites by starting at visitvintageohio.com/wineries. The stories will likely help you choose which winery booths to visit, and which wines to try. In addition to wine booths, Maize Valley Winery & Craft Brewery in Hartville will be pouring beer. Chef Lisa Delgado from the Food Network will show off her skills during the afternoons. Vendors will be selling wine gadgets and clothing. It’s summertime in the country. Enjoy.
Claudia J. Taller is the author of Ohio’s Lake Erie Wineries and Ohio’s Canal Country Wineries. Find her books at http://claudiajtaller.com or on Amazon.
Kirtland, OH 44094