Tassel Ridge Winery

Tassel Ridge Winery–January 2008

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"Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized." -ANDRÉ SIMON

This quotation is from a chapter heading in Judgment of Paris by George Taber. This is the story of historic 1976 Paris tasting of French and California Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon that revolutionized wine. It is a GREAT read!

Heart of Iowa Wine Trail 2008 Passport

You no longer have to suffer from cabin fever. There are now fifteen wineries within a 60 mile radius of Des Moines and each offers a different wine experience. They’ve recently organized the Heart of Iowa Wine Trail with a Passport that guides you to each of the wineries. The passport is available at each winery for $25.00. As you visit each winery, you will have the appropriate page in your passport stamped. When your passport is full, one page is removed and exchanged for two elegant commemorative wine glasses. 

Each of the fifteen member Heart of Iowa Wine Trail wineries offers a different visitor experience. In most cases, the visitor can expect a tour that will include a view of the cellar where wine is made. Some wineries are in unique old barns while others are in brand new, beautify structures. In some cases, the owner is the wine maker and tour guide while in others, the staff is big enough to be specialized. Some wineries will have a band playing while you visit while others will offer vineyard tours or bocce ball and croquet. Member wineries make wine from locally grown grapes, grapes imported from out of state, fruit and fruit juice. Their wines range from dry food pairing wines to sweet fruit wines and Port-style dessert wines. Some wineries even make and offer sparkling wine. 

Purchase your 2008 Heart of Iowa Wine Trail Passport at Tassel Ridge Winery. Price is $25.00, the experience is priceless!

For more information about the Heart of Iowa Wine Trail, visit our website.

Featured Wine

Our Twilight dry red wine is mellowing nicely in the bottle. It is made entirely from Cabernet Sauvignon grown in Lake County, CA and was aged in American and Eastern European Oak barrels for about 15 months. The tannins and vanilla from the oak are integrating nicely making this a great wine to serve with prime rib, steak, and other fully flavored, elegant meals. 

Price: Twilight is $20.00 per 750 ml bottle.

See our full wine list: www.tasselridge.com/wines.htm

Do You Want To Ship Wine Out of State?

We can now ship to the following six states: 

If you’d like to be able to ship wine to other states not mentioned above, please let us know and we will investigate what kinds of licenses and permits we need to ship there.

Would You Like To Carry Wine On Your Next Flight Out of State?

We can provide you with a cardboard carton and the protective bottle carriers for either two or three bottles. This packaging material is free of charge with the purchase of the wine. We can seal it up for you and then put your business card on the outside of the carton. The TSA will not allow you to carry the wine on board but you can check it with your baggage. I have taken wine on several occasions both domestically and internationally and this packaging has worked every time.

What’s Happening in the Vineyard?

Our vineyards are all covered with several inches of snow. The vines are dormant or sleeping for the winter. The energy in the vine is all in the roots now and the snow provides insulation from the cold. The ice storms in December coated the vines with up to an inch of ice and while they sure looked pretty, it is easy to worry about the vines being damaged by the ice. Actually, the ice was an insulator. In fact, the temperature never got low enough to do any damage to the vines. The varieties we grow are all winter hardy to at least -15°F and some to -25°F so we don’t expect that the weather has done any damage yet. But, this is only early January!

We’ve taken steps to get a vineyard weather system specified and installed before the end of March. We will actually have three weather systems, one for each vineyard. Each system will have two sets of sensors located 1,000 to 2,500 feet from each other. The weather stations will load their data onto personal computers that will have battery backup in case of power failure. They will all be connected to the Internet so they can be monitored from our vineyard management offices. We will collect weather data so we can eventually correlate fruit production characteristics with weather events and trends.    

What’s Happening in the Cellar?

The cellar is going to be busy in January as we do lots of bottling. Watch out for one or two special editions of the Tassel Ridge Winery e-letter as we announce several new wines in January and February. 

January and February are traditionally the months during which the wine industry conducts seminars, exhibitions, and meetings. Our Tasting Room Manager will attend seminars on wine club operations and tasting room management in mid-January while our cellar crew will head out to California the following week for the Unified Grape and Wine Symposium in Sacramento. They will also have time to visit several wineries to learn how the Napa Valley and Sonoma County wineries do things. In early February, the Iowa Wine Growers Association will have its annual meeting in Ankeny. Tassel Ridge Winery invests in attending these programs so we can learn how to do things better. 

Tassel Ridge Wines Now Appearing in Retailers Near You

For a complete list of retailers, click here.

We have over 90 retailers now but some are carrying a wide range of our wine and are likely to carry the specific wines you like. We will mention a few of these retailers each month in our e-letter. This month, the retailers we’d like to call to your attention are:

Ankeny • Hy-Vee Wine & Spirits
Des Moines • Hy-Vee on Army Post Road
Fort Madison • Meier’s Den
Johnston • Dahl’s on 86th Street
Oskaloosa • Hy-Vee Food Store
Urbandale • Accents & Interiors
Windsor Heights • Hy-Vee Wine & Spirits

Selections of Tassel Ridge Wine are now available at the retailers and restaurants listed. Note that most retailers do NOT offer all of our wines, but rather focus on those wines that sell the best. Ask your retailer or contact us directly for other wines.

If you have a favorite retailer where you’d like to purchase Tassel Ridge wines in the future or a restaurant where you’d like to consume Tassel Ridge wines, please e-mail me at bwersen@interpower.com and we will arrange to contact them. 

Upcoming Events:

Join us on Sunday, January 13 for a great evening beginning with appetizers and music at 6:00 p.m. and dinner at 6:30 p.m. 

The menu includes:

Space is limited!  Advance reservations are required. 

To make reservations, please phone Sarah Thompson at Tassel Ridge Winery at 641.672.WINE (9463) or e-mail Sarah at sthompson@tasselridge.com. Reservations will be accepted until 5:00 p.m. on Friday, January 11. 

Mark your calendars for our Chinese Wine and Food Pairing Dinner at Tassel Ridge Winery 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 27, 2008

Our Hours:

Effective January 2008, we are open for tours, tasting, wine, and gift shop sales as follows:

We are open seven days per week!

Our Location:

Tassel Ridge Winery is easy to find. It is just south of State Highway 163 on 220th Street in Leighton. From Ottumwa and Oskaloosa, drive northwest on 163 to 220th Street and turn left towards Leighton. From Des Moines and Pella, turn right at 220th Street. Drive west on 220th about 0.7 miles from the Highway and right into the Tassel Ridge Winery parking lot. view maps

Email Brian Babcock at info@tasselridge.com to sign up a friend for our enewsletter.

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www.tasselridge.com/news.htm

--Bob Wersen, President