Tassel Ridge Winery–November 25, 2009
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Tassel Ridge Winery Thanksgiving Weekend Schedule
Thursday, November 26, Thanksgiving Day, Closed
Friday, November 27, Open 9 a.m.–6 p.m.
Saturday, November 28, Open 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Sunday, November 29, Open 12–6 p.m.
2009 Iowa Nouveau Is Now Available
Iowa Nouveau is the first wine of the season at Tassel Ridge Winery. It is made from grapes that were grown in our vineyards and harvested in early September.
The 2009 Iowa Nouveau is a dry red wine, but it is very fruity. It can be served slightly chilled or at room temperature. Because it is so light, it is appropriate for holiday meals. It is best when consumed soon after purchase.
Tassel Ridge Cranberry Wine Is Ready for the Holidays
Tassel Ridge Cranberry Wine will provide a great complement to holiday dinners. It can be used as an aperitif before dinner or as the dinner wine. It is sweet enough that it could even be used as a sipper after dessert. It is best served chilled. This wine is now available for tasting at the Winery.
2009/2010 Tassel Ridge Winery Catalog Was Mailed November 9
If you did NOT receive your copy of the 2009 /2010 Tassel Ridge Winery Catalog, we offer you two ways to check it out. On the left side of the splash page of our web site at www.tasselridge.com, there is a small thumbnail photo of our catalog. Double-click on this photo and on the cover of the catalog when it comes up. You will have then downloaded the catalog. You can turn the 32 pages by using the scroll bar on the right side of your screen. If you would like a print copy of the catalog, please e-mail jbrockway@tasselridge.com with your name and mailing address. Jody will mail a copy to you.
Selecting Wine For Your Thanksgiving Meal
We are told by many of our customers that they just don’t know which wine to serve with their Thanksgiving Day meal. Or, they don’t know which wine to take as a hostess gift.
I will share a couple of wine selection strategies that you might find useful. Before I do, I want to make sure that if you have a favorite wine that you like with Thanksgiving meals, it will probably work just fine. The first rule is to trust your own preferences, but if you want some suggestions, read on.
Strategy #1: Select a wine that pairs nicely with turkey and don’t worry about the rest of the dishes that usually make up a holiday dinner. My recommendations with this strategy would be either our American Chardonnay or our American Dry Riesling. Both wines are light and fruity, and they will pair well with the turkey as well as mashed potatoes, gravy, and maybe even the dressing.
Strategy #2: Select a sweet wine that can overcome the sweetness of candied yams and the strong flavors in cranberry relish salad. Our Tassel Ridge Cranberry is a big, sweet wine that provides nice cranberry flavors. It can be consumed throughout the meal. This is the wine for people who prefer sweet wines.
Strategy #3: Select three wines to serve first during the appetizers, then with the main course, and finally with the dessert. A dry white like our American Chardonnay will work nicely with the appetizers. Alternatives are our American Dry Riesling and Candleglow White. With the main course, our light and fruity red 2009 Iowa Nouveau will carry most of the dishes. Then, our Finalé Iowa Red will work nicely with many holiday desserts. Or, if you are serving a fruit pie, consider the Iowa Prairie Snow, our iced wine.
There are numerous ways to approach a traditional turkey dinner for the holidays and the right choice is what is right for you. The one thing I would not do is serve a big dry red wine.
Order Tassel Ridge Wine Online
It is now easy to order Tassel Ridge Wine online. Go to our web site at www.tasselridge.com. Click on wines at the top of the splash page. Our list of wines will then come up. Beside each listing, you will see “buy now” in red. If this is a wine you’d like to purchase, click the button and a detailed description of the wine will come up. Click the orange box, and the wine will be added to your shopping cart. You pay for your wine, shipping, and handling with a credit card. We ship via UPS and can ship to Iowa locations, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Florida, and California. Please be sure to supply daytime addresses where wine can be received and signed for by someone who is at least 21 years of age and who has a government issued ID that shows their date of birth. You may also order by phone by calling 641/672-9463.
Saturday, December 5—Abstract Prints, Drawings, and Woodcut Block Printing Exhibition by Lisa M. Davis-Kovarik
Time: 12–4
Location: Tassel Ridge Winery, Visitors Gallery
Artist Display—Artist Lisa M. Davis-Kovarik has been making abstract prints and drawings with chalk pastels, pen and ink, and photography for more than 20 years. After graduating from the University of Lincoln-Nebraska with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, she received several awards, and now lives with her family on a farm outside of Pella, IA. In her new studio space, Lisa is developing her technique with printmaking. Using a new press called Ukaliqpress, printmaking has become her favorite because of its processes, effects, and hand manipulation of the plate. She says printmaking involves a lot of problem solving and when completed, the results are bright, colorful and different. Lisa feels her experience with different mixed media helps bring dimension to all of her work. She will be demonstrating woodcut block printing during her exhibit.
Thursday & Friday, December 3–4—Warm Up at Tassel Ridge Winery with Our Special Mulled Wine
10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m. (Extended Hours for Oskaloosa
Lighted Christmas Parade)
Come in from the cold and sample our special mulled wine. Taste other Tassel Ridge wines and browse in our gift shop full of unique wine-related items, beautifully decorated gift baskets, Iowa cheese, chocolates, gourmet food items, and much more.
What is Happening In Our Vineyards?
Our first hard frost on October 10 quickly shut our vines down for the winter. The very next day, the vines that had been green the day before, were already getting brown. Within just a few days, the leaves had all turned brown and with the first winds of autumn, they quickly blew away. Now, our vines are thin canes that have hardened off for winter.
We’ve finished our last mowing of the season and have applied a pre-emergent herbicide that we hope will prevent or at least slow weeds from growing under the vines. As an experiment, we’ve also applied a broadleaf herbicide in the grass strip between the rows in two blocks of our Tassel Ridge Vineyard. We will see if this reduces the number of dandelions under the vines next year.
Finally, we’ve gotten all of our equipment serviced. Some has already been put away for the winter. Our sprayer was totally stripped down so the metal could be sand blasted and repainted. This gives us a chance to change out parts that might fail next season. We sent our electric pruners out to California for sharpening and rebuilding. This will help make sure that they are ready to go when we start to prune next season.
What Is Happening In Our Cellar?
We are starting to clarify several of our white wines and are getting them ready for cold stabilization, filtration, and bottling. Time in the tanks and gravity do much of the clarification, but we also add natural substances that make the clarification process faster and more effective. When we cold stabilize a wine, we chill it down to 28°F and then let it sit for a week or two while the tartrates settle to the bottom of the tank. We cold stabilize in the Winery because if we don’t, the tratrates will settle out in the bottle in your refrigerator. The tartrates are not unhealthy, but most of us don’t like to chew our wine. We then filter the wine using our high tech cross-flow filtration system. This process removes all floating organisms bigger than 0.45 microns across. To put this in perspective, the smallest dot you can make with a sharp pencil on good quality paper is 40 microns. The smallest living organism, like a yeast cell, is larger than 0.45 microns. The wine emerges from this process in a very clear state, and yet the flavors that make it a good wine are not removed during filtration. Finally, we bottle.
Interested in Pairing Specific Foods With Tassel Ridge Wines?
Are you interested in suggestions of foods that pair well with specific Tassel Ridge wines? We’ve put some suggestions on our web site under Recipes and Food Pairing Suggestions. You can link directly to this page at www.tasselridge.com/recipes.htm.
Our Hours:
November and December 2009, we are open seven days a week for tours, tasting, and wine and gift shop sales.
We will be closed Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.
• Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–6 p.m.
• Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
• Sunday, Noon–6 p.m.
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 toward Leighton. From Des Moines and Pella, drive southeast on Highway 163 and 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
—Bob Wersen, President
E-mail Jody Brockway at info@tasselridge.com to sign up a friend for our e-newsletter.