Tassel Ridge Winery

Tassel Ridge Winery–March 2008

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Tassel Ridge Winery invites you to a St. Patrick’s Day Wine & Food Pairing Dinner

Chase the winter blues away and start thinking green by celebrating St. Patrick’s Day at Tassel Ridge Winery! Enjoy a four-course Irish-inspired cuisine paired with select Tassel Ridge wines. Live music will also be provided.


March 8, 7:00 p.m.

 

2008 Sweetheart dinner table

Menu includes:


Cost is $50 – reservations and payment in advance required. Call Tassel Ridge Winery at 641.672.WINE (9463) or e-mail Sarah Thompson at sthompson@tasselridge.com with your name, telephone number, and credit card information to reserve your spot. Reservations will be accepted until 12:00 noon on Friday, March 7.

Mark Your Calendars!
Two New Wine Release Parties in March

On each of the weekends above, we will release the wines as noted and offer all of our guests appropriate hors d’oeuvres to enhance their enjoyment of the wine. The hors d’oeuvres are free and are first-come, first-served! Come and have a good time!

March 1 and 2: 2007 Iowa Edelweiss

EDELWEISS IS BACK! Edelweiss is one of our most popular wines. It sold out after only a few months last year. This year, we have a little more Edelweiss than we did last year and we would have had a lot more if we hadn’t experienced the Easter “Freeze.” The Winery staff is taking bets on how long it lasts this year. So, if you like Edelweiss, the weekend of March 2 and 3 is the time to get your stash before we start delivering it through retailers on March 17.

2007 Iowa Edelweiss is a semi-sweet white wine that is very fruity and flavorful with the scent of ripe pineapple followed by hints of Mandarin orange, pineapple, pear, and green apple on the palate. It is great by itself as an aperitif, or with lightly flavored foods like chicken and pork.

Price: Edelweiss in a 750 ml bottle is $14.00 plus tax

March 15 and 16: Chocolate Granfinalé

If you like dessert wine AND you like chocolate, you are in for a treat! Give our brand new Chocolate Granfinalé a try and dream about a relaxing evening in front of the fire place with a good book or your significant other! Our regular customers have two weeks starting on March 15 and 16 to secure their supply of Chocolate Granfinalé before we start releasing it through retailers on March 28.

Price: Chocolate Granfinalé in a 375 ml bottle is $17.00 plus tax.

Heart of Iowa Wine Trail 2008 Passport

March is right around the corner and with the arrival of March will come longer days and better weather. There won’t be a better time to purchase a Heart of Iowa Wine Trail Passport! The Passport is your ticket to fifteen different Iowa wine country experiences. You can take advantage of the fact that there are now fifteen wineries within a 60 mile radius of Des Moines and each offers different wines. The Heart of Iowa Wine Trail Passport guides you to each of the wineries while providing you with a list of amenities. Purchase your passport any member 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.

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 the website at www.heartofiowawinetrail.com.

Twilight Wins Silver Medal In Florida State Fair International Wine & Grape Competition

Last month, I told you that our Twilight dry red wine was good and getting better. We learned a couple of days ago that folks at the Florida State Fair agreed and awarded our Twilight a silver medal in their International Wine & Grape Competition.

Our Twilight 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.

Do You Want To Ship Wine Out of State?

We can now ship to the following six states:
• California
• Florida
• Iowa
• Illinois
• Minnesota
• New Mexico

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

What’s Happening in the Vineyard?

It is snow, snow, and more snow! We’d planned to start pre-pruning operations during the fourth week of February but the amount of snow in our vineyard makes that impossible.

I enclose this photo of the entrance to the Winery from 220th Street taken during the third week of February. This is has been quite a winter.

What’s Happening in the Cellar?

The rhythm in the cellar now involves three important operations:
1. Perform final fining operations and adjustments to wines,
2. Filter the wine, and
3. Bottle the wine.

On February 27, our cellar team bottled 559 cases of Candleglow Red, a blend of Syrah and Frontenac. We will cellar this wine for 2-3 months to allow it to recover from bottle shock. Then, we will have a release party and make it available to our tasting room customers.

Tassel Ridge New Recipe

2007 Iowa Nouveau is a Natural with a
Hearty Vegetable Soup

The fruity flavors in the Tassel Ridge Winery 2007 Iowa Nouveau pair nicely with a hearty vegetable soup. There are lots of ways to make a good vegetable soup. I’ve developed my recipe below after experimenting for several years. What I wanted was a meatless soup that I could make quickly and then eat for several days. I use the fresh vegetables that are available and supplement them with frozen or canned as necessary. And, I wanted to end up with a soup that was as low in Sodium as possible while still being tasty.

The last batch of soup took about 45 minutes of chopping and two hours to fully cook.

I normally chop a half of a small head of cabbage and put that in the soup but I had forgotten to buy that. And, I normally use fresh tomatoes but didn’t have any. The point is that there is nothing sacred about the exact ingredients. Use what you have in the fridge. Generally, I will avoid using cauliflower, zucchini, and broccoli because they cook to pieces quickly.

Ingredients:

1 medium white onion with paper skin removed and then chopped into ½ inch cubes
1 ½ pounds carrots peeled, washed, and chopped into ½ inch segments
½ pound of celery washed and chopped into ½ inch segments
4 medium red potatoes diced into ½ inch cubes
½ pound of frozen okra diced into ½ inch segments
1 can (14.5 ounces) of diced tomatoes
1 can (15 ounces) of garbanzo beans
¼ pound of frozen corn
¼ pound of frozen peas
46 ounces of low Sodium V-8 Juice

2 ½ quarts of water
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1 cup Quaker quick Barley
2 Tbl. of Worcestershire Sauce
1 tsp. of Tabasco Sauce or to taste

I use a 10 quart pot. Put a 1 quart of water in the pot and then chop the onion. Bring the onion and chicken bouillon cubes to a rolling boil and put the chopped onions in the pot. Cook the onions for about 10 minutes while you are peeling and chopping the carrots and celery. Put the carrots, celery, and V-8 Juice in the pot. Keep the heat on while you chop the potatoes, okra, and cabbage. Then add these vegetables. Fill the V-8 Juice bottle with water and add that to the pot. Season with the Worcestershire and Tabasco Sauces. About 30 minutes before serving, add the barley.

I found that the soup needed salt. I sourced mine from some additional Tabasco that I added to the bowl. Tabasco does contain salt but with the spice, I think that I add less salt than I would if I just reached for the salt shaker.

The soup is great with home-made bread and the 2007 Iowa Nouveau.

We usually eat what we want on the first evening and then divide the balance up into what we will consume each following night. In that way, the entire batch of soup does not have to be re-heated each time we serve it.

2007 Iowa Nouveau

The 2007 Iowa Nouveau from Tassel Ridge Winery is a dry fruity wine made entirely from Foch and St. Croix grapes grown in Mahaska County. Because it is so fruity, this red wine can be served slightly chilled. The 2007 Iowa Nouveau will pair well with the vegetable soup above and also with lightly seasoned beef, pork, and chicken.

The Tassel Ridge Winery 2007 Iowa Nouveau is the first wine released each season. The fruit is harvested in late August and the wine is bottled in late October each year. There is no malolactic fermentation and no contact with oak. As a result, the fruit is right up front. This is intentionally a very simple, young wine that has little ageing potential. Enjoy it now!

Tassel Ridge Winery in the Marketplace

New Retailers

Tassel Ridge Winery has just appointed two new retailers as follows:

Carroll: Hy-Vee Wine & Spirits
Fairfield: Hy-Vee Drugstore

Hard to Find Wines

We’ve found that the following retailers have some almost extinct wines in stock.

Ames: Hy-Vee Drug Store at 500 Main Street: 2006 Iowa Edelweiss
West Des Moines: Dahl’s at 50th and EP True: 2006 Iowa Frontenac Rosé and 2005 Iowa Frontenac
Johnston Dahl’s: 2006 Iowa Nouveau and 2005 Iowa Frontenac

Featured Retailer

Meier’s Den in Fort Madison has only been open since November 2007 but is really making a splash in Southeastern Iowa. Located in the Historic Downtown District of Fort Madison, Meier’s Den occupies the old Lee County Savings Bank building that was originally built in 1893. The tasting room has been remodeled to have a relaxed and inviting ambiance.

So, where did the name Meier’s Den come from? Co-owners (and husband and wife) Jesse Steffensmeier and Leah Denning combined parts of their family names. In the tasting room, they offer wine tasting, wine by the glass, and wine by the bottle. They also offer bologna and summer sausage from their family farms along with cheese from Milton Creamery. The tasting room is large enough to host receptions and parties of up to 125 people and the Vault Room can be reserved for small groups and parties of 15-20. The Vault Room will take you back to the 1890’s.

Meier’s Den also offers Food and Wine Pairing Dinners. Call them for a current schedule.

Jesse has planted a vineyard on family farm ground near Fort Madison and plans to eventually build a winery

Meier’s Den
801 Avenue G
Fort Madison, IA 52627
319/372-9463

Our Hours:

Effective March 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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--Bob Wersen, President