Wine in Iowa
Two different wine-related events last Saturday competed for my attention: a book signing by wine expert, Gary Vaynerchuck, and Swine Fest, a celebration of local wine and pork-related food.
Gary Vaynerchuck (@garyvee on twitter) was at East Village
Books in Des Moines to meetup with fans, including the local (dmtweetup)
twitter people and to promote his new book “101 Wines”. Gary
is the star of Wine Library TV, a great podcast about wine for the average Joe.
In the end I ended up going to Swine Fest with my wife, Ellen, and bypassing the chance to meet Gary. My friend and co-podcaster, Tim Fisher, went and got me a signed copy of Gary’s book (thanks, Tim).
Swine Fest was held in Ankeny, IA (a suburb of Des Moines). It featured about 10 to 20 Iowa wineries and around a dozen local restaurants. Each had its own tented booth near the lake on the Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) campus.
There were some minor scattered rain showers, but not enough to really put a damper on the event. Plus there was a great rainbow.
Admission was $35 and included a glass for samples, all the samples you would like of the wines and food, and a ticket to redeem for a free bottle of any wine from any winery there (as long as supplies lasted).
Our favorite appetizers were the tenderloin from Phat Chefs from West Des Moines, the bacon-y polenta from a new downtown Des Moines restaurant called Sbrocco, and some odd rice crisp thing with pulled pork from the Tournament Club of Iowa.
The consensus on the food is that it was… Too Much Pork! We would have preferred a little more variety.
As for the wines, usually my wife and I aren’t very impressed with Iowa wines. They tend to be a little simple and too sweet, but we were each able to fine some good ones. We met up with a friend who was helping out at the booth for “Make Mine Wine”, a local wine publication. Stacy, who was manning the booth and who writes for the magazine directed us toward some award winners.
Two wineries near Indianola, IA that I personally toured with some of my sisters earlier this spring were there: Summerset and La Vida Loca. Summerset is very well known around Iowa and has a good following. They have live music on Sundays and host events like wedding receptions. La Vida Loca is a little more “out there”. They’re definitely not wine snobs and they make wines from about anything they can get their hands on – grapes, cherries, loganberries, rhubarb, and even garlic and jalapeños (and I've sampled all of those).
I generally prefer smooth, dry reds (merlots, shiraz, some cabs, etc.) and Ellen likes dry whites like chardonnays, but she also likes some sparkling whites like moscatos if they’re not too sweet.
For our free bottles, Ellen chose Simply Blush from Grape Escape in Pleasantville and I selected the Frontenac from Madison County Winery in St. Charles, IA. I was impressed that both wines contain 100% Iowa grown grapes -- Stueben for the blush and Frontenac (oddly enough) for the Frontenac. The blush was a little sweeter than the wines my wife usually enjoys, so I was a little surprised, but she said it was about the best blush she’d ever had.
