Emerald Vineyard Estate
established 2010
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It's a Grape Life....

Follow our adventures as we develop our farm into our little piece of heaven.

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It could be a very good year....

8/4/2017

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We celebrated our first wedding on the property in June.  It was fitting that it was our Son and his beautiful bride, which made it worth all of the extra time spent trying to make things as nice as possible.  The driveway needed work, so it was graveled all the way down past the vines.  Then the fire pit looked unfinished, so it was graveled also.  There was lots of mowing to do and an unsightly container to paint. After the container was all one color, we added their initials in big, foam letters, which almost made the container seem like it belonged there - almost.
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Everyone had so much fun.  That made all of the preparation worthwhile and made us think this would fun to do with others looking for a relaxed place to have a celebration or just enjoy time with a special person. More about that later.

During all of the festivities, the rain and sunshine have been regularly making the vines grow before our eyes.  We have to work on managing vine vigor.  The number of clusters  hanging out there almost makes me nervous.  So, we are hedging and preparing for the bird fight to make sure our Customers wind up with this harvest. Nonetheless, things are looking on track for our largest harvest yet.  The vines are mature and, aside from being windblown, are it great shape.  This is an exciting time.

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Wine Thief

2/15/2015

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We like to check out what great ideas other grape growers and wine makers are using - you can follow our experiences on Emerald Vineyard's Facebook page.

So, yesterday we learned what Timothy and the team at Next Chapter Vineyard and Winery are doing with thieving wine in their tasting room.

We met Jackie  (Timothy's Daughter) at a local foods event in Rochester, Minnesota, earlier this year and found her enthusiasm for their venture exciting. So, when we had the opportunity to get tickets for their Valentine's Day dinner and wine tasting, we were excited.

Next Chapter is a "boutique winery crafting barrel-aged elegant wine in Minnesota" (quoted from their website). After tasting a couple of their wines which had already been bottled and sampling some local cheese and crackers, we were turned loose to help ourselves to thieve wine (unlimited!) from any of a dozen varieties of wine barrels labeled with variety, age, alcohol content and tasting notes.

We have seen a wine thief used, but have never used one ourselves and we were like kids in a candy store - what fun!

We also enjoyed a "virtual tour" (it was 4 degrees below zero) of the vineyard and a nice dinner of Chicken Marsala catered by a local restaurant. 

An informative conversation with Timothy gave us some really great ideas about controlling disease in the vineyard - more on that in another blog.

We think thieving your own wine, along with a great staff, makes Next Chapter an experience we definitely we want to do again. We'll head back when the weather warms.

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Wisconsin Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Conference

1/27/2015

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We think it has been 6 years that we have been attending this event in the Dells.  The experience consists of a wine paring dinner featuring Wisconsin made wines, seminars on topics of interest to vegetable and fruit farmers, as well as wine makers (Wisconsin Winery Association), and lots of comparing notes with other growers:

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    Author

    I am a full time Agent, and a part time Grape Farmer. We are building our dream of a sustainable place to relax and share time with friends and family.

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