Photo by Carole Topalian
Edible Grande Traverse
Rustic Washington organic winery opens for the season
Bart Alexander over at China Bend Winery is opening up the
A Washington state treasure on Lake Roosevelt in Kettle Falls, China Bend makes a variety of organic grape wines along with some organic fruit wines, including a 10-year-aged cherry-honey dessert wine he calls Twin Eagles that is one of the most unique wines featured on our site. And it tastes incredible.
Anyone heading to Spokane should consider a road trip north to taste the organic, small-batch difference. Not going to northeastern Washington but live in Arizona, California, Idaho, Oregon or Washington? Then order some of Bart’s wines for direct shipment and drink them while you gaze at photos of scenic Lake Roosevelt.
China Bend will be open daily, noon-5pm, closed Sundays, starting April 2nd, 2012.
Welcome, Michigan’s Peninsula Cellars
The west and especially northern part of Michigan’s lower peninsula, where the best grape growing happens, is also
They grow their own cherries at Peninsula Cellars.
home to the state’s best cherry farming, so it’s pretty normal for the state’s earliest winemakers to have backgrounds in cherries.
Many have cherry orchards growing next to their vineyards.
Such is the case with Peninsula Cellars, a winery near Traverse City, Michigan that’s owned and operated by one of the tart cherry industry’s most famous pioneer families: the Kroupas.
John Kroupa started farming fruit on Old Mission Peninsula — a finger of hilly glacial-cut land that extends out into Lake Michigan’s Grand Traverse Bay — during the Civil War. These days, the winery and cherry orchards are run by his great-great grandson — who also happens to be named John Kroupa.
Peninsula Cellars makes some great wine, including the Rieslings Michigan is becoming known for — Time Magazine recently lauded their Select Riesling, for example. Of course it would be nothing short of bizarre if Peninsula Cellars did not also make and bottle their own cherry wine, and they now have both of their bottles featured here on cherry wine dot com.
One is a modestly sweet blend of black Ulster and tart red Montmorency cherries called Hot Rod that the winery sells for $11.99. It gets its name from having a higher-than-normal alcohol content, at 13.5%.
Peninsula Cellars' 1896 one-room school house tasting room.
The other is a fine, port-style dessert wine called Melange that blends Ulsters and grape brandy that sells for $17.99. It’s perfect for cold weather sipping on dark January nights.
All the cherries, of course, come from the Kroupa’s own orchards.
Peninsula Cellars ships to eight states: California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. If you live in one of these states, or know someone who does, order from the winery by emailing their tasting room manager at tom@peninsulacellars.com.
Welcome, Vermont’s Eden Ice Cider
Eleanor and Albert Leger.
We’re very pleased to bring Eden Ice Cider‘s unique line of “ice ciders” into the Cherry wine dot com family.
Albert and Eleanor Leger, the founders of Eden Ice Cider, are hard cider-dessert wine-apple specialists in hilly northern Vermont.
And their five fascinating products, which are winning awards at an almost alarming pace, span the boundaries of what we think we know about wine classifications.
Allow me to explain.
The Leger’s “ice ciders” combine characteristics of hard
Melting the concentrate.
cider, apple wine, ice wine, and dessert wine. And in case that description is not loose enough, their newest product, Orleans, is not a dessert wine at all, but a high-alcohol dry apple wine made in collaboration with maître liquoriste Deirdre Heekin, that’s flavored with organic herbs.
Albert, a French Canadian, follows Quebecois custom for making ice cider, which are similar to the German rules about what makes a traditional Riesling ice wine an authentic product. That is, in part, pressing your own apples and freezing/thawing the juice outdoors.
Eve would approve.
Other than pure creativity and lots of going of the extra mile, another common denominator running through these products are the inputs: fresh Vermont apples, many from their own orchard of 800 trees.
Some of the Leger’s ice ciders are varietal — the Northern Spy and the Honeycrisp, while others are blends. The Leger’s make Windfall Orchard Ice Cider from the fresh juice of, and I am not kidding here, 30 different varieties of apple.
Their ice cider business has grown fast since 2007, and they now have good retail distribution in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont. But luckily, they can ship their wines to several states along the northern eastern seaboard and as far afield as Florida, Colorado and California.
Free shipping on orders of 6 bottles or more.
—Todd
Cranberry Wine: ‘Tis the Season
Glazed holiday ham. (Drools.)
Arguably, there is no single style of fruit wine more made for the holidays than cranberry. And while cranberry wine served with a holiday meal is a slam dunk, that’s not the end of the story.
Everyone who knows their way around a kitchen understands what the cranberry can do for traditional poultry and pork dishes.
And, if you’ve dropped by an upscale restaurant or club lately, no doubt you’ve seen the trendsetting club goers with technicolor cocktails infused with cranberry and other lively fruit flavors like pomegranate.
With Christmas entertaining on the agendas of so many, let’s take a quick look at a couple of ways cranberry wine is being incorporated into holiday dinners and party-throwing.
Cooking
We’ve all seen recipes like “Pork Cutlets with Cranberry Wine Sauce” that call for some generic “white wine” and some form of cranberry (canned, jellied, sauced, etc.) to create the “wine sauce.”
I think it’s safe to say that most of these recipes are written up with the assumption that the cook does not have
For your favorite holiday recipes calling for cranberry sauces, glazes and marinades, “substitute” the real thing: real cranberry wine.
As an example, here’s a recipe put together by the folks at Montezuma Winery, who make a sweet cranberry wine they call Cranberry Bog in the prestigious wine region of Finger Lakes, New York. Unless you live in New York state, you’ll never find Cranberry Bog at retail, but Montezuma ships it to 46 states.
Cranberry Bog Glazed Ham
• 5lb. pre-cooked ham
• 1 – 8oz. can whole cranberry sauce
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup Cranberry Bog cranberry wine
• 1 tsp. prepared mustard
• whole cloves (optional)
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Glaze: In saucepan combine cranberry sauce, brown sugar, wine and mustard; simmer uncovered for 5 minutes. Place ham on rack in shallow baking pan.
Score top of the ham in diamond pattern; stud with cloves. Brush cranberry mixture over ham and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Baste ham every 15 minutes with wine glaze. Remove from oven and let sit a few minutes before serving. Pass the remaining cranberry mixture with the ham.
Mixology
Montezuma Winery also has a recipe for a refreshing mixed drink perfect for the holidays: festive, colorful, and lighter on the alcohol than a typical martini:
Crantini
• 4 oz. Cranberry Bog cranberry wine
• 1 oz. Bee Vodka
• 1/2 oz. triple sec
• 1/2 oz. vermouth
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add above ingredients, cover and shake. Strain into martini glass.
Hey, what are you waiting for? Currently, we have two 100% cranberry wines listed on the site: Montezuma’s Cranberry Bog and our current Pick of the Week: Century Farm’s Cranberry Wine (currently sold out as of January, 2012 — sorry!). Between the two, they ship to almost every state in the union.
—Todd
Welcome, Montana’s Flathead Lake Winery
The inventory here at Cherry wine dot com is growing, giving you more hard-to-find fruit wines, hard cider and honey wines to choose from for direct shipment in time for the holidays.
Our latest addition is Flathead Lake Winery from Columbia Falls, Montana. The winemaker there, Paddy Fleming, hand makes a variety of fruit wines including a cherry wine, a rare white cherry wine, a cherry-pinot noir blend, a mirabelle plum wine and a huckleberry wine.
Flathead’s huckleberry wine, called Glacier Park Wild Huckleberry Wine, is the only 100% huckleberry wine sold in the United States.
If there are any bears on your Christmas shopping list, this is no-brainer. And a fair warning, drinking this 
Though, it is interesting that lodges on the premises of Glacier National Park serve up Paddy’s wild huckleberry wine to hikers and guests.
—Todd
November Sales/Black Friday/Cyber Monday Specials on Fruit Wine
A few of the wineries represented here on Cherry wine dot com are having special holiday sales and/or some once-a-year Black Friday/Cyber Momday special pricing on their fruit wines.
Black Friday, which is this week, is not just for big box stores. Nope. The little guy can bring his prices down too, just in time for holiday gift giving.
Bart over at China Bend Winery in Washington makes organic, no-sulfite-added fruit wine gems and is offering 25% off case orders (12 bottles, mix and match) and 15% off half-case orders through the end of November.
Let me tell you a little story. My Mom and Dad (bless ’em), ordered bottles of Bart’s amazing cherry port the day we launched the site in late September. And they loved it. Bart had sent me a couple of bottles to try (yes, it’s amazing) and I gave one to my parents, who live close by, and they were very excited to get their hands on more of it.
Check out China Bend’s grape wines, too, if you’re a fan of low sulfites, organic grapes, and boutique craftsmanship.
Other wineries who make fruit wines you cannot find in stores have offered teases about online shipping deals they’ll be announcing soon, so I’ll update this post as they’re announced.
—Todd
Update 2:39pm, Nov. 23: Montezuma Winery is reporting a nice Cyber Monday deal. This Finger Lakes (NY) fruit wine and honey wine producer is giving online-only buyers free shipping on orders of six or more bottles, from 8am until noon only, Eastern Time. Excludes shipments to Alaska and Hawaii. Montezuma says online orders Monday morning will not reflect the discount, but that shipping charges will be deducted automatically on your credit card charge. Offer valid for online purchases only.
Welcome, Adytum Cellars
Adytum Cellars makes some of the country's most expensive honey wines.
Cherry wine dot com welcomes its third Washington winery, Adytum Cellars, to the site, along with its list of 12 high-end (and not cheap) hand made artisan honey wines.
Located in the south central part of the state, the winery has been slowly and steadily growing since 2002, and now makes its lineup of fine meads available to 37 states and the District of Columbia via direct shipping. But its list of honey wines — including 100% honey wines, fruit-based honey wines like plum, and exotic styles like elderflower — are otherwise available only in the Seattle area and a few retail locations scattered throughout Washington state.
Owner and winemaker Vince Carlson has been a beekeeper since he was fifteen years old, and knows a thing or two about honey as well as winemaking, and takes a nature-first approach to his craft:
Each year, Vince travels the Northwest visiting orchards and farms searching for the most striking and flavorful flowers, fruit and berries of the season. “I never know from year to year what kind of mead I will be making,” he says. “In one year peaches are best; another year it might be cherries or pears. The fruit trees and berry bushes decide what will make the best mead of the year.”
Vince is a cool guy with lots of energy and a unique sense of intellectual curiosity, and he’s excited that visitors to this site, such as yourself, will have a chance to discover his honey wine. And of course we’re excited to have some of mead’s most high-end price tag wines represented here.
Welcome to Vince, and welcome to you… feel free to see what Adytum Cellars has been doing with honey, yeast, fruit and wild flowers in the small, Yakima Valley town of Zillah, Washington for almost ten years now. Just click on the honey wine search to get started.
A General Manager-Wine Director Talks Fruit Wine
Ginger Henderson
Ginger Henderson says her success with sparkling cherry wine at Chicago’s award-winning French-American restaurant North Pond shows that fruit wine has a place on a fine dining wine list. Here she discusses the purpose and impact boutique fruit wine can have on a wine list.
By Todd Spencer
Ginger, first tell us a little about the last two restaurants you’ve managed: North Pond in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood and Fenouil in downtown Portland, Oregon.
At North Pond, Chef Bruce Sherman holds true to the “Arts and Crafts” ideal in the culinary philosophy. He utilizes exceptional ingredients from the local market at the height of its season in his fine French-American cuisine. Whenever possible he supports small local farmers and treats their products with respect. The path from earth to plate remains clear.
At Fenouil, Chef Jake Martin creates Contemporary Pacific Northwest cuisine. It’s ingredient-driven, and his dishes change with the seasons, which is a technique he calls a “living menu.” Jake supports small local farmers and treats their produce and products with a sense of simplicity in every dish.
What do boutique fruit wines, hard ciders, fruit liquors & spirits, honey wines, rhubarb wines, etc., add to a wine list, cocktail list or menu?
Many of these products support local farms and wineries, which reflects the philosophy of a lot of restaurants right now.
A North Pond dining room.
North Pond included a sparkling cherry from Chateau Chantal winery in Michigan. What kind of reaction did sparkling cherry get from the restaurant staff and patrons when you first introduced it?
The guests at North Pond are pretty adventurous and like to support local products. The staff knows this, so Chateau Chantal’s sparkling cherry wine got a good response from them as well. The older clientele liked the sparkling cherry because they have a sweeter palate and prefer items with a lower alcohol percentage. We definitely sold a handful of the product because people just love bubbles and there is a great sense of romance attached to it — especially in a pink/red hue! We also liked giving it out complimentary for special occasions after dinner or for VIP guests who may not have ordered dessert. Or as a paring to dessert.
How did the sparkling cherry make its way onto the wine list at North Pond?
Our wine list featured many small craft producers, and I had a hostess whose family was related somehow to the people at Chateau Chantal.
Did you order directly from Chateau Chantal or through a Chicago distributor?
We ordered directly from the winery. Even though they’re in Michigan, they had a license to ship directly to restaurants in Illinois.
Would you say that for restaurants emphasizing farm-to-table, adding regional fruit wines resonates nicely with this identity? Reinforcing the agrarian, rural traditions behind the menu?
Yes, it just made sense that this would be a part of our wine list at North Pond.
What kind of reaction did a cherry wine garner from patrons checking out the wine list?
People were always curious about it and asked questions.
What do you think about adding, say, a pumpkin wine, apple wine or hard cider for the fall; a cherry wine or honey wine for Valentine’s Day; a raspberry wine for summer, etc.
I believe that non-grape wine varieties have a better chance of success on a wine list/cocktail list/dessert pairings if it is done seasonally. The guests are smarter than ever when it comes to seasons and the ingredients that should be represented in that particular season. Having said that, there are certainly some fruit wine varieties that would work year-round. The sparkling cherry was a year-round fixture at North Pond.
You do not currently have any fruit wine on the Fenouil wine list. Are you open to the possibility of adding some at some point. Say, from a Washington or Oregon winery?
Absolutely. Fruit wines would be fun to pair with our desserts and the extensive cheese program.
Any other thoughts on the topic of non-grape wine in restaurants?
I would love to represent more non-grape wines/spirits on our cocktail lists here at Fenouil; they could inspire creativity that has endless possibilities of thinking outside the box.
——
Ginger Henderson is the general manager and wine director at Fenouil in Portland, Oregon. Previously, she had been the general manager and wine director of Chicago’s award-winning American-French fine dining restaurant North Pond.
Welcome!
Welcome to Cherry wine dot com’s Drinker’s Blog, where fans of fruit wine, honey wine, hard ciders and exotics keep up with the latest in the non-grape wine universe.
Whether you’re curious about old-fashioned country wine, the people making it professionally or even how to make it yourself, then you’ve found the right place.
Cherry wine dot com — and this blog —started because millions of Americans are fans of non-grape wines & liquors and hard ciders and half of them don’t even know it yet.
Fruit wine fans and curious would-be drinkers range in age from 21 to 121, are composed of all ethnicities and live in every corner of America from small towns to the Big Apple.
Some fruit wine fans don’t even consider themselves “wine drinkers” in the traditional sense but like the taste of fruit wines, which are more familiar tasting and can be found in sweeter versions than grape wines generally are.
Others, me included, are regular red and white wine drinkers who also love the adventure, romance and rural tradition that non-grape wines offer, no matter if they’re sweet as pie, dry as a bone or somewhere in-between.
I love a good Cabernet but for me, nothing says “spring” like a wine made from field-fresh strawberries or freshly cut rhubarb. Nothing says, “autumn” like a hard apple cider. Nothing tastes more like summer than a peach, blackberry or dandelion wine, and nothing warms up a dark, freezing January evening exactly like a smoky port distilled from summer berries or orchard fruit.
Grape wines simply do not have the same connections to the seasons. Or to regions of the country:
No variety of grape wine says “the South” the way a peach or persimmon wine does. Nothing says “Midwest” more than an apple wine or pumpkin. Nothing says “New England” like a cranberry wine. Nothing says “the North” like a chokecherry or thimbleberry. And nothing says “West Coast” like a huckleberry, boysenberry or fig wine.
I know that there will be more than a few people excited by the idea of this site, especially since non-grape wines are so hard to find. There are 6,400 wineries in the United States, yet there are only 700 that make non-grape wine. That’s only one-out-of-ten wineries, and those tend to be smaller, privately owned entities off the radar of corporate distributors.
But just because you can’t find a dry raspberry, organic hard cider, sparkling rhubarb or pear eau de vie at a store, doesn’t mean you can’t buy it. Because you probably can.
On Cherry wine dot com you will find search functions for every style and variety of non-grape wine, hard cider and liquor. Each search will give you a list of products that are legally shippable to the state of your choice. When you find a wine that you want listed on Cherry wine dot com as shipping to your state, follow the ordering instructions listed on the wine’s page for that particular winemaker and the winery will ship it to you via UPS or Fed Ex in about a week (unless you decide to pay extra for next-day or two-day shipping).
Let the adventure begin. There’s a world of taste out there ready to be explored. Cheers.
—Todd Spencer
Todd Spencer is the founder of Fruit Wine Media, LLC and editor of Cherry wine dot com. He’s written for Wines & Vines and Wine Business Monthly, and contributed articles to national publications and national radio about everything from the importance of local economies to donuts to global warming and music. He’s a longtime magazine editor and advertising agency proofreader in San Francisco and his native Michigan. He discovered cherry wine in college and counts that and other fruit-based wines and liquors as among his favorites.