Vines & Wines of Nebraska
A favorite story from the July/August 2003 issue of Nebraska Life.
By Christopher Amundson
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| “I retired with the idea of tending my grapes, smoking my pipe, listening to the birds sing and being around nature,” said Bob Curttright of Whiskey Run Creek Winery in Brownville. His 110-year-old barn straddles Whiskey Run Creek. |
A quiet renaissance, one as ancient as human civilization, is taking place in Nebraska. It's happening not in the cities, but in the hills of the countryside where people are pouring their lives into the age-old tradition of growing grapes and making wine.
Nebraska once had a strong grape and fruit wine industry, but Prohibition ended it in 1919. The industry has re-emerged since the mid-1990s. Nebraska now has eight wineries and about 200 people growing grapes. Another eight to 10 wineries are expected to open. By some estimates, the state could support up to 25 wineries.
By planting vines and opening wineries, grape vintners wagered that they could overcome their four main obstacles (November, December, January and February), and that if they made good wine, fellow Nebraskans would buy it.
New winter-hardy grape varieties from Wisconsin, Minnesota and New York have allayed fears that Nebraska's cold and temperature fluctuations would get the best of the vines. These are not the grapes of Napa Valley's Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Merlot. Those grapes would not withstand our winters. Rather, these are American and French-American hybrids that make Edelweiss, Vignoles, St. Croix and de Chaunac. Nebraska's wines have taken top honors at international wine competitions next to their California peers.
Wine growers have found that Nebraska has an excellent climate for grapes. The winters are harsh, but the summers are hot and, recently, dry — the way grapes love to have it. The climate of politics and culture also favors grape and wine production. State laws in the 1980s and '90s allowed Nebraskans to make and sell wine at “farm wineries.” And recent health studies have advocated moderate consumption of alcohol, especially red wine. Taken together, the timing has been right for a rebirth of the Nebraska wine industry.
Jim Ballard is often met with skepticism when fellow Nebraskans bring their East and West Coast friends to his winery north of Lincoln. Out-of-staters sometimes arrive expecting an old barn with a corn still hidden out back.
But Ballard's James Arthur Vineyards is anything but a bootlegger's brew shack. His family has invested roughly a million dollars into the operation, which is the largest in the state. It sits in the prairie grass hills east of Raymond, a 15-minute drive from downtown Lincoln.
Visitors find a charming country villa that houses the winery, gift shop, wine-tasting room and a new party room. Windows on all sides overlook the hills that are covered with rows of grape vines tied to wooden trellises. A wrap-around deck leads to a wooden-planked sidewalk that flows through a rock and plant garden with a waterfall.
On the lower level of the building is the production facility with giant stainless steel tanks, hoses, a wine press, oak barrels and a bottling room.
The picturesque vineyards and winery make James Arthur a unique place to visit. It's become a favorite weekend afternoon destination for Lincolnites looking to unwind.
“We're selling the experience,'' Ballard said. “We're hoping people take that experience and just enjoy it.”
On the day I visited James Arthur Vineyards in early spring, Ballard was filtering white sweet wine and moving it from one stainless tank to another. In wet shorts and hiking boots, he took a break from the pumps and the hoses for a little wine tasting.
I leaned up to the bar to sample Edelweiss and St. Croix. Ballard poured us each a shot's worth in two glasses etched with the James Arthur logo. When asked about the formalities of drinking wine, Ballard said it is an art and when done right, you get more pleasure from the wine.
He held his glass by the stem. Smelled. Swirled. Smelled again. Then sipped and drew air into his mouth with an “inverted whistle” that soaked his taste buds in a wine bath.
He smiled and said, “That's good wine.”
I tried his techniques and agreed with his assessment. It was good. But I'm no wine expert and come from a family and a state of beer drinkers. I found it equally satisfying to grab my glass by the bowl, skip the swirling and smelling and just drink — all the while looking forward to Ballard's next sample.
It makes no difference to Ballard how people drink his wine, as long as they drink and enjoy it. And Nebraskans are drinking more and more wine from James Arthur and the other vineyards. Most vineyard owners report making as much wine as they have grapes for and selling out each year.
The result has been a demand for grapes that has outpaced supply. To help, winery owners are encouraging other Nebraskans to grow grapes for them. An estimated 200 people now are growing about 300 acres. Some are farmers looking for a cash crop to supplement their grain and livestock income. Others are hobby farmers who spend weekends working their vineyards. Most are lured by the enticement that they can make upwards of $3,000 per acre.
But as of yet, profitability remains a carrot dangling in front of all growers, said Eric Nelson, a grower from Raymond who chairs the marketing committee of the Nebraska Wineries and Grape Growers Association.
Nelson, who owns a landscaping business, planted his first vines in 1998. He has five acres producing grapes, and planted two more acres this year. Seven acres doesn't sound like much compared to the 850-acre average for Nebraska corn and bean farmers, but growing grapes is much more labor intensive and has higher start-up costs. Additionally, the first harvest (and income) doesn't happen for two or three years, and vines reach full production six to eight years later.
An early freeze last year squashed Nelson's hopes of his first profit. This year, “Mother Nature willing,” Nelson said his vineyard will become profitable.
The emergence of a viable commercial wine industry in Nebraska came as a surprise to a lot of people. Thirty years ago, experts here said it couldn't be done.
Ed Swanson of Cuthills Vineyards near Pierce remembers those early days. He was experimenting with growing grapes at his mother's farm near Battle Creek in northeast Nebraska. He objects to calling those experiments a “hobby.” His goal was to make good wine from grape varieties that grow well in Nebraska, then to start a commercial winery.
“Because it hadn't been done before, people would brush you off or snicker behind your back,” Swanson said. “We would especially get that at the banks.”
After about two years of experimentation, Swanson sent a letter to the resident fruit and grape specialist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, explaining his research and winery aspirations. The response was not what he wanted to hear.
“This is not a viable thing to do,” the letter said. “If you want to raise a few table grapes that's fine, but the wine industry in Nebraska is probably not going to work.” The university now has taken a leading roll in developing the wine industry by educating students and grape growers and by testing grape varieties on plots around the state.
Ignoring that early advice, Swanson and his wife, Holly, in 1994 opened Nebraska's first winery in hills west of Pierce. What was once was a farmstead with pasture and cropland is now a vineyard and stately barn with a southerly view of Willow Creek Lake and State Recreation Area.
The Swansons have six acres of production vines at Pierce, some of which are 19 years old. They've also contracted with a retired doctor who grows 10 acres for them near Gibbon.
Ed continues his experimentation today with 500 vines on a one-acre test plot at the vineyard. One of the experimental varieties that came out of Wisconsin has grown so well and produces such good wine that he has named it, giving it status much higher than “experimental.” Bluebird Nursery in Clarkson is propagating “Brianna” and in May sold 4,000 cuttings, enough for eight acres. Holly said when crushed, the grapes give off an aroma of pineapple. “It's delicious,” she said of the wine from Brianna.
Across Nebraska, grape growers and vintners recognize Swanson as one of Nebraska's foremost grape experts, a man who knows grape plant physiology upside and down and possesses an intimate understanding of plant growth. Like the vine that winds up and around the trellis, Ed Swanson's mind and all his energies are entwined with this plant.
Without good grapes, there is no good wine, but without marketing there are no wine drinkers. The Swansons understand this. Though Cuthills is located more than two hours from metro population centers, most of their 5,000 gallons (25,000 bottles) a year are sold at the winery itself.
They do it through events such as the Wine & Wings Festival, which draws 3,000 people annually (held August 23-24, 2003). Last year's festival drew the usual crowd, mostly middle-aged folks in sunglasses, baggy shorts and open-collar shirts, mingling with a lively mix of young adults, leather-clad bikers and old-timers in straw hats.
People bought food from vendors and sat on benches and lawn chairs, sipping Cuthills wine. Only the blues were imported, provided by Louisiana bands like Big Al and the Heavyweights, or Bugs Henderson and the Shuffle Kings. Meanwhile at the barn, a wine-tasting was held on the back porch overlooking the vineyard. Inside, Ed and Holly gave tours and explained winemaking.
What the Swansons want most (next to a good grape harvest) are more wineries, especially in northeast Nebraska. Wineries are all about experience, and wineries that are near each other become a travel destination, a “wine trail.”
Wine trails are beginning to take shape across Nebraska, including the northwest, the North Platte-Lexington area and the southeast. Dan and Dawn Wordekemper will open Bordeaux Creek Winery this fall or early in 2004. Twenty miles southwest is Lover's Leap Vineyards and Winery at Crawford that opened in 1999.
At North Platte, Dr. Jeff Christopher Brittan will open J. Christopher Vineyards with a 20-acre vineyard in the fall of 2004. Sixty-five miles east at Lexington, two smaller wineries have opened in the last few years: Millenium Wines and Mac's Creek Vineyards and Winery.
“We're a ways from having a real, bona fide wine trail where you can make four or five stops in a day,” said Max McFarland of Mac's Creek Vineyards and Winery, “But it is coming.”
Two wine trails are developing in eastern Nebraska. One trail includes James Arthur Vineyards at Raymond, Blue Valley Vineyard at Crete (the state's smallest) and Prime Country Winery at Denton.
The second trail is east of Lincoln and extends north and south from Omaha. If all wineries open as planned, it will be the state's largest wine trail and would include at least six wineries at Tekamah, Blair, Ashland, Springfield, Nebraska City and Brownville. Of these, Whiskey Run Creek Vineyard and Winery at Brownville was the first to open.
Whiskey Run Creek Vineyard and Winery owner Bob Curttright spent a lifetime in management: Allied Chemical Corp., Butternut Coffee and most recently as president of Omaha's Metro Area Transit. He and his wife, Kola, returned to the Brownville area five years ago.
Today, Curttright divides his time between his winery at Brownville and his vineyard about ten miles south. His winery sits on the grounds of an 1860s brewery that closed before Prohibition. When Curttright bought the property, it was overgrown with weeds and brush, but it had two features of interest to him: a creek and brick beer caves. Curttright excavated the caves, shored up the creek walls and built a waterfall.
He then moved in a 110-year-old barn built of hand-hewn walnut and wooden pegs. In a detailed renovation project, Curttright installed large windows on the south and covered the walls and ceiling in intricate patterns of cedar planking. The large walnut beams that support the structure are still exposed. Sunlight filters through trees and into the windows to cast a warm light on the yellow cedar. The interior glows like a glass of Edelweiss.
Perhaps the most unique feature of the barn is not what it's built of, rather what it's built over. Curttright engineered his barn to straddle Whiskey Run Creek that divides the winery property.
“There are all kinds of barns sitting on the ground,” Curttright said, “But how many do you see across a creek?”
Since retirement, Curttright has kept busy seven days a week — first with designing and building the winery, then with making wine.
The process includes harvesting the grapes by hand in August and September and then extracting the juice in a wine press. The juice is fermented in stainless vats, and age-worthy wines are placed in oak barrels. Months later it is bottled.
He says making wine is not “rocket science,” just basic chemistry with an attention to sanitation.
Curttright reaps solace and relaxation from his work at the vineyard. Like other grape growers in Nebraska, California and the world, Curttright's hands touch each of his vines many times each year — tying, pruning, harvesting and caring. He smokes his pipe and drinks coffee while working.
Curttright was raised by his grandparents and spent much of his early youth hunting and exploring the hills and woods of their farm south of Brownville. He always thought these hills would be good for growing wine grapes. They are the highest ground in Nemaha County.
A few years ago, he had the opportunity to purchase that land and test his notion. The result has been a lifestyle that suits him very well.
“I retired with the idea of tending my grapes, smoking my pipe, listening to the birds sing and being around nature,” he said. He intends winter walks through the vineyard and woods with his wife, though he has had little time so far.
Downhill from the vineyard sits a wooden bench and a table built on an old tree stump. It's the vantage point to view this ancient tradition.
Rows of carefully tended vines are hand-tied to trellises. Their broad green leaves spread over dense clusters of grapes that ripen in the sun, waiting to be harvested — just as they have done for thousands of years.
This is the place to enjoy the perfect glass of wine.
Nebraska Vineyards & Wineries
East
Ashland - Four Winds Vineyards, (402) 944-9463
Brownville - Whiskey Run Creek Winery & Vineyard, (402) 825-4601
Denton - Prime Country Winery, (402) 826-3567
Fort Calhoun - Too Far North Winery, (402) 468-WINE
Hartington - Nissen Brothers Winery, (402) 254-3426
Lincoln - Deer Springs Winery, (402) 327-8738
Nebraska City - Arbor Trails Winery, (402) 873-8888
Nebraska City - Kimmel Orchards, (402) 873-5293
Nehawka - Slattery Vintage Estates Vineyard, (402) 267-5267
Pawnee City - SchillingBridge Winery, (402) 852-2400
Pierce - Cuthills Vineyards, (402) 329-6774
Raymond - James Arthur Vineyards, (402) 783-5255
Springfield - Soaring Winds Vineyard, (402) 253-2479
Tekamah - Silver Hills Winery, (402) 374-1602
Central
Gibbon - Geo. Spencer Vineyards, (308) 468-5612
Lexington - Mac's Creek Vineyards & Winery, (308) 324-0440
Lexington - Millenium Wines, (308) 324-6094
North Platte - Feather River Vineyards, (308) 696-0078
Ravenna - Cedar Hills Vineyard, (308) 452-3181
St. Paul - Milletta Vista Winery, (308) 754-4416
Superior - Superior Estates, (402) 879-3001
West
Lewellen - 17 Ranch Winery, (308) 778-5543
Mitchell - Prairie Vine Vineyards & Winery, (308) 623-2955
Mullen - Last Chance Winery, (308) 546-2960