MARENGO, Iowa (KCRG) - Napa Valley, California, Tuscany, Italy, Provence, France, and Marengo, Iowa. All these places have one delicious fruit in common, wine grapes.Grapes flourishing on vines in Marengo are ripe and ready for picking. At Fireside Winery, they have several types they grow on site.“We really excel at making whites that kind of have a little more acidity and are slightly sweet and sparkling wines are really good in Iowa those grapes are perfect for them. The reds that we grow, generally tend to have more a...
MARENGO, Iowa (KCRG) - Napa Valley, California, Tuscany, Italy, Provence, France, and Marengo, Iowa. All these places have one delicious fruit in common, wine grapes.
Grapes flourishing on vines in Marengo are ripe and ready for picking. At Fireside Winery, they have several types they grow on site.
“We really excel at making whites that kind of have a little more acidity and are slightly sweet and sparkling wines are really good in Iowa those grapes are perfect for them. The reds that we grow, generally tend to have more acidity than what people generally look for in a red wine, but we’re working on making that better.” Zach Bott, a winemaker at Fireside Winery in Marengo explained.
In Iowa, the growing season for vineyards begins when the weather starts to warm in the spring.
“The growing season basically starts when they break bud in early April, early May, and then we harvest anywhere from the middle of August to early October depending on where you’re at.” Randall Vos, a Fruit Crops Field Specialist for Iowa State Extension, specified.
Vos spends late summer and early fall traveling around the area inspecting grapes at local vineyards.
“You know we want the sugars at the right levels for that variety. Some varieties ripen at 25 percent sugar some at 14, so we don’t want to have a preconceived notion of what the ideal sugar is because every variety is different.” Vos relayed.
Bott says there’s one thing that makes growing grapes difficult in Iowa. It isn’t our winters, but the wet summers.
“Bacteria, mold grows in warm, wet environments, drier environments, it just doesn’t survive as well. So, when it’s hot and humid out here we’ve gotten a lot of rain, you’re just going to have more disease show up.” Bott said.
While the rain we saw this summer was needed, it did cause disease on some of the vines.
“We needed that kind of recharge of water, but we probably have a little more foliar disease pressure than we’d want. Our fruit’s really clean, but just some foliar diseases.”Vos stated.
Despite the wet summer, Vos says the moisture and rich soils in the region allow growers to produce many different types of wines.
Randall Vos, Fruit crops Field Specialist for Iowa State Extension From 19:04 to 19:20: “Whatever your kind of pallet, or your preference is you can probably find something you like. Um, if you like the sweeter wines or maybe the concord-type grapes, we have several varieties that have that style, we have some that are more reminiscent of the European varieties.”
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