- [Narrator] "tasteMakers" is brought to you with support from Global Foods Market and Midwest Dairy.

- Winemakers only have one chance each year to get things right from bud break to bottling, every step in the process is critical to making a fantastic vintage.

In this episode you're going to meet a young wine making family that's refining its approach, one harvest at a time.

(upbeat music) I'm Cat Neville and for the past two decades I've been telling the story of local food.

In that time, American food culture has exploded in tiny towns and big cities from coast to coast.

In "tasteMakers", I explore the maker movement and take you along for the journey to meet the makers who define the flavor of American cuisine.

So we're about to head off to Dale Hollow and when we come back I'm going to show you how to make poached pears using their Chambourcin.

(upbeat music) - We are here in Stover, Missouri.

This is Dale Hallow Winery's vineyard.

We established it in 2012.

2013 spring, we ended up planting a thousand vines.

Five varieties, by hand and it was crazy.

- A thousand was probably a little over zealous at the start.

We had no idea what we were really doing.

It was like, oh, we'll just, you know, plant grapes.

But we got to learn the crushing process the pressing process, fermentation.

So then by the time our grapes were ready to go, we knew what we were doing.

Well, relatively.

The original plan was plant some vines and in like five or six years when the grapes are ready then see how it goes and open up a tasting room.

Well, after we planted that first vineyard in 2013, people were so excited.

There was a lot of anticipation.

It's like you guys gotta open up.

- We kind of had our first trial batch of local Missouri, some fruit wine and the vignole that we were working on and we sold so much that we were shocked ourselves how much people in the area wanted that product.

So 2015 we built just the base here and from there it's just snowballed.

- Our family didn't grow up in the wine industry or anything.

It's really amazing how the idea even came to us and we went with it and that it's working out.

Never would've dreamed of it though.

(upbeat music) My grandfather, my dad's dad, Melvin Dale, he bought this land in the 1950s.

What we all remember growing up is it was all hay fields and we planted our first thousand grapes.

My grandpa was still around and he was like, "Well, I never thought about grapes."

So it was really cool that he got to be here for the first part of it to see it happen.

And my grandma too, they were both still around.

My grandma, my dad's mom actually helped us plant some of those first grapes, which was really special.

- So how do you determine what you're going to plant?

Because you have a really interesting mix.

- Yeah, so early on we went to vineyards around Missouri and just visited other wineries and saw what they were doing, drank the wines that they were making it with.

And then from there, research using like the Grape and Wine Institute material and said, okay how cold resistant are these?

How disease resistant are these?

And these are the wines we like now, how do they grow?

How will they work in our vineyard?

- Wine making is different from a process standpoint compared to other alcoholic beverages.

You have one opportunity to really get it right and three heads are better than one, I feel like in this process.

So working with my husband, Jesse, we work so well hand in hand.

I'm very detail oriented and very logical.

So sometimes I can get caught in the weeds where he can sometimes be a big picture thinker.

He doesn't let the small things or the small hiccups weigh him down because he knows with wine making, there's always gonna be a hiccup.

You just have to keep the ball rolling.

My brother-in-law, Asher is like the mad scientist.

His knowledge and chemistry background is incredible.

Once we decide when to harvest, his job is to come in and really make sure that everything is balanced and really perfectly made for crush and then the fermentation process.

I've been everywhere from learning the viticulture side, hands-on, to then establishing a tasting room and having that educational role and customer support role to also making sure I understand the legalities of Missouri wine making, federal wine making laws.

I am involved with harvest a little bit less so.

It's a little bit of a heavier duty or job than my body can take sometimes.

Then really I will come back in on the back end and really finesse the wine and make sure the product is ready to bottle, not just drinkable, enjoyable for the customer.

- So as a winemaker, how do you decide the style that you want to make?

- Yeah.

- How do you determine that you're gonna make this dry and this semi-sweet?

Like what's the process?

- Our process is a little old fashioned, I would call it.

You know, we ferment everything by itself.

We don't blend anything until the end.

So then Katie, myself and my brother, and sometimes my parents makes this big event where we're doing we're trying the wines and- - That's fun.

- Yeah, oh yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Katie's really good at this where she starts blending them and then she tastes 'em and say, "Okay, that's 5%," and then she'll say, "Okay, let's do a little more."

So then let's try 10% Cayuga or whatever the case may be.

Like a dry red blend that we have.

We use kind of the same two or three grapes but the actual percentages we use does vary quite a bit from year to year based on what's happening in the vineyard that year.

We have three different vineyard locations here on site.

We grow Norton, Chambourcin, Vignoles, St. Vincent, Concord, Catawba, Cayuga White, and Baco Noir.

My favorite grape to work with in the vineyard is probably Norton.

All the grapes grow differently like Concord just grows outta control.

It sounds like it just wants to put out as much vine as possible.

It's a pain to prune and a pain to pick.

But Norton it grows really well in Missouri.

Got good foliage on it and it's pretty disease resistant and every year we seem to get like a really good crop of quality Norton.

It's actually way easier for me to list all the vines I have problems with than it is like the ones that I really enjoy because they've all got their own quirks.

It's amazing once you get into this that the grapes ever even make it to the bottle because there's so many obstacles you have to go against between the weather and the pests and everything.

So it really makes you appreciate the wine you drink that much more.

- So we're in your East Vineyard and all of the very happy vines are your Norton.

- Yes, yes.

- But this is your Cayuga?

- Yes, this is the Cayuga.

- What happened?

- So last fall, this is where we had a relatively mild October, November, followed by a terrible cold snap in December where we had like sustained temperatures below zero degrees for a week.

- Which is normal for Missouri.

But what is unique here is that it happened very quickly, so the plants couldn't adapt.

- In January and February when that happens, it's perfectly fine.

- But they're ready for it.

- They're ready for it.

That's right, they know.

Yeah, but these weren't, obviously, and it's so these we planted these 10 years ago in 2013.

- Oh wow.

- Yeah.

You know, they're big established, they look awesome but they just, yeah, they weren't ready for it.

They weren't dormant enough and here we are.

- But they're not completely dead.

Like I see a little bit happening here.

- This gives us hope right here.

We have suckers coming in most years we wanna get rid of the suckers, but this year we'll retrain this and get it back up to the wire and we will be able to hopefully start from the ground.

We're not ready to give up on it yet.

- You're also speaking to a larger issue in wine making that makes it so challenging is these vines take years.

- Yes.

- To establish themselves.

I mean, it's not like wheat or hops or something else like that where the next season you have a crop, you have to wait a long time.

- You're right.

Whenever we make the decision on planting anything we know it's a long-term time commitment, we better be sure.

- Yeah.

- On these things or pretty sure.

And you're right.

And then stuff like this happens and you're like, "Well five years, we'll have grapes again."

You know?

- So these are the Norton vines, these are the state grape.

It is considered essentially native.

And so it's very well adapted to this climate - Where other ones will develop all these diseases and things, the Norton just does awesome.

- Yeah.

- It's a great, great grape.

- It's a champ.

- It is a champ.

Yeah, yeah, it really is.

Look how happy they are.

Like it's- - They're like, hello, I love this weather.

It's May and it's like 95 degrees practically.

In Europe, regional wine styles are celebrated and the team here at Dale Hollow Winery is intent on bringing that sense of regionality to American wines.

- In 2019, I went to Europe to study Italian wine specifically.

I had the opportunity to go about two weeks before the program and I had a sommelier master sommelier of wine actually kind of tour me around Rome, Florence, Verona.

And one thing I noticed is you don't go to Verona and ask for Chianti.

You go and ask for Valpolicella or Corvina, you know?

They're local grapes.

At that moment I understood how important regionality is to what you can grow, one, price affordability.

Two, you're not having to import.

It's a lot more sustainable for the area.

So it's a cultural building experience for the town, for Italy itself, because they're honoring who they are in every region.

The terrior is so different, so the grapes are so different.

A lot of people really only drink what is there.

So seeing a lot of primitive methods really inspired me because where we are a smaller producer and we're boutique in what we do and we're growing a lot of grapes that are known to Missouri but some that are not as familiar like the Baco Noir for example.

It really helped me realize like we don't have to be ashamed of that and that it just comes down to education and teaching people that we're Midwest wine.

(upbeat music) So from that trip coming back, that's when Jesse and I were like, we've gotta build this up.

Like not just our vineyard, our winery but Missouri wine in general.

- European wine.

They've been doing it for hundreds of years and in Missouri we're still discovering all these things which grapes grow best in which parts of the state.

Questions we get a lot from people that are visiting us is, where's your Cabernet?

Where's your Chardonnay?

And we gotta explain to 'em our climate doesn't allow for that.

It gets too cold.

We can't grow those things.

We have Norton, we have Chambourcin and Vignoles and Catawba, Concord, the grapes are all right here.

They have to go a couple hundred feet from the vineyard to our winery.

And like that makes such a difference for quality.

- Here at Dale Hollow Winery they leverage the resources of the Grape and Wine Institute to build connections within the community and also to improve their wine making year after year.

- The Grape and Wine Institute is really a board, if you will, for Missouri grape growers as a resource of education is mostly how I utilize it and see it.

We started working more closely with the institute probably around 2019 once we were really getting into more with our wine making, we were entering the competitions and that was just the most amazing experience.

I had the opportunity to help judge and I got to meet some great people that were able to help educate me even more.

- We have a whole year worth of program ranging from microbiology of wine to detecting off flavors.

We accept samples from all wineries across the state from vineyards, wine growers, whoever's part of that industry, analyze them for them and make sure that they follow all the recommendations and stylistic modifications of their wine.

We also have a wine quality program where we reach out to wineries across the state, help them improve their quality.

- With wine making and being in a young winery, there are a lot of faults.

A wine fault can come from bacteria, it can come from an imbalanced wine, poor storage of wine, or having an oxygen reach the wine and it just spoils quicker.

One of the biggest things we struggle with is corked wine.

- You probably had this, if you're a wine drinker you uncork a bottle and open it and it doesn't taste quite right.

A lot of times that's because of a faulty cork.

So it got corked is what they call that and it gets an off flavor.

- Cork off flavor, it's a compound called a trichloroanisole.

It's a phenolic compound that has chloride in it.

In most cases, it comes from a cork that was not clean enough and was moldy sometime in the process and then sold to the winery, put it in the wine and the TCA ends up in your wine.

- It's just a bad experience.

You don't want the customer to have to have.

So for us it makes a lot of sense to go to screw cap.

- With corked bottles, usually one out of every 12 can be corked and we have had experience with that.

So we are just adding that extra layer of protection to preserve the wine for our customers.

- Most customers still feel like a wine needs a cork.

So it takes a little bit of convincing of work to tell them no, screw cap is just as fine as a closure for a wine bottle, it actually has benefits.

The wine doesn't age as fast, shelf life is extended.

There's less risk of oxidation because there's no oxygen transfer through the screw cap.

There are a lot of examples why this would be beneficial but customers still associate a screw cap with a cheap wine, unfortunately.

So it might take a few years for those programs to be really successful.

Missouri used to be the number one wine producing state in the nation prior to prohibition.

So there's so much history here.

There's so much knowledge.

The industry wants to improve their quality.

They want to go a step further.

They want to be where they were prior to prohibition.

So they want to bring it back to this old glory.

And I think the excitement, the innovation that's happening in Missouri is really, really unique.

- We work with a lot of people in the industry that are part of the Grape and Wine Institute that are great winemakers in Missouri.

- You know, Jacob Holman from Les Bourgeois and he's been so helpful to us.

- Dale Hollow, they are a dream to work with.

We share similar philosophies within the industry and it's been really cool to watch them expand as they have.

- As we grow our own grapes we still don't grow enough to meet the demands.

So thankfully the Missouri wine industry has kind of like a brokerage program where you can work with other wineries that has excess bulk grapes.

And we work with Les Bourgeois vineyards specifically in buying bulk grapes.

And that is so beneficial in the sharing of vineyards because some wineries don't need that much bulk production but they're able to sell it and at least they're not wasting it.

- They needed some help sourcing fruit and so I've been able to help 'em in that way.

It's been really great to see them grow from where they were to where they are now in their wine making program.

They're doing a big winery expansion right now.

I've told them that to build it as big as they can.

'Cause if you think that you have enough space, you never do in this region.

- It's really unique I think for the wine industry that everyone's collaborative.

No one's like holding back trade secrets or anything, like Jacob has been super helpful to us.

- Everybody comes up together and that's always been my philosophy in helping smaller wineries.

So if there's anything I can do to help those wineries make better wine, then I'm gonna do it.

- So now it's my favorite part of visiting a winery.

Katie's gonna take me through a tasting and we're starting off with one of your whites.

- Yes, so this is our Lakehouse and it is Cayuga based think Pinot Grigio very mineral, citrus, just really light and refreshing.

- It has some viscosity to it and it really is lemony and it does have a lot of just minerality.

- Yes and that is from the limestone that's very prominent to our area.

So you really can pick that up in the wine.

So next we have Vignoles.

One of my favorite.

- I love Vignoles.

- What you're gonna get is the lot of tropical fruit, pineapple, mango.

Maybe a little honeysuckle's gonna come through on this.

- I mean that is like a flower bomb.

- When you think about Midwest, Missouri, Kansas City, St. Louis, barbecue.

- Barbecue.

- And if you're someone who enjoys pulled pork or even carnitas like- - Yes.

- That have pineapple with it these two together, this is the wine you want.

(both laughing) So next what I have for you is one of my favorite Missouri red wines.

Chambourcin.

- Yes.

- A really vibrant red wine.

You're gonna get the red cherry fruit.

So that's what we really try to bring forward.

And it has been oaked just slightly.

- It's light on the palette.

- One of the things in Italy that I really loved was the old world style wine that is soft and approachable.

So you're getting all the flavor, a little bit of body, but just a lot of fruit in the glass.

Catawba, it is a cousin to Concord.

So it's a very popular grape in the Midwest.

The flavor as it develops almost reminds me of like a watermelon Jolly Rancher.

- It is like candy on the nose.

- Yes.

- But it has real acidity to it.

It's not just a sweet wine, it has sweetness, but.

- There's a bite.

- Yeah, there really is.

- It's a very popular summer wine for us.

- All these wines are just, they're just fun.

- Yes.

- And wine is supposed to be fun.

It shouldn't be as serious - And stiff.

- Yeah.

- Food and wine, it's about enjoyment and merriment.

- Well, and Stover is a tiny town south of Jefferson City in the middle of Missouri like on the very tippy top of the Ozarks.

This is not where you would think to find a winery.

- No.

- And it's really become a gathering place for the community.

By deciding 10 years ago.

- Yeah, yeah.

- To plant a thousand vines.

- Yeah.

- You know, just on a whim you've created this gathering place for your community and an opportunity for your family that now that you're about to have your first child, who knows?

I mean, as far as passing it on to the next generation.

- That's right.

- It's incredible.

- Yeah, it is.

Like you do, you see that a lot with wineries.

My brother's kids, now my kids grow up with this, like it's a legacy thing and it's amazing.

- What I envisioned when we created Dale Hollow was to create a community culture.

That aspect of food and wine is irreplaceable.

And I think our culture is so fast-paced, we don't slow down enough to make the most of our time together.

I think you see that here at Dale Hollow.

People come, they slow down, they get to enjoy wine, they get to enjoy good music.

Most importantly, they get to enjoy who they're here with.

And to see them smile and leave happy not knowing how they got here emotionally or physically is just a wonderful thing.

- Wine, of course, is not just for drinking.

So let's head back to my kitchen and I'm gonna show you how to make red wine poached pears.

Poached pears look so elegant on a plate and it's a very fun way to cook with wine.

So all I have are six pears and I'm going to peel them using this vegetable peeler from just below the stem all the way down.

I'm gonna go ahead and head over the stove and start simmering my wine.

You're going to want a bottle of dry red wine and I have about a half a cup of just granulated sugar a couple of cinnamon sticks, three cloves and a teaspoon of black peppercorns.

Last ingredient for our poaching liquid is an orange.

I'm just going to take some really nice wide sections of the peel.

So I'm gonna bring this to a boil and then reduce it to a simmer.

And when the sugar has dissolved, I'm gonna add my pears cover 'em up, and then let them simmer for about 20 minutes.

They definitely are soft.

Having the pears absorb that beautiful color from the wine is just gorgeous.

I'm going to reduce the wine sauce so that it's more of a syrup.

I'm gonna go ahead and pour this in a bowl and then I'll meet you on the other side to make our whipped blue cheese.

This is Stilton.

So I mean this is like granddaddy blue cheese right here.

You want about four ounces?

I just have some Greek style yogurt and then I have heavy cream because of course, why not?

So around each one of the pears I have a little dollop of the blue cheese.

Here is my wine reduction.

Final touch, I have some sugared walnuts I made these last night so that they would cool down.

Three ingredients, just butter, sugar, and walnuts.

So here you have it.

This is a wonderful dinner party dessert.

And if you're going to pair something when you serve this, I would highly recommend pairing a port.

So with each one of the recipes in the series, I am pairing a wine from grapes that you might not be familiar with.

And this is a port that is made in the Ruby style with Norton.

And Norton is considered a Native American grape.

You find it everywhere from Virginia to Missouri and it is a deep, dark, rich grape.

And so it is perfect for ports and this is a perfect pair with the pears.

Thanks so much for joining me and I'll see you next time.

Cheers.

Connect with us online at WeAreTastemakers.com or through social media on these handles.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] "tasteMakers" is brought to you with support from Global Foods Market and Midwest Dairy.

(upbeat music)