Meat Balls with Pomegranate Currant Sauce
**This recipe was featured as part of our 2016 New Release Wine & Food Pairings.** Suggested Wines Cabernet Sauvignon (Dry Red) Meritage (Dry Red) A savory and classic beef based meatball recipe. The sauce is as tart as it is sweet, making it a nice pairing with a dry, red wine. Ingredients Meat Balls - makes about 30 1 tablespoon canola oil 1 cup minced onions 2 tablespoons fresh minced garlic 1/4 cup dry wine 2 eggs plus 1 yolk 1 cup panko bread crumbs 1 lbs 12oz ground beef 2 tablespoons chopped parsley 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 1 teaspoon ground ginger 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon white pepper 4 teaspoons kosher salt 1 teaspoon
Scalloped Pineapple
**This recipe was featured as part of our 2016 New Release Wine & Food Pairings.** Suggested Wines Traminette (Semi-Dry White) Lakeshore Demi-Sec (Semi-Dry White) This was one of the most unique recipes featured at our 2016 New Release Wine & Food Pairing weekends. The balance of sweetness, tartness and savory goodness is a crowd favorite! Ingredients 3/4 cup butter, softened 1 cup sugar 3 eggs 30 oz crushed pineapple in natural juice, well drained 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 4 cups firmly packed cubed white bread, crusts removed Directions Preheat oven to 350F In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each
2015 Vintage Update – November
As another gorgeous Michigan fall draws to a close, we are breathing a collective sigh of relief as another harvest is in the books. As winemakers, there is a certain comfort in knowing all the fruit is "under the roof." So, the big question...how is the vintage? As with most questions in grape growing and wine making, the answer is complex. Let's start with the numbers. Relative to a "normal" year this was a small harvest. The harsh winters of 2014 and 2015 have certainly taken their tolls on the grapes, particularly the delicate Vitis vinifera varieties. Yields ranged from about 30% of normal for the heartier varieties such as Riesling to complete loss on the
A Winemaker’s Dilemma
Add a little yeast to some grape juice, allow the yeast to convert the grape sugar into alcohol, and you have wine. Nothing to it. Now all that needs to be done is clarify the wine to the satisfaction of the consumer and put it in a bottle. Ahhhhh… There is the problem, there is where a winemaker is called upon to make decisions and take risks that may ruin the wine. The problem is that the American consumer is fussy in that we do not like to see “foreign objects” in our food. We want everything nice and clean and sparkling - no haze, no cloudiness, and no sediment. Unfortunately, every time that we take
Wine Blending at Fenn Valley
We often get questions along the lines of “what happens at a winery in the middle of the winter?” While there is no doubt it’s a bit less crazy compared with harvest, it is still rather busy. Outside the farm team is busy pruning the vineyards, a herculean feat. In the cellar we are busy cold stabilizing and filtering wine in preparation for release starting this spring. As a winemaker, this time of year is very busy at Fenn Valley. In January we embark on the challenging process of wine blending. What is wine blending? Simply put, it’s mixing wines for the purposes of creating a different product. There are many scenarios when we may choose
How do we pick the grapes?
It is one of the most common questions around the tasting room and on tours. And for good reason...there isn't a real quick answer. Generally speaking there are two methods of getting the fruit off the vines - hand picking and machine harvesting. In 2012 we hand harvested somewhere around 70% of the vineyards. This was due to several factors, including some mechanical problems for the aging harvester. But the main reason we hand pick is to preserve the integrity of the fruit, which can lead to better wine. To elaborate, let's start with a brief overview of how the mechanical harvester works. The mechanical harvester works by driving over the row. There are nylon
Vine Wine’d Marriage Proposal
Putting on a new event is always full of surprises. The Vine Wine’d was no exception. Hosting a trail run for 700 people followed by a huge party was almost like cramming two events into one day. But in the end it was totally worth it. The Vine Wine’d is here to stay. Just when we thought the surprises were done for the day a resourceful and creative runner provided one more…and what a pleasant surprise it was! Drew Holloway decided to use the inaugural 5K as the backdrop for what would turn out to be one of the most important days of his life. You see just after the finish line Drew dropped down on
The History of Fenn Valley
June 8, 2013 marks the 40th anniversary of Fenn Valley Vineyards. It was on that day that the Welsch family arrived on the farm and took possession of the land now known as Fenn Valley Vineyards. What was the dream of the founder, Bill Welsch, was about to become a reality. This issue of the newsletter is dedicated to the anniversary of this beginning and the fact that “The American Dream” is very much alive and well. Bill Welsch was bored with running a lumberyard in the suburbs of Chicago, and wanted to try his hand at farming. He had three grapevines in the backyard and had been making some pretty bad wine in the basement