The Vineyard Files

Ever wonder who decides what’s on a restaurant wine list? Andy from Prime and Providence pulls back the curtain on distributors, Iowa’s three-tier system, and the law change that lets restaurants buy from private collectors. Suzie shares why Iowa wineries like Dosaage get to skip a step.

Plus, Andy’s blind-tasting process for picking by-the-glass wines, which last year meant working through more than 360 bottles.

Find out more about Dosaage Vineyard + Winery
Find out more about Prime & Providence
Find out more about the Iowa Beverage Education Collective

Former winemaker Josh Ellenberg joins Suzie, John, and Andy to look back on the realities of winemaking in Iowa.

Josh started in the vineyard repairing trellis and became a winemaker at a 15,000-gallon Iowa winery at 23. He reflects on his first harvest, equipment that failed at the worst time, and a fermentation that ran hot. He also remembers long harvest stretches, 16-hour delivery days, and wine being ready to bottle but having no money for bottles.

Josh explains why wine sales alone did not keep the winery open, how they tried to be creative, and how COVID changed everything. He also shares why he made the hard decision to leave the industry, and how he stays connected to it today.

Kathy Fehrman and Carly Dascoli from Oak Park join Andy, Suzie, and John to talk about what happened at a blind tasting of eleven sparkling wines.

The lineup included a Dom Pérignon P2 that retails around $600, Grand Cru champagne in the $300 to $400 range, and a Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs closer to $200. Suzie's bottles run $24 to $27. The crew talks about how blind taste testing opens you up to consider new wines.

Carly explains the difference between tasting wine and drinking it, why the first sip tells you almost nothing, and what "opening up" means. Suzie admits she's terrified every time her wine goes up against bottles from regions with three centuries of practice. Andy also walks through the 1976 Judgment of Paris, fifty years old this year, which is where the name of the episode comes from.

Kathy and Carly also poured Suzie's sparkling for guests at Oak Park's garden dinner without telling anyone what it was. Both nights, the room gasped when they found out their favorite was locally made.

Mentioned in this episode: Oak Park (3901 Ingersoll, Tuesday through Saturday, no reservations at the bar) and The Purveyor in the East Village.

DosaageWinery.com | PrimeandProvidence.com | IABEVED.org | oakparkdsm.com | purveyordsm.com

Andy started a nonprofit. The Iowa Beverage Education Collective covers distilled, fermented, and non-alcoholic drinks, and he keeps it broad on purpose. Coffee and kombucha count.

His reasoning: Des Moines hasn't moved much in twenty years, good people keep leaving the industry, and there's nowhere local to learn more. He admits it started a bit selfishly, seeking a group as he studied for a level three sommelier exam but now it's turned into a small community.

Suzie knows the feeling. Her school group called themselves the Vin Geeks, and she credits them with setting her path. She also says that not everyone wants to master all the info about what's in the glass but they're still interested in learning about beverages.

Tastings run Sundays at noon at Prime and Providence, or sometimes at the winery. One recent tasting covered eleven sparkling wines - more to come on that soon.

DosaageWinery.com | PrimeandProvidence.com | IABEVED.org

Harvest is here, and things don't always go according to plan. A hot, sunny summer led to expecting an early harvest, then seven or eight inches of rain arrived right before the grapes ripened. The extra water impacts the grapes acidity and Suzie explains why she picked when she did, and when.

The team touches on ice wine and why Iowa's humidity makes it impossible here. Suzie shows how far one grape can stretch from wines that are bone dry to very sweet. A grape is not just a grape, she says. It's whatever the winemaker decides to do with it.

Then John asks the simple question. How does grape juice turn into wine? Suzie takes listeners through the basics and highlights a list of things that can go wrong: wild yeast, a broken cooling system that left her mopping fermentation off the floor for five days last year, and how quickly juice can turn itself into vinegar.

Visit DosaageWinery.com and PrimeandProvidence.com.

Learn more about the Iowa Beverage Education Collective at IABEVED.org.

Suzie's first drink at legal age was pink Andre, and she's been chasing bubbles ever since. John thought sparkling wine was for graduations and weddings. Andy would take champagne to a deserted island if he could keep it cold.

In this episode we learn that anything with bubbles is sparkling wine. Champagne is a place, not a method, which is why a bottle made in Iowa the exact same way can't use that title. The price difference comes down to where the carbonation happens: injected into a finished still wine, made by a second fermentation in a big Charmat tank the way Prosecco is, or made by a second fermentation inside every individual bottle.

Suzie also explains why she planted Marquette and Frontenac Blanc from the start.

Grab your glass of bubbly and settle in for a great lesson on all things sparkling wine.

Links:

• DosageWinery.com
• PrimeAndProvidence.com
• IABEVED.org (Iowa Beverage Education Collective)

Suzie, John, and Andy pick up where they left off after Andy's first visit to the vineyard. Suzie finally gets to tell him why she was so sad he left before tasting the wine. Andy is the General Manager and Certified Sommelier at Prime and Providence, one of Des Moines's top restaurants, and he admits Iowa wine had been the butt of his jokes for two decades: too sweet, made from grapes the traditional wine world looks down on. Then he tasted one made twelve miles from his dining room. He explains what changed his mind, why balance and restraint matter more than pedigree, and how he ended up comparing Brianna to beluga caviar.

Suzie also walks through the goal list she set when she started the vineyard: plant it, make the wine, open the tasting room, win Best of Show at the Iowa State Fair, get a bottle onto the list at the best restaurant in Des Moines. All five are done, time to start a new list?

Then the three of them get into what actually happens in a vineyard between January and harvest: high wire versus mid wire trellising, bud break, canopy management, and the scramble to get nets on before the birds beat you to the fruit.

Welcome to your starting "wine"-up and the inagural episode of The Vineyard Files. Suzie and John of Dosaage Winery and Andy Crounse, General Manager and Sommelier at Prime and Providence Steakhouse in West Des Moines, introduce the show and the story behind it.

Suzie shares how a forestry degree from Iowa State and a love of Iowa's regenerative land turned into twenty-five acres of estate-grown, estate-made wine, while John owns his role as the self-described "novice simpleton" asking the questions everyone else is thinking.

The trio traces their surprising history together, from a wild game and wine pairing dinner years earlier to a chance reconnection at an Iowa Wine Growers Association winter pruning workshop, where Andy showed up in dress shoes and immediately stood out. Along the way, they dig into what a sommelier actually does day to day, why wine language can intimidate more than it invites, and why proving Iowa wine deserves talking about matters so much to Suzie.

Find out more about Prime and Providence and Dosaage Winery on their websites and if you're in the Des Moines area, we hope to see you soon!