Table Mountain Winery - Huntley, WY Pt. 1

Welcome to The Best Five Minute Wine Podcast, I'm your host, Forrest Kelly. From the seed to the glass wine has a past our aim at The Best Five Minute Wine Podcast is to look for adventure and wineries around the globe. After all, grape minds think alike. Let's start the adventure. Our featured winery is. In this episode, we head to the state that is the 10th largest state in area, it's the least populated, it's home to Old Faithful. In Yellowstone, almost half the state is owned by the federal government through national forests grasslands. An Air Force base, Rocky IV was filmed here, Ivan Drago not on the frozen landscape of Russia, but the Grand Tetons National Park in Wyoming. Hello, this is Patrick Zimmerer of Table Mountain Vineyards and Winery in Wyoming. Owner, winemaker, and we are Table Mountain Vineyards and winery. We're actually growing grapes and making 100 percent Wyoming wines. So before Table Mountain Winery, there was the family farm. And what year was that established? In 1926. So kind of the establishment of our family farm, which is still in our family today, my great grandfather homestead in World War One veteran and I came to this area from Nebraska to Homestead and make a farm, Keeping your farm going as a full time business. So I mentioned it to starting the winery was probably inspired by you. I was a senior at the University of Wyoming. My major was AG Economics. We had to do a thesis project. I came home one winter. There was a meeting. We live right next to Nebraska from the University of Nebraska about growing grapes and the possibility of starting a new industry, the wild area basically throughout my thesis paper, and thought it was interesting enough to write a whole paper on it. And after that was said and done, my dad said, you did all this work. We've got a few acres here and there with plant grapes, and that's really how we got into it. No plan was kind of a vision of trying to grow something outside of the realm of normal agriculture in Wyoming and being able to keep the same amount of land and and start a new venture off of this. So this is two thousand one. We've already landed a man on the moon, and yet wine and grapes hadn't been grown in Wyoming, in Nebraska, in the area before that successfully. They had not been not successful. I mean, there were a lot of homesteaders and immigrants throughout the generations that brought grapes with them. There's some history to find that there would be some Italians here and there who would just bring truckloads of wine or grapes in from California or wherever. But nobody was actually trying to essentially do a vineyard. But at the time, there weren't any spots truly in Wyoming climate wise that the traditional vinifera would grow there. So it took 20 years in the making from the University of Minnesota and other great leaders in the Midwest that we're able to develop these cold, hardy hybrids that can survive our very, very cold winters. Yeah, I would say Wyoming is the extreme weather climate is drier and windier in comparison to most of the United States with greater temperature extremes. The average high temperature during November, December and January is a robust thirty four degrees. In part two of our interview with Patrick of Table Mountain Winery in Wyoming, we'll find out how getting a law degree helps in the winemaking business. What's going to happen at this time? Boys and girls for our listener voicemail. Hi, this is Devin from San Antonio. I was wondering if you could grow grapes in any climate. What's the coldest climate the grapes grow in? And do all fifty states produce grapes within reason? Yes, you can grow grapes. In any climate, many European international grape varieties could survive temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, Minnesota's most popular cold climate hybrid varieties have been studied to survive temperatures as low as minus thirty five. Wind production is undertaken in all 50 states. In fact, California produces eighty nine percent of all United States wine, and the United States is the fourth largest producing wine country in the world right after Italy, Spain and France. Great question. Thank you very much, Devin. Thank you for listening. I'm Forrest calling. This episode of The Best Five Minute Wine Podcast was produced by IHYSM. If you like to show, please tell your friends and pets and subscribe until next time or the line and ponder your next adventure.