Filmmakers document state’s growing wine business

By Angela Holmes

A lunch discussion last year about bucket lists has evolved into the production of a film documenting Iowa’s wine industry.

It all started when Kirk Monson and Jeff Zahrt of Cedar Rapids-based MVP Video Production worked on a project last year with Brad Johnson, owner of Brad.PR.Johnson, a public relations consulting firm in Vinton. During a celebratory lunch after the project’s completion, the marketing professionals discovered they had a common interest in Iowa’s growing wine industry.

“That’s when the initial seed got planted,” Mr. Johnson recalled.

After some more detailed discussions, the idea of making a documentary became a reality. The filming of “Wine Diamonds: Iowa Uncorked” began in July during the Mid-America Wine Competition in Ankeny. Over the next year, the film’s production crew will document several wineries across Iowa in various stages of winemaking, from tending the grapes and harvest to production and promotion.

“We have an idea of where we want to go, but it is not scripted,” Mr. Johnson said.

The focus of the film is Iowa farm families who have returned to the state to start a winery or vineyard operation.

“There’s a growing Iowa wine industry that people don’t know about,” said Mr. Johnson, who has worked as a winemaker assistant and external relations manager for Fireside Winery in Marengo, and as editor and publisher of Winedustry, an online wine news blog. “People are coming back to Iowa to work on the family farm. In rural areas, this is a huge impact on communities.”

Among the vineyards and wineries the “Wine Diamonds” production crew has visited so far are Tassel Ridge Winery in Leighton (southeast of Des Moines), Fireside Winery’s Brickyard Hill Vineyard in Marengo and the Winery at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids.  They also shot footage and conducted interviews at the Iowa State Fair.

“The idea is to meet as many winery families as we can from the Mississippi (River) to the Missouri (River),” Mr. Johnson noted.

It’s an ambitious project, and one that has already led to plenty of early hours and late nights. For example, Mr. Monson and Mr. Johnson arrived at Fireside Winery just before sunrise on Aug. 31 as volunteer pickers gathered at the 13-acre Brickyard Hill Vineyard near the home of Fireside owners Bill and Rona Wyant.

“We want to capture the essence of the harvest,” Mr. Johnson said of the trip. “We wanted to show how important it (volunteer help) is for wineries.”

About 100 volunteers showed up that day to pick LaCrosse grapes for Fireside’s LaCrosse wine, which will appear on store shelves in six to nine months.

Other wineries the production crew plans to visit include Train Wreck Winery in Algona, owned by former Iowa Hawkeye and NFL football player Dallas Clark, and Calico Skies Vineyard and Winery in Inwood in northwest Iowa, owned by a young couple who came back to Iowa from California.

“By the time we finish next fall, we will have gone full circle,” Mr. Johnson said.

Coming of age

As the industry grows, more Iowans are becoming interested in the art and business of winemaking.

Since offering its first classes in 2010, the winemaking program at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids has had steady enrollment. The college offers Vineyard Management and Wine Making and Winery Facility Management Certificate programs.

Lucas McIntire, Kirkwood’s full-time winemaker and vineyard manager, is in his 13th year of winemaking – making him veteran in Iowa wines.

When he started working in 2002 as an apprentice with Paul Tabor at Tabor Home Vineyards and Winery in Baldwin, the industry was still small in the state, struggling to grow enough grapes to make 100 percent Iowa wines.

The number of vineyards has grown substantially in the past decade as new grapes are developed to handle Iowa’s cold climate.

“We can’t grow Cabernet grapes here,” Mr. Johnson said. “But we are pioneering new grapes such as Brianna and Edelweiss (which are used in white wines).”

Mr. McIntire agrees that the variety of grapes grown in Iowa has boosted the industry.

“We have a lot more options in Iowa than when I started,” he said. “There’s always something new being grown.”

According to a study commissioned by Iowa State University, “The Economic Impact of Iowa Wine and Wine Grapes,” there were 99 wineries in Iowa in 2012, which produced 297,000 gallons, or 125,000 cases of wine. In 2012, the full impact of Iowa wine and grapes was $420 million, which included $83 million in wages paid, $15 million in retail value of Iowa wine sold and $41 million in wine-related tourism expenditures.

While many of Iowa’s winemakers are small-scale, “there are people making good money (in Iowa’s wine industry),” Mr. Johnson said.