(gentle music)
- Hi and welcome to Between the Lines.
I'm your host Lea Woodford
and with me today is John Peragine, author of "Iowa Wine."
Who knew John?
- Well that's-- - Iowa.
- Right.
You know when I talk about this book
and the creation of the book
a lot of people give me that same
reaction that they don't believe
that there was wine in Iowa
or that there is wine in Iowa.
In fact there's over 100 wineries now in Iowa again.
People usually think about row crops
like corn or soy bean
but they don't think about Iowa
being a big producer of wine.
And at one point during the late 1800s, early 1900s,
they were the number six producer
in the United States of wine.
- That is just amazing.
But one of the things in this book
is there are lots, lots and lots and lots of pictures.
I mean historical pictures.
- Yes.
- I mean I'm seeing distilleries
and it is a history.
Let's talk about that.
This is a historical book, right?
- It is.
It is.
It is a history of the industry
and the industry if you think about before
there's California, which is where people
think about wine now,
they had to come West.
And so families from Germany, Italy,
they brought this knowledge
of how to make wine.
And in fact there were communities like Amana,
you might know Amana because they make--
- Right.
Appliances! - Appliances.
And so there was a whole community
there at one time.
And you can still visit Amana.
But their whole community was based on wine.
They has this whole community creating communal wine.
And every month you got a ticket
and you got part of that communal wine
and a lot of the houses actually
have grapes growing on the side.
Not only because they wanted to grow grapes
but it became insulation for the homes.
So I mean the whole life was based on that.
And a lot of the people that came over
that was just something that they did
back in Europe,
it was produce wines.
And so while the soil was a little different,
and of course people think,
'well how can grapes grow in the Midwest?
and there were varieties of grapes
that already grew there.
One of the common ones is Catawba grapes.
And there was lots of--
- I don't think I've heard of that.
- Yeah Catawba grapes.
It's kind of a red grape
and the thing about if you
ever taste wines from the West
they tend to be sweet.
And the reason is that the amount
of time that the grapes are in the sun
is much shorter.
So where you have California wines,
or even wines from let's say Italy,
they have all the sunshine.
I can attest living in the Midwest,
there's not a whole lot of days of sunshine.
So you have these grapes
that while they can be sweet
they don't have that complexity.
And so often times they would add
sugar to add to the complexity of the wine.
So a lot of people even the wines made there now
have kind of that added sugar
to give it a little bit of depth.
But again the Catawba grapes were there.
Concord grapes were another one.
We all know that because that's Walter's Grape Juice.
But these were
very adaptive during the early settling
of the areas.
These were grapes that did really well.
The grapes that they're growing now
there's many more varieties being created now
because the grapes
the roots to the grapes
the Catawba were great for the soil,
for the temperature.
So now they're putting,
they're creating hybrids,
so they're bringing stuff from Italy from France
and they're adding new varieties.
So they're creating new varieties
all the time that grow really well.
And in fact you and I have talked
that I have little vineyard in my backyard.
And one of the varieties that I grow is Catawba
but there's also those hybrids
that we're able to grow now.
And so the industry is growing again.
- So what was the most fun writing this book?
I would think--
- Oh the most fun?
- It looked like it was a lot of fun.
- It was.
I like history.
I've made wine for years.
But it was also being able to talk
to some of the people,
as much as they can remember,
the industry or listening to the stories.
Because there's lots of stories
that are in the book
that I was able to gather
from these old farm families.
And collecting those images
that they've had in their attic, or wherever.
And going to the libraries
and doing the research.
Of course it never hurts
hanging out drinking wine while you're--
- What a great job! - Right!
Exactly!
And so I'm starting
my book tour the next couple of months.
And of course most of them are wineries
and so it's not a bad gig
to be able to do.
But I enjoyed some of the stories.
There are some great stories
that are connected to American history.
Some of the, how did the industry grow?
There's a couple of really great stories
in there relating all the way back
to Abraham Lincoln after the Civil war,
and after the American Indian war,
which we don't hear as much about.
He had what they call the half breed program.
The half breed program was descendants of Native American
and European and they were given tracks of land.
Well some of these tracks of land
became these gigantic vineyards that were put into Iowa
because Abraham Lincoln really wanted
to start a wine industry in Iowa
and in Illinois.
So that was what kind of what built it up.
And the other thing about the book is what happened.
You know why don't we have these
vast vineyards any more?
You know part of it was some really bad winters you know
again even they're adapted
if you have sub-zero temperatures
even like with this year
they can be very damaging.
The other thing are pesticides
that were started using for row crops like corn destroyed
I mean they're great at protecting corn,
not so great for grapes
because these were, 24D was one of the things I talk about.
Was one of the components
in Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
Great at killing vines.
So that kind of decimated,
and then prohibition.
Prohibition was that other thing.
- Glad that's over with.
- Right.
And Iowa was actually an early adopter
of prohibition so even before it became a national thing
they had prohibited making wine
other than for religious purposes.
So Amana was able to exist through that period
because they did it as part of their religious community.
- Now wine is such,
it is historical,
it's been around since biblical days.
But why do you think we enjoy wine so much?
I know I do.
- Well I didn't really fully understand it
until I had my own vineyard.
And just taking the grapes
and crushing the grapes is this real pure process.
Different from probably any other alcoholic beverage.
So there's not a whole lot of,
to make wine,
is not a difficult thing to do.
To make great wine's a difficult thing to do!
But the process, I think that's why wine
has been around so long.
Just because it's actually a natural process.
I mean grapes have their own yeast and stuff
so we've refined the process.
But it's just a very natural thing
that we get to actually taste,
taste the vineyard basically.
You know somebody asked me recently
do grapes absorb what's around?
I said absolutely.
After North Carolina, after the tobacco industry
kind of failed, was tobacco farmers started
to plant vineyards.
A lot of the first red wines
just tasted just like cigarettes.
I mean they just tasted
they had such a strong tobacco flavor.
It's because it was in the soil for so long.
But I think there's also that like you said,
there's this cultural context.
It's been around.
It's in our religious facet.
It's in our books, in literature.
And so there's just this and families
kind of pass this down.
This is why Iowa was one of those places
that people settled and they immediately wanted to develop.
- Why I love all the pictures,
they are historical.
I mean I'm looking at the distilleries,
I'm looking at the vines,
it's just passed down from generation to generation.
And then these are artisans.
- Oh absolutely.
Absolutely.
- I think that there's just an amazing,
it's so elegant.
- Uh huh.
- Even the glassware is elegant.
- Yes. - I mean I'm really picky
about the wine glass
that I drink out of. - Right, right.
- Can you talk about that a little bit?
- Sure.
- A lot of people just learning
to drink wine
they don't really understand
the significance of the glassware.
- Well and there's also
it's not just the look of it
you really need the right glass
for the right wine.
Because they have one of the things about wine
and it breathing is it has to open up.
If you have an aged wine that's been in a bottle for years
you need to allow it to open up.
And there's certain kinds of glasses
that go with certain kinds of wine.
You have the Champagne, you have the kind of red
which is more or like a bowl
so it's taking in more oxygen.
Where the whites are probably a smaller stemware.
So it's not only the elegance of it,
there's this practical
of having the right glass
with the right kind of wine.
Because it'll change the flavor and also the aroma
that comes from--
- That's one of my favorite parts
is a really good smell.
It's an experience.
I think that wine is something
that you don't drink, you experience.
- That's absolutely right.
It is an experience
and taking in the smell of it.
It's interesting now that I have the vineyards
so now I can smell
and also taste the grapes.
That was one of the things I didn't get to do until recently
was actually taste the grapes
before they become wine.
And they're not like what you get,
these aren't the kind you pick up
in your supermarket.
They're very sweet, very complex flavors
very different than eating grapes.
Although you can make some wines out of eating grapes,
what they call table grapes.
But wine grapes
are just real complex flavors to them.
- What's your favorite wine?
- Oh gosh.
I think that really depends on what I'm eating
or the time of year.
During the summer I like
a white wine that's been chilled.
If I'm having a particular dinner
I like Yanni's, I like Italian wines,
Spanish wines.
Something with a little spice
and a little bit of depth to them.
But I think everybody's different
in what their loves are.
I usually drink red wines
just because it's actually a more complex process.
- I like red too. - Yeah.
The difference between white and reds
and that many people, I mean they expect there
to be white grapes.
Really it's the process.
So with the red grape,
they're gonna put the skins on the wine
so that it draws out those tannins.
Which is that kind of strange feel sometimes
you get on your tongue.
But also adds that color to it.
So red wines are just,
it's just a slightly different process
but it does add that depth to them.
- What do you think our viewers
are gonna be most surprised about
other than who knew Iowa had wine!
- I think one of the reasons I wrote the book
is that now you know
there's this whole new industry
of these small wineries.
Not these giant expansive--
- I know they're like boutique wineries.
- Right, they're very boutique.
And I think that what they'll realize is that a lot
of the things that we were challenged with then,
we're still challenged with today.
I mean some of the things that kind of contributed
to the downfall of the industry.
But also the understanding that when we we're talking
about organic and things like that.
You know grapes are one of those things that absorb
what's in their environment.
And so just being more aware
maybe of American history too
because there's some really great stories in there.
- There are.
- There are some great stories
of the challenges that they had
and actually how it played into history.
I mean wine's one of those things,
it was kind of like gold.
I mean people fought over it.
They fought over the land.
And finding the best land or finding or settling
a whole community.
And these communities still exist but they don't realize
that they were based on where there were planting grapes.
- Well you've combined two of my favorite subjects.
History and wine!
And to read this and read about Abraham Lincoln, who knew!
- Right.
Yeah that's a fascinating story.
- It is.
Thank you John for being on the show.
- Thank you, I appreciate it.
- This has been Lea Woodford with Between The Lines.
Thanks for watching.