January 30, 2019
The Big Pond #13: German-style Wines in the US

Grapes
Image by milivanily on Pixabay

German entrepreneurs and winemakers have shaped the manufacturing of wine in the US for over a century. Join our producer Gary Lee on a tour of three US vineyards with surprisingly German roots to see the full scope of German influence on this industry in the US.

In this episode of The Big Pond, Gary Lee reports on three American wineries that produce wine from German grapes. The three stops, in different corners of the U.S., include High Pass Winery in Oregon, Hermann J. Wiemar Vineyard in New York State and Otium Cellars in Virginia.
 
At each stop, we learn about the winemakers and their roots in Germany. Each of the winemakers discusses how he came to make German-style wines and what makes these wines distinctive–such as the fermentation process they apply, the soil that they grow their grapes in or the special variety they chose to produce. Join Gary Lee as he learns about Riesling, Blaufränkisch, Lemberger, Zweigelt and Grüner Veltliner–made in the US.
 
Music licensed under CC BY 3.0 by reinsamba on freesound.org (https://freesound.org/people/reinsamba/sounds/239143/)

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