Why Ohio Is the Next Wine Region to Watch - Midwest Living
Near the shores of Lake Erie in northeast Ohio, the Grand River Valley wine region has been aging for decades. Now it’s fully mature and ready to drink.
Barrels stack floor to ceiling in the small aging room at Kosicek Vineyards. Emma Kosicek clambers up one of the racks and contorts herself between barrels to get to the one she really wants: a Merlot aged in French oak. She extracts a taste via a wine thief and dribbles it into my glass. I take a sniff. Plum. Black cherry. And is that coffee? My taste buds confirm what my nose has picked up. It’s well-balanced between red and black fruit, smooth and soft as I swish, and layered with rich coffee notes imparted by oak. I’m impressed—but by this point, I shouldn’t be surprised.
Kosicek is the seventh winery I’ve visited over the last two days in Ohio’s Grand River Valley, an hour northeast of Cleveland. My whirlwind trip has led to stops (both planned and unplanned) at wineries with near-century-old vines; wineries perched at the edge of Lake Erie; wineries owned by Eastern Europeans with a penchant for polka. I’ve followed oenophiles into underground cellars to snatch Chardonnay out of barrels, sipped Georgian whites aged in egg-shape ceramic vessels and admired delicate buds on newly awoken vines. And every step of the way, I’ve repeated, I’m in Ohio?
Let’s get one thing out of the way: This is not the Midwest wine you’re thinking of. Sure, there are still plenty of wineries in the area that serve syrupy sweet, it’s-not-wine-it’s-boozy-fruit-juice. But there’s a reputable wine scene here, and I was off to find it.
The seeds were sown many, many years ago, when farmers realized that this pocket of Ohio, near the shores of Lake Erie and edging up to Pennsylvania, was a pretty good region for grape growing. Formed by glacial activity, the fertile landscape along the Grand River—soil rich in a mix of silt, clay and sand—is ideal for vineyards. The lake acts as a moderating force the way the Pacific Ocean does for Napa Valley, cooling the vineyards on hot summer days and warming them in winter. It also extends the growing season, preventing early warm spells in spring and delaying fall frost.
So in the early 1900s, farmers stuck some vines in the ground and soon had plentiful, succulent grapes, typically of the sweet American variety (Concord, Catawba, Niagara). Others caught on, and by the ’80s and ’90s, Ashtabula County had become Ohio’s largest growing region for Welch’s.
Over the last 20 years, though, that production has shriveled, due to decreasing Concord grape prices, an increased demand for vinifera (Old World grape varieties) and new methods imposed by Welch’s that would be costly upgrades for farmers. Since the conditions were still ripe, people started nurturing other grapes—Riesling, Chardonnay, Grüner Veltliner, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc—and in the ’80s, the area was designated an American Viticultural Area. In fact, the Grand River Valley sits within the global Pinot Belt, a latitude band that runs through Oregon and Burgundy, France, two other prominent Pinot Noir growing areas.
Nick Ferrante, whose family’s business has been making wine since 1937, was one of the area’s original advocates for vinifera. When I meet Nick, he’s in what looks like a lab, hunched over a notebook. He startles when I softly knock, but warms as he begins talking about the winemaking process at Ferrante Winery. While strolling past towering steel fermentation tanks, Nick speaks about the science of winemaking, lesser-known Italian grapes and the influence of the land.
After our tour, I join a Behind the Barrel tasting, where we sample an oak-aged Reserve Chardonnay with notes of green apple, citrus and a hint of pastry from a process called aging on the lees; a delicately floral Gewürztraminer; and a tongue-coating ice wine, a specialty of the region. Ferrante Winery straddles the two worlds that Ohio wine country is caught between: longtime staples that cater to a sweeter palate, and newcomers that offer something drier, bolder, more mature.
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