Good Grape Wine Company

April 29 2007

What’s the Story in Story, IN?

On Saturday I made the 1.5 hour drive south of Indianapolis to Story, Indiana, a town, no scratch that, a village, on the southeastern rim of Brown County State Park in south central Indiana.  Story sits, as the crow flies on route 135--south of Bean Blossom and Gnaw Bone, but north of Spurgeons Corner; a collection of buildings led by the quaint, charming even, Story Inn.

Founded in 1851, Story is a small set of buildings set off by the grand ole dame, the Story Inn, once a general store and now a restaurant, resplendent in, well, the kind old charm that comes with being a 100 year old + weathered wood-framed building in the middle of hill country in Indiana. 

I have been to Brown County plenty of times; it’s something of a day-trippers vacation and boasts some spectacular fall scenery in October.

I made the trip without my wife, Lindsay, she being busy with a couple of other things and I committed to volunteering for a new wine consumer advocacy organization called Vinsense.

The larger occasion for the trip was the Indiana Wine Fair on the grounds of Story—featuring over 20 of Indiana’s 30 + wineries; pouring and tasting.  Listen to the radio commercial here (no comment on the coherence of this particular gem and example of Indiana creative work).

I always enjoy these sorts of festivals, if only to cut through the crowds and the peach and blueberry wines to taste the dry reds and see how the industry is developing.  It should be noted that I unapologetically do like Cherry wine, but I only measure quality and progress based on the dry reds.  If Lenn from Lenndevours casts a brotherly nudge and occasionally wary eye at the state of New York for quality, he’d be downright snippy at Indiana, but that’s part of the charm, frankly, here and in virtually every other state not California, Washington, Oregon, and New York. 

This trip, in particular, was of interest to me because I’ve been reading about the cold snap that hit the Midwest which is going to have a significant impact on the grape and wine industry.

An article in the April 27th edition of the Kansas City Star indicated that as much as 95% of the Missouri grape crop was lost.  In Missouri, as in Indiana, if I’m not mistaken, Missourian wineries have to use 85% of their own grapes and juices and can use 15% from outside of the state for wine production.

In their wisdom, the state of Missouri is waiving that requirement and allowing wineries to bring in 95% of their grapes and juice from outside of the state.  I have a hunch that this might be a good thing for many, many young, small wineries in states in the Midwest who will now have a legitimate opportunity to put a very high quality product in the bottle, further opening up awareness to consumers of the skill that can be found when winemakers work with quality ingredients.

Meanwhile, Vinsense, a consumer group dedicated to creating a consumer coalition to overturn Indiana’s archaic wine laws, is building up a full head of steam to take the fight to the legislators in order to truly have the laws of the state be in the spirit of Granholm, allowing direct shipping to consumers.

It’s a tall battle, particularly because an accommodation was made in ’05 in the wake of Granholm that, while half-assed and Indiana-esque in its execution, does allow for some direct-shipping while preserving the three-tier.  It also allows wineries to secure micro-wholesale permits and sell to the trade, if under 12,000 gallons (5000 cases).  Despite Vinsense getting some of their facts wrong indicating that 36 states have abolished the three-tier system, their heart is in the right place.  This is exactly where most Indiana wineries find themselves today—with their heart in the right place.

It’s sometimes easy to be critical and very easy to fall into a trap of sitting on the high-horse, but I, for one, am very glad that there are people like Dr. Allan Dale Olson, the founder of Vinsense, willing to take up the fight, however difficult the challenge may be and I’m doubly glad that there are pioneers in the state of Indiana continually refining their craft and striving to make better and better wines.  Usually in periods of strife—whether it be a fight with state over laws or a battle with Mother Nature over her fickleness, things do tend to always get better over the long run.  Here’s to raising a glass to fightin’ the good fight for consumer access to wine and quality improvements in wine from wineries in the heartland.

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