A toast to area wineries

Minnesota's first 'wine trail' offers a taste of a growing industry
BY TOM WEBB
Pioneer Press
As winemaking regions go, it's no Napa Valley. Yet Minnesota's fledgling wine industry will be toasting a big milestone this weekend.

For the first time, Minnesota has enough vineyards and wineries clustered together to launch a "wine trail" for day-trippers and wine-lovers to enjoy. So on Saturday, the Three Rivers Wine Trail makes its formal debut, featuring six wineries and a vineyard, all within an hour's drive of St. Paul.

For most of its history, Minnesota had no wine industry at all because of extreme winters that killed the grapevines and state laws that discouraged alcohol production. The laws were changed a generation ago. But winter proved a tougher obstacle, and only gradually has it begun yielding to grape breeders at the University of Minnesota, who are toiling in the vineyards to create cold-hardy grapes that are both tough and tasty.

Today there are 19 small wineries in Minnesota, and more to come — probably many more, given the rising demand for Minnesota-grown grapes. That's a real change for a state that had no wineries until 1978, when a Minneapolis lawyer with a passion for French wine first defied the climate. Now his Alexis Bailly Vineyard near Hastings is a stop on the wine trail.

"I've been here a long time all by myself, like this freak little winemaker, so it's very exciting," said Nan Bailly, whose father planted the first grapevines in 1973. "I look forward to having more people coming down, and saying, 'Hey, this is kind of cool.' We've got this burgeoning little thing going on."...< ahref="http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/14775538.htm" target="new">for more of the story