Local Vino: The Winery Boom in the Heartland

Heartland Foodways

by James R. Pennell

The art and craft of winemaking has put down roots in Middle America, where enterprising vintners coax reds and whites from the prairie earth while their businesses stand at the hub of a new tradition of community and conviviality. In Local Vino , James R. Pennell tracks among the hardy vines and heartland terroir of wineries across Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio. Blending history and observation, Pennell gives us a top-down view of the business from cuttings and cultivation to sales and marketing. He also invites entrepreneurs to share stories of their ambitions, hard work, and strategies. Together, author and subjects trace the hows and whys of progress toward that noblest of a great vintage that puts their winery on the map.

208 pages, Hardcover

Published February 15, 2017

Reviews

[January Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative yet exhausting in detail as far as reading experience.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I confess I'm not really a wine drinker, but do enjoy going to wine tastings with friends and family sometimes over the past couple of years. I have in the past year begun to include local wineries in my travels around Ohio and have been surprised to find how different each is and how different each wineries wines taste even if they produce the same product. For example, I assumed all wines tasted alike, then, having learned other wise, assumed all merlots, for example, would taste the same. Nope. Couldn't have been more wrong! It's fun discovering and trying all the various wines from our regional wineries and I hope to visit other state's wineries in time. This book was very informative for those of us just learning, or for those all ready familiar but wanting to discover more about midwestern wines. Highly recommend!

[Emily B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I selected this book for a project in Sociology, and I think I picked well. My favorite chapters were the ones that looked at wine from a scientific perspective. I enjoyed learning about the "experimental plots" along the Ohio River, where each plot shows how a different variable affects the grapes. I also liked the references to Purdue University and its food science work. The small details in this book caught my attention too. For example, Indiana has an official wine grape called Traminette, and it produces a dry white wine. This grape won the award of Outstanding Fruit Cultivar in 2015. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the study of wine-making.