Local winery opening soon

Every year for the past five years, an aerial photo has been taken of the Cedar Ridge Winery vineyards.

“The next aerial is going to have a building in it — finally,” said owner Jeff Quint.

Although Quint and his wife, Laurie, started growing the 10 acres of vines in 2003 on land at the intersection of Highway 965 and Marak Road in rural Swisher, they are waiting until 2009 to open the two-level building that will serve as a tasting, viewing and production area for Cedar Ridge Winery & Distillery’s wines and spirits.

“We think that it’s a wonderful tourist attraction for the Corridor,” he said, adding that the building should be completed in the summer.

No one will confuse Iowa with Napa Valley, but the winery business is a growing one locally and statewide, according to Paul Tabor, one of the founding members of the Iowa Wine Growers Association. Tabor estimates there are 65 to 70 wineries in Iowa, including 50 new ones in the past three years. When Cedar Ridge Winery opens sometime in the summer, there will be eight wineries within an hour of Iowa City.

“That’s why we bought the land. We bought the land for this building,” he said. “This has been a long time coming.”

Quint said the business outgrew its Cedar Rapids space adjacent to the Benz Beverage Depot about a year ago.

“Now it’s time to make more of what we make and expand our distribution,” Quint said. “We bought the land because it was located in the heart of the Corridor.”

At the vineyards, they have 10 varieties spread over the 10 acres. Each acre of vineyard produces 500 gallons of wine, he said.

When guests enter the new building, they’ll first see the retail area followed by the sampling area. A small conference room will serve as a viewing room into the production area, where people will be able to see rows of wine tanks and the still.

“This equipment is now being produced to support smaller distilleries,” he said. “Fifty years ago, you couldn’t get your hands on quality distillation equipment at a micro distillery level.”

Clearheart Spirits — vodka, gin and rum — were the first products for the company because “you can make them one day and sell them the next,” Quint said. Next came the 100 percent natural fruit liqueurs — lemon Lemoncella and raspberry Lamponcella, as well as apple and grape brandies.

In 2009, the company will unveil two whiskeys — a single malt and a bourbon, he said. The bottles will show what barrel the spirit came out of and what bottle number it is. They will also add a third tropical fruit liqueur, Mangocella.

The new facility will quadruple distillation capacity, necessary because “those dark spirits will take a lot of equipment,” Quint said. “We can’t support a thriving dark spirits line until we have the new equipment.”

Cedar Ridge Winery grows French-American hybrid wine grapes that are successful in Iowa’s climate, but that means different wines than some might be used to, he said.

“Today, the consumer is still learning what these French-American varieties are,” Quint said. “There is a certain group of people, and I’m one of them, that will never let go of their California cabernet.”

“I’m certain we can make whites as good as any whites out there,” he said.

Tabor, of the Iowa Wine Growers Association, also is owner and winemaker at Tabor Home Vineyards and Winery near Baldwin.

He said winemakers are able to make a go if it in Iowa because French-American hybrid wine grapes are well suited for this region. The grapes are extremely winter hearty, able to sustain temperature lower than 20 degrees, while also being fairly resistant to mildews during Iowa’s humid summers, Tabor said.

The grapes produce wines that have similarities to California wines that the consumer might be more familiar with, he said.

Tabor said a winery is a “successful-type venture to do … (because) there are not many processing businesses you can put in rural areas.”

Many of the wineries in Iowa have a large tourism component, such as the building Cedar Ridge is developing.

“Wineries are becoming tourism destinations in the state,” Tabor said.