Hello from South Dakota

Hi!

I am so excited that I found this forum and reading so many great posts.

My name is Bonnie and I live in South Dakota. I know, not really famous for wine making (yet ). I tend to get questions such as "Do you have internet?", and even "Do you have electricity?". Yes to both and yes, it gets really cold here during the winter.

When I was 9 years old, I saw someone make their own wine at home and I have been enthralled my entire life with this magical process. There is clearly a chemical process that turns liquid into wine, but ...there is for me also something magical about wine making and it is like a piece of art work. I am now in the middle stage of my life and finally getting the chance to start learning. I started with a kit and was hooked. However, I want to learn to make wines from "scratch", so I started a rhubarb batch and a grape batch this fall. I racked them for the second time yesterday and thought I should probably taste them. I was really, really disappointed. So, I pouted for a couple of hours and am now back on my wine making journey.

I look so much forward to learn and grow as a wine maker and hopefully contribute to this forum.

On a separate note: I LOVE the rules for this forum, including the requirement for proper language.

Kind regards,
Bonnie

Welcome to Wmt

Welcome, Bonnie. I'm up in Fargo. I can say SD is a little ahead of ND in the wine industry, but not by much. If you are interested in grape growing, we have an active grape breeding program at NDSU to develop better cold hardier grapes.

Hello

Have you by chance checked out this South Dakota Winery. May be sort of close to you? Very nice people there when I visited.

http://www.valiantvineyardswinery.com/Home.html

Hello, Bonnie. Welcome to WMT!

Hi Greg.
Oh wow, that sounds awesome! Thank you. I am not that far from Fargo (actually in Brookings, SD). I would like to read more about it, if you have any links. I just planted a simple Concord Grape here several years ago, more of less for fun but it did really well. I don't think it is the best for wine making though.
Kind regards,
Bonnie

Hi Steven. I had not heard of them. Thank you for the link. I did visit a winery here in our area (Shade Wines: http://schadevineyard.com/) and that was really interesting and they make some awesome Christmas wines.
Thank you for the link.
Kind regards,
Bonnie

Welcome to the hobby and the forum!

The very best wine that I have ever consumed was a homemade wine by my Great Aunt in Lake Andes, South Dakota. That was 35 years ago, and I have been trying to come close to making a wine that is even remotely close to that outstanding. I am only 2 years into my attempts, but that South Dakota wine remains my goal.

Bonnie, welcome aboard. The first time I ever heard of Rhubarb wine was when some friends said they tasted it at a B&B in SD. I've since made it and it was wonderful.