With Skolnik’s headquarters stainless steel wine drum manufacturing located Chicago, we are always excited to hear about new and exciting things coming from the wine industry in our own region. As recently reported in Wines and Vines, a Minnesota grower has developed new varieties of cold climate grapes. It is common knowledge that it gets cold—very cold—in Minnesota every year, and not just during winters with unusual polar vortexes. Yet wild grapes such as Vitis riparia survive temperatures that drop to -30° F and lower without suffering from dead buds and split trunks. The challenge to growers has been to breed new varieties with resistance to extreme cold as well as the ability to produce grapes that can be made into high-quality wines. Tom Plocher, a grape breeder living northeast of Minnesota’s Twin Cities recently named two red varieties, Crimson Pearl and Verona. While both are cold hardy and have excellent wine potential, they have different attributes in the vineyard and the winery. The benchmark variety for the two grapes is Petite Pearl, a sister grape of Crimson Pearl, which Plocher named in 2009. Petite Pearl and Crimson Pearl were the results of crosses in 1996 between MN 1094 and ES 4-7-26. MN 1094 is a University of Minnesota hybrid with a genetic background of vinifera, riparia and other species. Winter temperatures in 1993 and 1996 dropped to -40° F, and most hybrid grapevines died, except for MN 1094. ES 4-7-26 is a cross Elmer Swenson selected from seedlings of his variety called St. Croix. Contact Skolnik if you wish to learn more about our stainless steel wine barrels.
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