American Wine Project’s Low-Intervention Wines Let the Grapes Do the Talking

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Erin Rasmussen of American Wine Project (802 Ridge St., Mineral Point, Wis.) didn’t grow up in a wine drinking household, but she became intrigued by wine while studying music in France. “In France, wine is seen as an agricultural product that’s talked about like art. In Europe, there are vineyards instead of cornfields. Wine is approached as an artistic endeavor.”

That experience would lead Rasmussen to form American Wine Project, where she crafts low-intervention wines with cold-hardy grapes grown in the Upper Midwest.

American Wine Project will be one of the participants at Wine Around the World on 5-8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 18.

After learning winemaking basics through an apprenticeship at a Napa Valley winery, Rasmussen has been fine-tuning her winemaking art ever since, striving for a full sensory experience. A key lesson she took away from her California experiences was to let the grapes do the talking, rather than to try changing them into something they don’t want to be.

“Winemakers have a lot of tools to help us target style. We can add tartaric acid if we think the juice needs to be a little bit brighter, or we can age it in oaky barrels. It’s like seasonings, but the more seasonings you add, the less the grapes are able to tell a story,” Rasmussen explains.

Using Cold-Hardy Grapes In Creative Ways

When Rasmussen returned to Wisconsin with an idea to start a winery, she borrowed space at Drumlin Ridge Winery, in Waunakee, Wis., to make her first two vintages. She doesn’t have a vineyard but partners with the Wisconsin Grape Growers Association to source cold-hardy grapes.

“I look for reduced spray input and minimal intervention in the vineyard,” she says. “There are fungus, pests, disease and mildew that will destroy your entire crop if no treated responsibly. But there are different viniculture techniques winemakers can take advantage of to reduce those things.” Examples include healthy, hydrated soil in the vineyards.

Viniculture in Wisconsin is still fairly new. Many but not all cold-hardy varieties were developed by the University of Minnesota’s wine grape breeding program, which since the 70s has developed cold-hardy, disease-resistant wine grape cultivars. Rasmussen praised the dedication and skill of Wisconsin’s grape growers and has fun experimenting with these up-and-coming grapes.

“I think they’re all so different and exciting to work with, for different reasons,” she says. “The Brianna grape is tropical and bright. It reminds me of a New Zealand sauvignon blanc, which is a fruity, energetic wine.”

The Marquette grape, one of the better known cold-hardy grapes, reminds Rasmussen of the pinot noir she worked with in California. “I think there’s a lot of potential to make complex, interesting wines from that grape. It’s a good one to start with for people that aren’t familiar with grapes grown here.”

The sabrevois, a red wine grape, is pest and disease resistant to the point where even Japanese beetles won’t eat the leaves, Rasmussen notes. Older varietals like maréchal foch, planted widely in Wisconsin, was hybridized in France as a way to combat invasive aphids.

There’s no official definition or regulation of the term “natural wines,” but Rasmussen’s low-intervention approach is to be preventive and carefully observe the grapes through every step of winemaking. Some tools such as sulfur, in low but effective amounts, are necessary to ensure that wine retains its character without going bad on a shelf.

Rasmussen pays as much attention to what’s on the bottle as what’s inside. Each wine has a name that evokes an auditory and literary experience to get consumers thinking about the wine. Summer Land Brianna, with a percentage of skin contact fermentation, features beautiful flamingo art on the label. The Song of Myself is a textured white blend of LaCrescent, Frontenac gris and Frontenac blanc grapes grown in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

“Some mass-produced wines taste the same every time, but when you start tasting wines made by smaller producers that aren’t as developed in the industry, you get to go on an adventure,” Rasmussen enthuses.

For more information, visit americanwineproject.com.