Van and Bonnie Celebrate With Tassel Ridge Winery

Van and Bonnie of WHO Radio were at Tassel Ridge Thursday afternoon to help celebrate the winery's newest release

Leighton, Iowa – The holidays are fast approaching with all of its’ festive atmosphere and parties, and Tassel Ridge Winery of Leighton, Iowa invited 2 special guests to join them Thursday for the release of their newest wine.

Van and Bonnie of WHO Radio helped Tassel Ridge celebrate the release of the 2011 Iowa Nouveau. The red wine is made from this season grapes. “It’s a little unusual to have a red wine this early. This is celebrating the harvest,” Tassel Ridge owner Bob Wersen said

Wersen explained that all of the grapes used to make the 2011 Nouveau were grown in the Tassel Ridge vineyards here in Mahaska County. “They were hanging as recently as the end of August. This is a very fresh wine, that’s very fruity and we think that it will go really well with the Thanksgiving Dinner for example or other kinds of holiday dinners.”

The gift shop at Tassel Ridge has many great gift ideas

Wersen helped explain more about the wine to me as I myself am not all that knowledgeable on the subject. “It’s red wine to be sure. It’s not really aggressive so it blends nicely and it’s likely to satisfy the taste profiles of even people who don’t particularly like wine as well as people who drink a lot of wine.”

One of the nice things about my stop out to Tassel Ridge was looking around the gift shop. Wersen and his staff have filled the space with many great gift ideas.

Of course the focus is to promote and sell the wines that are made, and Wersen explained to me they also carry food that pairs well with their wines, “or foods that contain some of our wines.”

They have a chocolate sauces made with Tassel Ridege wines, plus the Stonewall Kitchen products that would be used on breads. After sampling some of the food items, my ideas on how to fill out a Christmas gift list continued to grow.

Wersen, who founded the winery, said he opened it because, “People in Iowa don’t drink much wine, and I figured that they’re not genetically different than people in Illinois, Missouri or Minnesota. They just haven’t been exposed to it so what we’re trying to do is provide an interesting, fun, educational experience so they can learn about wine and learn how they can incorporate wine into their everyday life. So that’s the reason we have food products that compliment our wines or are made with our wines so they can come up with ideas of their own about how they could use wine on a regular basis.”

If you would like to know more about Tassel Ridge, you can visit their website http://www.tasselridge.com/index.htm