Haus Millner
Harvest Is Coming!
Jon Millner here, signing in. Next month we will have harvest! Another year of putting grapes in the tank! It is always kind of a hectic time of year. A lot praying nothing breaks and nobody ever gets hurt. The weather this summer is actually really strange. Wet and then cold and then hot and then cold again. Just really strange weather. What's that mean for the wine? Well, this is something that I find beauty in that I think most people just don't see. Vintage Variation! So, there is some degree of vintage variation just because the weather is different. When I taste my own wine I often don't taste it like everyone else. I like to taste vintages side by side to see the variation. Customers rarely get that privilege but it is really kind of a pretty thing about wine. You can literally taste the really hot summer or the cool spring or whatever. This is what that tastes like! That's a cool concept to me, especially in Minnesota where we do have a high degree of weather variability. I wish this fact about wine got appreciated a little more. Most of the time, if people had something they liked before, they just want the same exact thing again. Well.... I'm of course always trying to bring great wine to the table, but as a customer, I would ask that you be open to vintage variation to some degree too. Be open to tasting what made that season different. Do you remember the weather that season? The story of wine gets deeper if you allow it to. If a person wants literally the exact same thing year to year, I can't provide that even if I wanted to. It is not up to me. It is up to my vineyard. So, taste the difference! It is part of what keeps wine fresh and new! We've been growing grapes for a few millenia now. How have people still found passion for it? Things like this! So, hopefully the harvest will be good. Hopefully we will have great wine for you again next year and hopefully you all come back! This harvest thing seems like a lot of hoping, no? That's farming for you.
