U Of M Team Searches For New Wine Grape That Can Survive The Coldest Minnesota Winter

U Of M Team Searches For New Wine Grape That Can Survive The Coldest Minnesota Winter

The University of Minnesota hasn't released a red wine grape in nearly 20 years. Researchers are hoping to find a new grape to please wine lovers.

EXCELSIOR, Minn — When most people taste wine, they search for good flavor and good aroma.

At the University of Minnesota Horticultural Research Center they search for perfection.

"For us, this is like finding the needle in the haystack,” Soo Li Teh said.

As the Director of Grape Breeding at the University of Minnesota, Teh has searched many haystacks for the special grape that has everything.

"I want you to be cold hardy. At the same time you better be resistant to these diseases, but while you're at it, make sure you taste so good,” Teh said.

It's a tall order to find a grape that consumers want to drink and growers want to grow. In Minnesota, it's not enough for the wine to taste good; it also has to survive the coldest winter imaginable.

"We recognize how expensive it is for growers to replace the vines if they need to rip it out because the vine had died,” Teh said.

The University of Minnesota’s wine grape breeding program began in the 1970s. Since then, the research team has released eight varieties, including six white and two red wine grapes.

This year the research team tested several red grape varieties in hopes of releasing a new grape that can be commercially viable for Minnesota wineries.

The last red grape released by the U of M was Marquette nearly 20 years ago.

Drew Horton, the team's research winemaker, says Marquette was the reason he moved to Minnesota. He hoped that one day, he would find a grape just as special.

"I like to think about the possibility. Have we made the next great grape? Have we got one?” Horton said.

"The One" may be here in the research team’s latest taste testing.

Teh says the team tested eight different wines featuring grapes grown in their research vineyard.

The first wine they sampled during the tasting was one they had tasted several times before.

“I believe this is the fifth year we have tasted this one and it has always been one of our favorites,” Teh said.

He is also excited about a newcomer this year.

“There is another wine that a few of us liked and it’s the first year we have tasted it, so there’s some promise there as well,” Teh said.

There’s a small chance one, or both samples could turn into a commercially viable wine grape.

Teh says it usually takes more than 10,000 tries to produce one wine grape that is tasty and cold hardy enough to market to the local winemaking industry.

"It is like expecting your child to run as fast as Usain Bolt, to swim as fast as Michael Phelps, and still be athletic and agile in different areas, and while you're at it you have to be academically excellent. So, we are really expecting a lot from our vines."

The U of M’s most recent grape release is the Clarion white wine grape released in 2023.

According to the university’s website, three vineyards are now growing the grape for commercial production.

SOURCE: KARE 11