Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Another glass of Chateau de Cochon Rire?
It looks like the United States is going to get another wine growing district when the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau finally approves it. A portion of western Iowa and northwestern Missouri has given over enough land from the usual corn and cattle to develop over sixty vinyards.
Northwestern Missouri meets the wine world, under a bid to designate one of the nation’s largest grape-growing regions.Perhaps one of the vinyards might name a wine after Steve King. Something like Le Connard Grimaçant
At more than 8.2 million acres, the proposed Loess Hills District sprawling across western Iowa and a slice of northwestern Missouri would far surpass any federally recognized winemaking region in California. It could also add some fizz to an area currently home to 13 bonded wineries, vineyards that pay a federal excise tax.
“I think this is going to be great for economic development in both states,” Michelle Wodtke Franks, executive director of the non-profit Golden Hills Resource Conservation and Development, Inc., said in an interview Monday.
If approved by the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, following the public comment period that expired Monday, wineries within the Loess Hills District Viticultural Area could use the term on wine made from the region’s grapes.
Sixty-six commercial vineyards, spanning a modest 112 acres, currently operate in the region still dominated by corn and soybean fields.
“The idea is that it would enhance the demand for grapes from the Loess Hills area,” Franks said, adding that viticultural area designation “has a capacity to be used as a marketing tool” for the broader region.
The Golden Hills organization filed the viticultural area application, along with the Western Iowa Grape Growers.
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