Winter family enterprise to open in the spring

By Tim Krohn

ST. CLAIR — The hilltop where the Winter family is building the area’s newest winery is filled with family and ancient history.

Ray and Lisa Winter and their children had farmed the spot just east of their rural St. Clair farmsite, raising corn and soybeans. And through the years they’ve found ample evidence of the American Indians who made the hilltop home — a spot that was then mostly surrounded by water and protected from prairie fires.

“We always found artifacts on this hilltop, but not in the other fields. They must have stayed here in the summer,” said Ray Winter.

The artifacts will be part of the theme of the family’s new business, Indian Island Winery.

The winery is the culmination of a dream that took root nearly a decade ago when the family began a vineyard next to the farm. With the successful vineyard and nursery now totaling more than 13 acres, they took the step of building the winery, which will open next spring.

“It’s very exciting, but scary. It’s a big adventure,” Lisa said. “We wanted to keep the family together and this is a good way to have everyone together.”

While everyone pitches in on all tasks, daughter Angie will concentrate on the wine making end of the business, son Tom handles the vineyard and his wife, Angela, is the bookkeeper.

Angie took food science classes and interned at the University of Minnesota’s vintner program and spent nine months working at Swedish Hill Winery, one of the largest and most successful wineries in New York.

“I was a cellar worker and worked in the lab,” Angie said. “I got to see everything, it was really helpful.”

The Winters have also hired an experienced vintner as a consultant to help them the first three years.

Besides the Winters’ winery, Morgan Creek Winery near Cambria has been operating for several years and Chankaska Creek Ranch winery will open in two years between Mankato and St. Peter. There are about 30 licensed wineries in the state.

“The more the better,” Ray said. “I don’t view them as competition. The more wineries you get the more people you draw. Even if different wineries were to use the same grapes, each one gets a little different wine because of the process they use.”

The winery, located five miles south of Smiths Mill on a blacktop road, consists of an 11,000-square-foot steel building with three main rooms, one for the wine making, a main retail and tasting room and a room that can be used for small gatherings or private parties.

Outside the back of the building is a large covered patio, fire pit and a lower level patio, all overlooking a marsh, wildlife pond, woods and restored prairie areas. They hope to restore more wetlands in the area in the future.

With a production of some 5-tons of grapes per acre, they will have plenty of grapes from their vineyard to produce the dozen or more varieties of wine. They plan to make about 20,000 bottles of wine the first year.

They will be open from April until at least December. The winery will have a kitchen to serve hot food and they will feature live music one or two days on the weekends.

The Winters’ vineyard has about a dozen varieties of grapes, many developed by the University of Minnesota to withstand Minnesota winters.

Besides growing grapes, the Winters sell grape plants to others starting vineyards. Buyers pay a 50-cent-per-plant royalty that funds further research and development by the university and other private breeders.

“The (grape) market has been just as strong as ever as more and more wineries come on line,” Ray said. “Even though there are more and more vineyards there’s still good demand.”