BlueStem Winery & TownsEnd Winery

My next winery visit would be a few months after the last trip. My goal has always been at least one winery per month but sometimes, we get busy and the time just seems to slip by. It was April 14th, 2012 and my girlfriend and I headed out on this rainy spring afternoon to the winery that is closest to my home. That first stop took us to BlueStem Winery in Parkersburg, IA. This winery is smack dab in the middle of downtown. They don't grow their own grapes so there is no need to have their winery out in the country. They buy their grapes and fruits from dealers to make their wine. They make their wine in the basement of the old building. The owner gave us a tour of the process but not before we had some samples first. He allowed us to sample many different flavors. We tried Once in a Blue Moon which was very sweet. It is made from many different fruits which is also the case of most of their wines. Some others we tried were Feelin' Groovy, Tongue Twister, Crystal Moon, Starry Night, and Dancing in the Moon Light. Their Feelin' Groovy wine was packed full of flavor. It is low on the sweetness spectrum but it still had strong fruit flavors that give you that sweet edge. After the sampling was over, that was when we were shown how the wine is made. We finished our visit with a friendly chat with the owner while discussing which wines to buy. After wrapping up our chat and buying a couple different bottles, we let him know we were off to our next stop and we thanked him for his hospitality.
Our next stop was only a half hour drive west to Hansell, IA to TownsEnd Winery. We pulled into the drive and found a cute building designated as their tasting room next to rows of grape vines. We walked into the tasting room and were greeted by a very pleasant woman. We chatted for a few minutes discussing where we were from while we looked at their wine selection. Unfortunately for us, they are a busy winery so they were out of a few flavors that we were hoping to try. We did get to try several different wines though. We sampled their Frontenac, Mulberry, Cranberry, Black Raspberry, Harvest White, and their Concord. Their Frontenac is a semi-dry wine with cherry and plum favors. It was smooth and quite good but a little too dry for me. Their Mulberry wine was very good. It is made from the berries of local mulberry trees and it had a subtle berry taste that was semi-sweet. The Cranberry was very good but similar to many others that I have had. The Black Raspberry was awesome and probably my favorite of the day. It is super sweet and should be consumed in small doses with a few bites of chocolate. You take a whiff and then a sip of the wine, then a bite of chocolate, then another drink of the wine. The chocolate helps bring out the rich berry flavor. We also tried the Harvest White which is an apple wine with good flavor but it was a semi-dry as well. The last one we sampled was their Concord which is usually quite sweet but they described their process for making it. They don't add extra sugar which is usually what other wineries do to make it sweeter. They just let their grapes add the natural sugars. That makes the final product semi-dry but with excellent flavor. As we finished our samples, we picked out a few more bottles to take with us on our way and found a couple of other items in their clearance section to please our satisfaction for the deal of the day. As we wrapped up, another group was arriving so we paid for our items, said our goodbyes and headed for home. Once again we had an excellent day and we didn't even have to travel too far from home. It was a great day to waste what would have been a boring rainy afternoon.