Rhubarb Harvest is Close

Tuesday will be the start of Maple River Winery's 2012 Rhubarb Harvest Campaign.  This year, our goal is to bring in 100,000 pounds of North Dakota Rhubarb.  If my math is correct, that would be 50 tons of rhubarb.  We need a lot of rhubarb for our Rhubarb Wine, Strawberry Rhubarb Wine, Rhubarb Cordial and Rhubarb Vodka.  When we started 11 years ago, if someone would say to me that we would purchase 100,000 pounds of rhubarb, I would have laughed.  Well, you make a great product, people enjoy it, they come back for more.  We have the best customers in the world.  On behalf of the crew at Maple River Winery and Maple River Distillery, thank you for your purchases.  We appreciate your business.  Now time to get busy with rhubarb!

Bottling Bumble Bee Red Wine Today

Our Bumble Bee Red Wine from our Maple River Winery is one of a kind.  We wanted to incorporate wild North Dakota grapes into a wine but couldn't find the right combination.  We tried blending North Dakota honey and came up with a wonderful sweet red wine.  North Dakota usually ranks #1 in honey production in the United States.  Our honey that we use in our various honey wines is definitely considered local.  The honey is extracted about a mile from our winery.  The beekeeper has hives throughout our area...about a 40 mile radius.  This wonderful partnership has provided many pounds of honey going into many bottles of wine.  Whether it is our Bumble Bee Red Wine, Honeycomb Plum Wine, or our Honey Apple Wine, there is always one open in our refrigerator at home.

Simple Saturday Supper

After wrapping up at the Maple River Winery and Distillery tonight, decided to head home for supper.  Saturday we like to have pretty simple suppers. Tonight, since it is grilling season in North Dakota, we decided to have cheeseburgers and strawberry jello.  Of course, we decided to enjoy our Maple River Winery Dakota Cherry Wine to celebrate another wonderful week in the books.  Now that this note is written, time to curl up outside and listen to the birds sing.

Maple River Winery Expands

Maple River Distillery launched from historic downtown Casselton, North Dakota this holiday season by selling out of almost all of its production!! The Rhubarb Vodka, Rhubarb Cordial, and the Wild Plum Cordial have been the best sellers. I like mixing the Rhubarb Vodka with Lemonade. It goes great with the sunshine. My wife enjoys the Rhubarb Cordial chilled or poured over strawberries. Yum. I think the best would be chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with Rhubarb Cordial or Wild Plum Cordial drizzled over it.

The Maple River Distillery has become another tourist destination in historic downtown Casselton, North Dakota. Casselton is 15 minutes west of Fargo on I-94. Tasting room hours for the Maple River Winery and the Maple River Distillery continue to be year around Monday-Saturday from 10am to 5pm. Drop by and say hi!!

Maple River Winery on the road!!!

We have a very busy road this holiday season. This weekend begins our travels outside of the winery showcasing our wines throughout the state.
This weekend we have booths at 2 different events in Fargo. Friday and Saturday will find us at the Big One Arts and Craft Show at the Fargo Civic Center. Saturday will find us at the Fargodome for the Women's Showcase. Many thanks to our crew covering both of these shows for us so we can focus on getting product ready for the Maple River Distillery which will be open early November. North Dakota fruit everywhere!!

We will post the rest of our schedule here as we get closer. This year we will be attending the most shows ever in our 7 year history. Excited? absolutely!

World Record Fire Truck Parade Update

In 1 week we will know if we had enough entries to break the world record for the most fire trucks ever in a parade. We have been receiving a lot more phone calls than we expected to this date. We were hoping to be around 50% and have 25% of them the week of the parade and then 25% the day of the parade. We are cautiously optimistic since we are sitting at over 120 entries, but know we need more. It would be terrible if a couple had to cancel and we wound up 1 or 2 short. We know there are trucks coming from near Rochester, Minnesota to north and west of Minot, North Dakota. What we don't know is how many are going to show up the day of the parade. One of the magazine writers called them "drive-ups" instead of "walk-ups". Information regarding the fire truck parade can be found on www.casscountysummerfest.com. Information will be posted on there regarding where the best spots will be in Casselton to view this historic event.

Words can't express the appreciation for everyone who has helped so far in the planning process. In 1 week, we will know how great this is. Will there be 160? 200? 300? We hope everyone has a safe trip to and from Casselton and enjoy this historical moment.

Very busy Saturday at the Maple River Winery

We went to Cool Beans today to get the California Burger special for everyone working today. Someone made the comment it was fairly quiet so far on Saturday morning. It didn't last. Before we could finish our burgers several groups came into the winery's tasting room/Pride of Dakota gift shop. Chokecherry Jelly and Lilac Wine were the big winners today. It is surprising how each day of the week a different wine is the most popular. This is fun because we have been guessing each morning as to which will be the most popular wine of the day.

On a side note, strawberries have started coming in. They smell sooooo good and they taste even better. You can't beat locally grown strawberries.

Up next, nanking cherries and apricots. yum.