A Story Of A Simpler Time And Wine
For the second year now I have done one of my fur trade era re-enactment camps up near Lake Mille Lacs. It happens in conjunction with the Mille Lacs County Historical Society. This year our group was hosted by the wonderful people that run the DeCorsa Vineyard and Farm Winery near Isle, MN.
From their website, the name DeCorsa is taken from DeCoursey. In Italian “Corsa” means journey. It has been quite a ride!
They use No herbicides, cultivating instead, or pesticides are used in the vineyard. Trellises are constructed from locally harvested tamarack, white oak, and cedar posts. They do not use treated posts!
They are 'off the grid.' making electricity with solar power and wind. A windmill pumps water using gravity to supply the winery and irrigate the vineyard. Wine is stored in a below-ground wine cellar at 45 to 65 degrees winter and summer using no energy.
There is no filtering or pumping in their wine process. The different wines are bottled, corked, and labeled by hand. Labels are printed with antique Letterpress printing methods.
For just $7.00 we sampled a number of the wines. For those that like a little drier tasting wine, the Salvage Barn Red is very good. For those that like the sweeter taste, the Sweet Stella we found to be a very dangerous wine in that it goes down like juice.
With this being very near Isle and Waukon the lake and other area attractions it's a great destination.