IOWA'S PREMIER WINE & FOOD EXPO

Winners have been announced for the amateur wine making contest sponsored by BlueStem Winery and held in conjunction with the Iowa Food and Wine Expo which was held at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines November 13 and 14, 2009.

Two of the three category winners are customers of BlueStem Winery! Robert Smith of Webster City won in the Grape wine division and Joel Duden of Marshalltown won in the Mead/Cider division.

Way to go Robert and Joel!! Got a great Iowa wine that you make and are proud of? Contact BlueStem Winery by e-Mail at bluestemwine@mchsi.com and get your e-Mail address on our notification list. We'll let you know in advance about next year's event so you can enter your favorite wines.

It is worth entering! This year it cost $2.50 per bottle to enter the contest. For every two bottles entered you received a ticket to attend the Iowa Food and Wine Expo (gate price was $20 in 2009). Enter 4 bottles and you have 2 free passes to the event. Let's be making wine!

WINEMAKING CLASSES

We have had a positive response to our one-on-one wine making classes. Saturday mornings have seen us with couples coming in prior to our store opening so that a class on making wine can be finished before the store opens. It is a great way to start off a Saturday morning and many couples are busy making wine by the end of the day.

We like to have time to show the contents of our home winemaking equipment kits and explain how each piece of equipment is used. Most of the equipment is pretty straight-forward but there are always a few how-tos that we like to go through.

Time is then spent talking about the various WinExpert and Cellar Craft wine kits that we have for sale. We encourage our new winemakers to start off with one of these superb kits so that their first wine making experience is a good one. The use of one of our Cellar Craft or WinExpert wine kits virtually guarantees that our new wine making hobbyists will get a super wine to enjoy with their first attempt.

After selecting one of the Cellar Craft or WinExpert kits to purchase, we then open the box and go through the instructions so that the new winemakers can ask questions and have a thorough understanding of the process of making wine.

If their preference is to make wine from fruit or their own grapes, BlueStem Winery stocks a complete line of winemaking ingredients, wine making equipment and winemaking supplies to meet their needs.

Have a group of people who want to learn to make wine? We can get together and have an evening session and walk through the entire process at your convenience. Call us at (319) 346-1046 or e-mail the winery at bluestemwine@mchsi.com or at info@bluestemwine.com.

BREWING CLASSES

Although we have never claimed to be as knowledgeable about brewing beer as maybe we are at wine making, we do offer instruction for the neophyte brewer on the basic beer brewing equipment required and have this equipment available in three different equipment kits.

Our brewing instructor extraordinaire, Cliff Ozmun, has left our area for the warmer climes of Texas and is no longer available to teach our beginning and intermediate level brewing classes. We continue our search for someone who might take Cliff's place as our resident home brew guru. Volunteers are being solicited!

For the beginner or advanced brewer, BlueStem Winery stocks a very diverse line of home brewing ingredients, home brewing supplies and brewing equipment and is expanding this lineup of goodies often. Whether you are a new brewer getting started with extract kits or an intermediate brewer doing partial mash kits such as our own BlueStems Best kits or an advanced zymergy enthusiast doing whole grain brewing, we are equipped to supply your needs.

Interested in learning home brew basics? Read about our wine making classes (in the left hand column). We offer the same type arrangement for learning to brew beer as we do for learning about making wine.

BLUESTEM FEATURED IN MAKE MINE WINE

BlueStem Winery was recently featured in both Make Mine Wine magazine and the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.

The Courier article featured both BlueStem Winery and its national and international wine making and beer brewing supplies business.

Make Mine Wine magazine, a publication which touts Midwestern wine, had two articles featuring BlueStem Winery in its Summer 2008 issue.

The first article, Homemade Wine: Make Some Magic!! started on page 26 and featured BlueStem Winery and its national and international business marketing supplies for making wine from backyard fruit plus WinExpert and Cellar Craft wine kits.

The second article started on page 28 and featured the national and international aspects of our internet business and was titled Vern Holm: An Iowa Winemaker with International Connections.

In addition to supplies for home wine making, BlueStem Winery also sells home brew supplies and these, too, are available both nationally and internationally via this web site.