Welcome to Shelf Stars, The Growler’s cheap wine column in which we discover the best under-$15 bottles in town. This edition of Shelf Stars is brought to you with underwriting support from Central Avenue Liquors. Whenever a wine drinker in the Twin Cities comes across the chenin blanc grape on a menu at a restaurant, … [ Read more]
Shelf Stars: Two Endearing Lambruscos
August 20, 2020 by
Welcome to Shelf Stars, The Growler’s cheap wine column in which we discover the best under-$15 bottles in town. This edition of Shelf Stars is brought to you with underwriting support from Central Avenue Liquors. The height of popularity for lambrusco in the United States coincided roughly with that of the Pet Rock and feathered … [ Read more]
Shelf Stars: Never met a Bobal I didn’t like
August 13, 2020 by
Welcome to Shelf Stars, The Growler’s cheap wine column in which we discover the best under-$15 bottles in town. This edition of Shelf Stars is brought to you with underwriting support from Central Avenue Liquors. Is it a coincidence that many words with multiple B’s are used to describe fun and cheerful things? Bubbles. Baubles. … [ Read more]
Shelf Stars: For great rosé, en Gard!
August 6, 2020 by
Welcome to Shelf Stars, The Growler’s cheap wine column in which we discover the best under-$15 bottles in town. This edition of Shelf Stars is brought to you with underwriting support from Central Avenue Liquors. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, it can be maddening to find the right rosé. Wine stores often … [ Read more]
Shelf Stars: The Magic of Montalcino
July 23, 2020 by
Welcome to “Shelf Stars,” The Growler’s cheap wine column in which we discover the best under-$15 bottles in town. This edition of Shelf Stars is brought to you with underwriting support from The Wine Thief and Ale Jail. Montalcino is what you think of when you picture a storybook Italian town. It’s a tight cluster … [ Read more]
Shelf Stars • A Cheat Code for Summer: White Wine from Gascony
June 30, 2020 by
Welcome to Shelf Stars, The Growler’s cheap wine column in which we discover the best under-$15 bottles in town. This edition of Shelf Stars is brought to you with underwriting support from Central Avenue Liquors. In a mini-fridge in the basement of our home, my dad would keep bottles of a bargain California white that … [ Read more]
Bordeaux Buyer’s Guide
June 16, 2020 by
Wine drinkers and non-drinkers alike know the term “Bordeaux.” Images of stuffy cigar lounges filled with haughty white folk come to mind, or perhaps an expansive and expensive cellar full of out-of-reach wines for us, everyday people. An honest look at the whole of Bordeaux, however, reveals a large winegrowing region filled primarily with modest … [ Read more]
Georgia On My Wine
April 3, 2020 by
A number of countries claim to be the birthplace to winemaking—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, etc. However, perhaps one of the richest, oldest, and most relevant histories of modern winemaking comes from the Republic of Georgia. Georgian wine has experienced a great many changes to its political and geographical landscape over the years: facing the phylloxera epidemic … [ Read more]
So you want to open a winery? A guide to starting up in Minnesota
December 13, 2019 by
So you’ve decided to make the leap from amateur to professional winemaker. Your fondness has grown so great for the prominent stone fruit flavors of La Crescent or the well-balanced Itasca, that you’ve been coaxed into putting your name onto a bottle and getting it into the hands of grape-indulgent gallivants. The road to professional … [ Read more]
AxeBridge Wine Company opening in Minneapolis’ North Loop next spring
December 3, 2019 by
Ashley and Aaron Schram of Schram Vineyards Winery and Brewery build their vision for a new urban winery It’s been a busy year for Ashley and Aaron Schram, the owners of Schram Vineyards in Waconia, Minnesota’s first combination winery and brewery. The Schrams launched their modern German-inspired beer hall and brewery Schram Haus this spring, … [ Read more]
2019 Kind-of-a-Big-Deal Readers’ Choice Award Winners
November 26, 2019 by
Who better than the readers of The Growler to nominate and vote for the finest of the finest in Minnesota beer, spirits, food, arts, and culture? We had a tidal wave of votes to determine the winners of the 2019 Kind-of-a-Big-Deal Readers’ Choice Awards, and we’re proud to share the results with you. These are … [ Read more]
3 Minnesota Cideries take home awards from U.S. Cider Open
November 19, 2019 by
Three Minnesota cideries took home awards from the sixth annual U.S. Open Cider Championships, with the final round of judging held in Buffalo, New York. Duluth’s newest craft cideries shined. In the Perry & Pear Cider category, Wild State Cider won bronze with their Pear Cider, while Duluth Cider garnered a gold medal in the Anything Goes … [ Read more]
The Vine Room is a Taste of California (And Beyond) in Hopkins
October 28, 2019 by
There’s never been a Twin Cities wine bar quite like The Vine Room in Hopkins. The motley assortment of such establishments in these parts are uniformly designed to be comfy-cozy, with warm wood tones and what those of a certain age call “flattering lighting” (i.e., dim and dusky). Not The Vine Room. This is one … [ Read more]
Autolysis: When Yeast Die for the Wine Drinker’s Pleasure
October 9, 2019 by
Alcohol has been celebrated with awe for millennia. This mysterious transfiguration of sugar has inspired lore and legend, even religion, until the 19th century when Louis Pasteur proved that yeast is the mechanism at play. We now understand, in winemaking, a variety of yeast strains carry out the primary conversion of grape sugar into alcohol. Only a few wines, however, utilize the yeast post-fermentation to … [ Read more]
Wine and Cider Guide 2019
August 29, 2019 by
Each autumn, the branches of apple trees and vineyard vines hang heavy with the fruits of a long growing season. Every ray of sunlight, drop of rain, and nutrient in the soil have been soaked up to produce plump clusters of grapes and swollen apples filled with the juices, tannins, sugars, and acids that the … [ Read more]
