Jennifer Reeder (Deer Springs Winery)

Tyler Bertsch: So this is Tyler Bertsch, and I'm here with Jennifer Reeder, right?

Jennifer Reeder: That's right.

Tyler Bertsch: Okay. And then let's start off with just how did this get started?

Jennifer Reeder: Okay. Well, Deer Springs Winery, we opened in 2007, the winery part of it. Prior to that, we started growing grapes in 2001. That's when we first planted our first acre of Edelweiss. It wasn't even a full acre. I think it was half an acre. It's a long time ago. It started originally with my parents. My dad's still alive. He's 87 years old. He's a retired Navy guy. My mom passed away four years ago. But my parents decided they were really interested in growing wine grapes in Nebraska. After my dad retired from his Navy career, they moved back and were looking for... I guess for some reason, that caught their attention, because my dad owns this farmland out here, and he had some areas where everybody picks the place to plant the grapes where nothing else grows or it's not—

Tyler Bertsch: Anything else? No. Let's plant grapes.

Jennifer Reeder: Let's plant grapes. Why not? So that's what happened. And at that time, my kids were junior high age, maybe, pre-teen age. And I had a full-time job already. I was an instructor at Southeast Community College in the surgical tech program. That was my previous career. I was a surgical technologist. But anyway, they started doing this grape thing, and they really wanted it to be a family venture and talking me and my husband into getting involved, and we're like, "Okay. Well, we'll fit it in as best we can with the kids," and all that. And eventually they kind of convinced... I have two sisters who, one doesn't even live here anymore, but anyway, kind of got them a little bit involved and grew some grapes for a while. And we all pitched in and helped out and started... When it was ready to harvest, then we actually sold our grapes to a winery called Blue Valley out by Crete.

Tyler Bertsch: Oh, okay.

Jennifer Reeder: It's one of the original wineries around here.

Tyler Bertsch: Are they still around?

Jennifer Reeder: No, they're not. A really nice couple, retired couple owned it and ran it for a few years. Unfortunately, one of the owners, Jim, he died of cancer, and so his wife Marlene tried to continue on with it for a few years and it was just too much for her too. So with her family, they decided it was time for her to not do that anymore. So that's originally where we started selling our grapes was to Marlene at Blue Valley, and that worked out really well. In the meantime, I just decided to try making wine as a hobby, just because I was curious about it and wanted to learn more. Like, okay, we're growing these grapes. They're doing good. What are we doing right, and what can we do with them? So I just started making wine as a hobbyist, and I just developed this crazy, geeked out passion for it and started doing more and more and getting really interested in it.

And when Marlene decided to quit her winery business, she called me one day and asked me if we'd be interested in buying her equipment. It's like small scale winery equipment. And I just was like, "Yeah, that would be... I would like to do that." So talked with my family, talked with my parents, and we all mulled things over for a while, and everybody was like, "Yeah, we should open a winery." So this house here, the winery here, this was actually the original farmhouse on this homestead property. It was built in 1876 by my dad's great-grandfather, whoever ancestor there. So it’s been in my dad's family this whole time. And so this house was empty. Nobody was living in it. It was just available. The barn across the parking lot, the big white building, that was actually the granary for the farm when it was an active farm, not being used. So it was like, well, we could make this into the production building and make the house into the tasting room and go from there.

And so it mushroomed from that. Of course, looking back, it's as much as it costs to renovate and convert, we could have put up new buildings. I questioned the wisdom of what we did, but we did it.

Tyler Bertsch: It's cool though. I mean, 1876. That's neat.

Jennifer Reeder: We still have the deed on that wall over there. To the left, that square frame is the actual deed of the property from the Homestead Act. So the best aspect of it is the historical, I think, and just that it's been in the family for so long. It would be nice to have more room sometimes or more modernized whatever, but on the other hand, it's a pretty interesting area and everything. So that's where it started.

Tyler Bertsch: Okay. Started off with half acre of Edelweiss?

Jennifer Reeder: Half acre of Edelweiss. Yeah. And after that, we planted Vignoles. We planted Saint Croix. And what else? Oh, Saint Vincent. I don't know if you're familiar with Saint Vincent, but it really made good wine. It was really good, but like a lot of these vines that are more vinifera—

Tyler Bertsch: More Missouri-based.

Jennifer Reeder: Kind of like Chambourcin. They did great for three or four years, and then they just started collapsing.

Tyler Bertsch: Started getting hit with winter damage and—

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah. I think a lot of the trunks split from frost and everything else, and that was heartbreaking because that made such good wine. I really was happy with that. But that happens and you end up pulling stuff out and then planting something else and all that.

Tyler Bertsch: How many acres at its peak? How many acres did you have?

Jennifer Reeder: Two and a half. Right now we're down to like an acre because we've had to pull out all of our Saint Croix. It got really bad 2,4-D damage. That's one that's really sensitive to it. Where other varieties are a little hardier and don't take the hits quite as bad, it just took hit after hit for a couple years, and we were just never able to rehabilitate it. So you have to make that call. You're like, "Okay, do we pull out a half an acre of grapes and start over, or what do we do?" So we pulled those out.

Tyler Bertsch: How old were they?

Jennifer Reeder: Oh, I want to say probably seven or eight years old.

Tyler Bertsch: Oh, that's a bummer. They started to get right in their prime.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah, and we tried for a couple years to baby them, and do this, and do that, and fix them, but it just never seemed like they had a very good crop after that. It was real minimal and just not getting enough to make it worth it. So we have that. We have Lacrosse, which we still have. Lacrosse actually has been the one that's held in there the longest, and it's kind of a workhorse. It's pretty resistant to a lot of things. It's a jungle. It's like a battle. You go in there with a machete just chopping that stuff away. But honestly, it's actually probably one of the easier ones to deal with. In fact, I feel like we just sort of neglect it. We don't even net it. We don't put bird netting on it.

Tyler Bertsch: What Brix do you pick it at?

Jennifer Reeder: Usually it ends up getting to maybe 17, more like 16 to 17.

Tyler Bertsch: So before the birds really go after it?

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah, it's ready, so we kind of are lucky that way.

Tyler Bertsch: What about wind? Does it just get crazy in the wind?

Jennifer Reeder: Well, just like everybody's had wind, things happen. Where you go out there and your whole rows of vines have blown over. That's Nebraska. We had that happen a couple years ago. But we have our vines going north-south, and that's where the prevailing winds seem to go, so we don't really often get that one that knocks them off.

Tyler Bertsch: I had another grower say the tendrils are really strong. Is that true?

Jennifer Reeder: They are. Yeah. So that probably helps in the wind. Keeps them on there, where other ones might just get blown off and just lay on the ground.

Tyler Bertsch: What about herbicide damage? Is it pretty good with that?

Jennifer Reeder: I think it is. I really have rarely seen it. But ours are also kind of in a lower slope area maybe, where that Saint Croix was up on a higher ridge area. So I wonder too if just the location's kind of protected it somewhat from what some other places have.

Tyler Bertsch: Your Saint Croix, how was that in the wind? Did it have shoots break easy?

Jennifer Reeder: It's fragile. And as other people might tell you too, the berries just shatter off of the clusters a lot.

Tyler Bertsch: Like due to rain or just bad pollination or just what?

Jennifer Reeder: I don't know what the answer to that is.

Tyler Bertsch: I guess I'm talking more splitting. Did you have splitting issues with it?

Jennifer Reeder: No, not splitting. Just shattering. So you almost had to, when you're picking it, put the bucket right under there because a lot of the berries are just going to fall off just from manipulating the vines and everything. But Jim Ballard, he grows Saint Croix, and he does pretty well with his. He doesn't seem to quite have some of the issues that we had or some of the other growers have.

Tyler Bertsch: What's your soil type? Is it pretty uniform too?

Jennifer Reeder: It is. It's clay. But in terms of pH and all that, it's nothing crazy.

Tyler Bertsch: Is it more loamy clay, or do you think it's over 60% clay?

Jennifer Reeder: Oh, it's clay. It's definitely very heavy clay. And we never did anything to ameliorate it, which we probably should have back then to break it up a little bit. We just didn't think about it at the time.

Tyler Bertsch: What was the land before?

Jennifer Reeder: Crops. Soybeans, corn.

Tyler Bertsch: So exactly where did you plant the grapes? Was it corn and soybeans, but it wasn't ideal?

Jennifer Reeder: No, it wasn't ideal. It was a smaller chunk of land, not easy to get into and by a waterway. It wasn’t really ideal farmland.

Tyler Bertsch: So you had Edelweiss. With Edelweiss, how was it in the wind? Were the shoots breaking easy?

Jennifer Reeder: We ended up pulling it out after four years because it just was not doing well. I think because we didn't know what we were doing when we planted them. It was the first variety we planted, so we didn't give it enough water, we didn't treat it right, we didn't do anything right. We just stuck them in the ground. They were bare-root, very small-rooted, and probably too small to plant the way we did. We didn't have anything set up for irrigation. We weren't really on the ball with that.

Tyler Bertsch: You kind of have that battle. I've had it in my head that my soil is loamy clay, so it holds water. I'm like, "Do I want to put in all the irrigation?" But really that first year or two makes a big difference.

Jennifer Reeder: We learned that. So afterward, whenever we plant anything now, we do a lot of irrigating the first year there. Also, that block of grapes was really close to the road here, and I almost feel like the traffic from the road and the dust made those first few rows struggle. Gravel hitting them, things like that. Dust and everything wasn't the best thing either.

Tyler Bertsch: Was Edelweiss pretty good with herbicide?

Jennifer Reeder: Seemed to be. I don't think it was any worse than others. It wasn't more sensitive. But we didn't really have it that long. We didn't have it for eight or 10 years where you can really get a good history.

Another variety we had, which I loved, was called Bianca. Have you ever heard of that one?

Tyler Bertsch: Isn't that more of a vinifera base?

Jennifer Reeder: It is, yeah. It was from Northern Vineyards Supply. It was a really, really nice wine. Absolutely delicious white wine. It was one that Paul Reed encouraged us to plant because he learned a lot about it. We put in 250 vines and they did great for probably six or seven years. And again, probably about the same time as that Saint Vincent, we started having problems with it. It got the apple twig borer.

So I had Steve Gamet come out and take a look at them because I was just like, "What is going on?" One whole side of it would just be gone. How is half my vine dead? So he’s cutting into it and he’s like, "You can tell, you’ve got the apple borer thing."

Tyler Bertsch: And they're hard to get out.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah. We even tried a couple of years to treat it. Got it a little bit under control, but it just seemed like it was not going to work.

Tyler Bertsch: How did your other vines do with apple twig borer when that hit?

Jennifer Reeder: That was the only one that got it, which is interesting.

Tyler Bertsch: I had another grower say that their Labrusca variety got hit pretty hard with them. I don't know if Riparia-based vines do better against that or not.

Jennifer Reeder: Well, honestly, that's the only vine we ever had a problem with in all our years. I wonder if it came from the place that had it infected. We were the only winery or vineyard that grew it. Everybody thought we were probably pretty dumb for doing it, but it really did make some excellent wine. I wish I had those vines still because it was really nice.

Interesting though, when you're talking about growing your vines low to the ground, your vinifera ones, I think because it was vinifera basically, they grow low. I think that's the nature. We had it on a VSP, but it was very European. Everything about it was very European. You could just tell. The trunks, the cordons, everything—it was definitely not your American cold wine grape.

Tyler Bertsch: Not Riparia, not our wild vines that climb the trees.

Jennifer Reeder: Oh, no, no, no. It was dainty and it needed a lot of attention to get it through the winter. Anyway, that was an interesting experiment. It might be worth trying again if you were going to grow anything in your experimental vines.

Tyler Bertsch: So it wasn't the cold hardiness or the disease per se?

Jennifer Reeder: It seemed to do pretty well getting through the winters. Maybe the temperature made it more susceptible to the apple borer. I don't know what actually fed into all that problem, but it was kind of interesting. I think it actually did okay temperature-wise. It was okay. So, you know.

Tyler Bertsch: What are some other varieties you've grown?

Jennifer Reeder: Okay. Saint Vincent, Saint Croix. We've got Lacrosse. We have Vignoles. We did that Edelweiss, which didn't work. And the Bianca. That's it so far. Oh, we just planted... I can't remember what I'm going to tell you. You have them in your vineyard. Itasca. Two years ago we planted some Itasca, and I'm hoping that does well. It seems like people are pretty happy with that.

Tyler Bertsch: Yeah. It makes a great wine. It's pretty tough, at least in my experience. Of those varieties, were there any that you thought would just get hammered with diseases? If you generally could rank them, which ones required the most maintenance for you to keep them disease-free?

Jennifer Reeder: Probably the Vignoles. I've got some Vignoles out here in this little area over there, which I've been trying to keep that stuff alive for a decade.

Tyler Bertsch: Such a good wine though.

Jennifer Reeder: I know. I get nothing off of it. The trunks are like this. As old as they are, they ought to have really good trunks and cordons. Especially like the last two years, I've gone out there and just cut dead vines off, because it's been a battle. I just haven't had the heart yet to just stick the fork in the whole vineyard. I keep trying to rehabilitate it. I need to quit, because it's just... I mean, I can't even harvest enough grapes off of it to make a quantity of wine that justifies the work.

Tyler Bertsch: Do you think it was disease or winter kill or what's the biggest issue with it?

Jennifer Reeder: I think it's cold. I think it really doesn't do well with our climate. What I see when they're dead is the trunks are split or the cordons are split. And also they're very fragile with the wind and everything. It's a lot of problems, which it's too bad because actually it makes such a good wine.

Tyler Bertsch: When you say wind, now do you mean the berries fall off or the shoots break?

Jennifer Reeder: The shoots break. The shoots.

Tyler Bertsch: The tendrils are pretty weak?

Jennifer Reeder: It's kind of wimpy. And the clusters are those real tight, compact ones, so you probably get botrytis. You've got to spray, and if we have a wet summer, it's just a mess. You're in trouble. So that's one that I guess at some point, I've just been busy with everything else, I just need to go, "All right you guys, we're done. We're going to take this out and do something different." But that's a hard call to make.

Tyler Bertsch: What about Japanese beetles? Do they attack any varieties more than other ones?

Jennifer Reeder: Well, it's kind of interesting. The field across from our Lacrosse vineyard that was over there sometimes alternates between soybeans and corn. These things come out of the soybeans apparently, from what I've been told. So year to year it's a little bit different. But the last two years, we get them, but we've only had to pass one spray.

Tyler Bertsch: They've been weak the last couple years. Other growers have confirmed that.

Jennifer Reeder: Okay. The last time they were really bad it sounds like was probably five or six years ago where you had to go three or four times to do a spray because they were crazy. Maybe it's a cycle thing. Maybe we're going to have years where we don't really have them as a problem, and the other years are just horrifying. As long as you catch it early, I think you just manage it. They don't hurt the grapes, they're just nasty and make your vineyard look sad.

Tyler Bertsch: Was there one variety they just always hammered or do you think it was pretty even?

Jennifer Reeder: I'd say it was even. I wouldn't say I could identify that they went after something less than any others. It might just be seasonal too, for a lot of reasons.

Tyler Bertsch: Any of them have issues with berry splitting with big rains?

Jennifer Reeder: We haven't. The Lacrosse does pretty well. They're not giant berries. They have a little bit of a delicate skin, but they seem to be okay. I guess there was a couple years ago, we had a terrible... what happened? This was like, I want to say it was hail, but not hail. Like super hard rain and wind. And that was the year actually where it did blow over a couple of our rows because the wind went west to east. And we did actually get some damage to the side of the vines where the wind hit them. And almost like if it was the rain or hail or whatever, did do some damage to those berries.

Tyler Bertsch: I had another grower say that and it was they had little brown spots or they were bruised.

Jennifer Reeder: I think it was Richard at 426 because they experienced maybe the same weather event that we did here.

Tyler Bertsch: That was the same one that hit Branched Oak Lake, I think, and it wiped out all those trees. That was a nasty one and it came just south of us by probably a mile or two.

Jennifer Reeder: It was weird.

Tyler Bertsch: It was. And it was like it wasn't really wide, but it was narrow and violent.

Jennifer Reeder: And surprisingly fast. It happened fast.

Tyler Bertsch: Was there any vines you thought held up better or didn't show any damage?

Jennifer Reeder: It seems all about equal across the board at this point. The newest, the youngest vines we have are those Itasca and they're only two years old. We planted 250 of them and in two years we've only lost one. I'm really impressed with that.

Tyler Bertsch: That's the same with me.

Jennifer Reeder: Really?

Tyler Bertsch: Yeah. Mine, I nuked it with the sprayer on accident.

Jennifer Reeder: That's because my husband hit it with a weed whacker. So it wasn't disease or anything, it was just operator error happening.

Tyler Bertsch: Yeah, they're pretty good.

Jennifer Reeder: I'm hoping that's going to be a good one.

Tyler Bertsch: What about drought? Was there any varieties you felt like did better than others when there wasn't a lot of rain, or do you irrigate pretty consistently?

Jennifer Reeder: We do not. We just irrigate the young vines. Our others, we haven't irrigated in years. And maybe we've just been lucky and had rain at the right time. But it almost seems like the years where we've had those hot dry summers, we've had better crops in terms of grape quality.

Tyler Bertsch: I've generally heard that. It's great when your vines are mature, it stinks when they're babies.

Jennifer Reeder: So I think as long as we keep up when they're young, but once you got them established and you get some spring rains and then maybe in July a little bit, but then have a hot dry ripening season, then you don't have the diseases and that Brix will get right up there. And the pH will drop and the acid will drop. Those are the years when I've seen we've actually had really good grapes. California weather.

Tyler Bertsch: It is nice. That's what I always say to people. Growing grapes in Nebraska, it's funny because it's like expert mode or really difficult, and out there it's almost like easy mode. They probably hate me saying that.

Jennifer Reeder: They have no idea what we suffer with. It is easy out there.

Tyler Bertsch: But we do have some really unique flavors that make it really cool, make it really worth it that they can't get. Anyway, so you think, was there any that did better in drought, or you think it's pretty even?

Jennifer Reeder: I think they all did about the same. I really feel like it was pretty consistent.

Tyler Bertsch: The one I've heard people say is Brianna has definitely outpaced all the others in drought conditions but you don't grow that.

Jennifer Reeder: We don't grow Brianna. But it does ripen very nicely in the hot dry weather, really nicely. Some of the better Brianna, because I buy Ted Schekirke’s Brianna last year. I used to buy Brianna from Gary out in Arapahoe, Gary Thompson. He had that big vineyard out there. I used to buy my Brianna from him and it was always, when it was hot and dry, able to get it really nicely ripened.

Tyler Bertsch: Any issues with black rot?

Jennifer Reeder: No, strangely. Go figure.

Tyler Bertsch: I feel like I'm the only person that really struggled with that my first year, but I got it under control. It doesn't seem like we've had as bad a problem the last five, six years.

Jennifer Reeder: I think that's why.

Tyler Bertsch: What about downy or powdery mildew, anthracnose? Phomopsis.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah. We've had some of that. But it's been a few years. Honestly, I would say the last three or four years, very little disease problem. So it's really interesting.

Tyler Bertsch: Last year was kind of the last... I mean, it was normal precipitation. But I feel like the four or five years before that, it was just... 2019 was really rainy. Everybody in Nebraska remembers that because that was the flood. That was nuts. But those years in between last year and 2019, those five, six years, it's been pretty dry.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah. And I think as long as it dries out when it needs to, you're going to be a little lucky on having to deal with that kind of stuff.

Tyler Bertsch: What about winter damage? Is there varieties you feel like are pretty... I know you had touched on this, but maybe varieties that did worse than others, some that were maybe a little bit better or bulletproof, and did it matter where it was in location on your vineyard?

Jennifer Reeder: I would say Lacrosse definitely has been the most durable in terms of everything. And maybe it's the location. It is kind of a little bit downhill, so maybe it's a little more protected from frost and everything. But it really just seems to do pretty well with most conditions that we face. Probably the... that vignoles is probably the one that right now I'm just having the hardest time with, for a lot of reasons.

Tyler Bertsch: It's pretty tender, but it's such a good wine.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch: We're kind of on the northern edge of that. It's like Chambourcin. So good, but it's not hardy.

Jennifer Reeder: I know. It's too bad because it makes such a good wine. I just love it.

Tyler Bertsch: Although I think Itasca, that's really good.

Jennifer Reeder: Good. I'm glad to hear that. I've tried some of the wines and I really liked them. I hope that turns out well. But I need to plant another red probably at some point to fill in the acre block we've got over there. So I have a good source of Petite Pearl from Henry. He's a really good grower too.

Tyler Bertsch: And your Petite Pearl, I had it probably two, three years ago, it was fantastic.

Jennifer Reeder: It's really good.

Tyler Bertsch: It's really good. It's my favorite grape by far.

Jennifer Reeder: Oh, for sure. And it's... like as a wine maker, you find you have grapes that you really just like working with because they just make the wine themselves. You don't have to do a whole lot. You just want to not mess it up. And that's one where you just really don't have to do a lot of interventions or adjustments or anything, so that one's an easy one.

Tyler Bertsch: What about harvest? What do you do there? Because I've heard all kinds of unique ideas. How do you handle that?

Jennifer Reeder: We are really lucky because first of all, our vineyards are small. We don't have a lot. Our customers love to come out and pick grapes for us. Year after year, the same people. They all want to know, and we give them gift cards to the winery and all that kind of stuff. But they love it. They'll come out, and I try to always arrange it on a Saturday morning. And they're very happy to come out and spend the day picking grapes. So I guess I feel spoiled that way. It's not been a battle. And our vineyard's too small to do mechanical. It wouldn't make sense. It's not even set up for it.

Tyler Bertsch: You use wood posts or metal?

Jennifer Reeder: Metal. Yeah, metal.

Tyler Bertsch: Did you ever have wood?

Jennifer Reeder: No. We went straight to metal. We kind of were smart that way. Because the wood ones can cause you some problems down the road. Sometimes you have to do that, but we were able to put metal ones in. So harvest is almost just like a social thing. It's not a huge thing for me.

Tyler Bertsch: What about your spray schedule? How often do you... let's say a normal year where it's not super dry, how often would you spray these varieties? Five times, seven times?

Jennifer Reeder: Probably four or five. My husband John does the spraying, so he's more up to date on all that. He's always like, "I've gotta go spray," and watching the weather and everything. So I would say four is probably pretty normal.

Tyler Bertsch: Do you have any fungicides that you're like, "This is our go-to. We love it. It works"?

Jennifer Reeder: I couldn't tell you what his favorite one is.

Tyler Bertsch: I know Mancozeb is used by a lot of people.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah, probably. That's definitely one. But it seems like honestly the spray part has been pretty easy and routine. It hasn't been a big—

Tyler Bertsch: What about any other pests, like grape flea beetle?

Jennifer Reeder: No.

Tyler Bertsch: Anything?

Jennifer Reeder: Deer occasionally.

Tyler Bertsch: I was just going to go to that. Deer Springs, so how's the deer?

Jennifer Reeder: There's a spring out there and we saw four does out there the other day. But they don't get too involved with the vineyard. We'll see them at the very far end closer to where they hang out. But I think there are enough other critters around here, coyotes and our dogs. My dog is out all the time roaming around. So I would not say deer are a threat. They are just kind of a—

Tyler Bertsch: Okay.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch: What about raccoons?

Jennifer Reeder: No raccoons, but we are seeing more wild turkeys.

Tyler Bertsch: Do they have anything to do with grapes?

Jennifer Reeder: They will apparently get in there and eat the grapes. Some of the problem is that they'll roost in the trellising and mess up your trellising too because they're heavy birds. They'll get in there and do some damage. Just the other day in that field over there, there were probably eight or ten wild turkeys running around.

Tyler Bertsch: Oh man.

Jennifer Reeder: So if you want to go turkey hunting, that's the place to do it.

Tyler Bertsch: Any other wildlife issues you can think of?

Jennifer Reeder: Raccoons, we see some. We've got badgers unfortunately.

Tyler Bertsch: What about voles or anything like that?

Jennifer Reeder: We've got those little ground squirrels. They can get in there and do some damage to the roots if they start a colony around there. But mostly they are more around here eating my bulbs and things like that, not so much in the vineyard. We have snakes in the vineyard, which I think the snakes keep the voles away.

Tyler Bertsch: Oh nice. They probably help.

Jennifer Reeder: They do. They scare the crap out of me sometimes, but they do help with the rodents and other rodent situations that can happen.

Tyler Bertsch: What about netting?

Jennifer Reeder: Well, we kind of strangely enough quit netting a couple years ago for a variety of reasons and it's worked out. I don't know if we've just been lucky. We're picking our grapes before birds know they're ripe—and these are white grapes because I think the red ones are going to be more of a risk.

Tyler Bertsch: So which varieties do you have right now? You have Lacrosse.

Jennifer Reeder: I've got Lacrosse, Vignoles, and then the Itasca which is still not ready yet. I have no red grapes right now and I actually think that's part of it. And also I wonder too if we've seen different migratory things going on with the birds. I don't see the same kinds of birds that we used to see, like those little yellow finches. I don't see as many of those now. So every year we're like, "Are we going to put the nets on? I don't know, let's see what happens." We've tried the Avian spray that quite a few of the vineyards have tried. I guess it works until it rains and it washes it off and then you have to go do it again right away. In theory it works, but it's really expensive and very time-consuming.

Tyler Bertsch: Yeah, I've heard people experiment with lasers and a lot of stuff. My best thing that I found was a $40 kite on Amazon, a falcon kite. When that thing flies in the wind, nothing goes near.

Jennifer Reeder: Interesting.

Tyler Bertsch: It's something to look into. I also netted last year and put a bird machine on. If you set the bird machine to a hawk or falcon making noises and killing starlings and stuff like that, they stay away. But it only works if the wind's going too, which in Nebraska is most of the time.

Jennifer Reeder: Interesting you say that about the falcon because we do around here have quite a few owls and hawks and other birds that you see around a lot. Maybe that helps keep some of those other birds away.

Tyler Bertsch: What about herbicides or weed management underneath the trellis?

Jennifer Reeder: You know, we're backing off on a lot of what we used to do for spraying. Like we didn't do any pre-emergent this year. We're just going to go through with the Roundup and kind of knock it back that way. We just mow. We're minimizing a lot of the other inputs.

Tyler Bertsch: You're not the only one. I've heard that from a lot of people, especially if they're more established, it feels like they can back off.

Jennifer Reeder: We can. Your younger ones you can't do that because they get swamped. And our weed thing doesn't go crazy anymore, and I think it's just because we're established. It's been taken care of. It might happen that they come back, but...

Tyler Bertsch: What about erosion issues on the clay? I guess I don't know how steep your slope is.

Jennifer Reeder: It's not very steep. And we have grass between the rows, so I would not say we've had any erosion issues.

Tyler Bertsch: I know Jim and Karen had talked about how they have rock underneath and that has helped them with the erosion.

Jennifer Reeder: Oh yeah, probably. But no, we don't have... I haven't noticed any erosion problem at all, so that dirt's not moving. It's held down by the grass and the clay and everything. In the summer if it gets really dry, that becomes like a brick. It's tough to dig through. But it holds water, so you don't really irrigate, which is a blessing. We're kind of lucky on that end. Once you get your vineyard established and whatever varietal you've picked is hanging in there pretty well, you can kind of minimize some of the things that you have to do.

Tyler Bertsch: Was there any varieties that you thought were really publicized that a lot of people jumped on and then they just really didn't pan out?

Jennifer Reeder: I'm going to say this, and I know a lot of people don't like my thoughts on this, but Edelweiss. In my mind—and you can cut this out if you want to—I have never been a fan of the Edelweiss. I wish it hadn't been the one that everybody started off thinking was the best grape to grow in Nebraska. But that's what we started with, and there wasn't a whole lot of other options.

Tyler Bertsch: Yeah. Back in the early 2000s, I don't think Marquette was there. And La Crescent didn't come until what, '04 or '05. So you didn't really—

Jennifer Reeder: And there weren't many options for reds. There was Frontenac and Saint Croix and Saint Vincent. Chambourcin. Dechaunac was one. And a lot of them have not panned out or nobody really has them. So I guess I'm a dissident when I say it, I know, but I hate Edelweiss.

Tyler Bertsch: I love it, it's such a good wine, but as a vine it's a challenge because it buds out so early.

Jennifer Reeder: It is. And as a winemaker I don't like it, honestly. It's never been one I've liked to make wine with, because you have to pick it at a ridiculously low Brix, like 14, and add a bunch of sugar to it, and I've never liked the flavors of it. It's my thing. I don't like it. And that's just me. So I've never jumped on that bandwagon, and I know it's kind of hard because all the other wineries are like, "Oh, Edelweiss is this and that wonderful." And it's like, that's cool. You like it. You make a good Edelweiss, and I've just never gone down that path. That's my own strange idiosyncrasy.

Tyler Bertsch: Do you ever have a late spring frost where it just wiped out the primaries?

Jennifer Reeder: Rarely.

Tyler Bertsch: I would say 2012, if you had it. Some of the growers have mentioned 2012 because I'm after how fruitful were they after. Because they're all kind of different levels of fruitfulness on their secondaries. In Nebraska we don't have as much of an issue as probably up in Minnesota, but some of those northern states would very much care about it.

Jennifer Reeder: I just feel like our location too, we've maybe been kind of lucky on that, where we haven't really had that... I can't think of a time where we've had—

Tyler Bertsch: And you're just east of Lincoln for people that listen to this.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah, so we're probably maybe lucky that way, just that we haven't had too many incidents of frost damage. It's more just like winter kill.

Tyler Bertsch: Straight.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch: Any other weird things about the varieties you can think of?

Jennifer Reeder: Weird things? I think of what works. What's worked really well from my winemaker standpoint—growing grapes is one thing, making the wine's the other. Honestly, I'm a big fan of Petite Pearl.

Jennifer Reeder: Honestly, I'm a big fan of Petite Pearl. I'm a big fan of Frontenac Gris, which I'm really disappointed that grape and that wine hasn't done as well.

Tyler Bertsch: Yeah, but it's such an interesting grape.

Jennifer Reeder: I know. And here's the thing: I love to make wine from that grape. It makes such a good wine. It does great. I've sent it to competitions and won awards. I even sent some in and consulted with a wine consultant and had her go through it with me like, "This is a really good wine, why doesn't it sell?" And she's like, "It is a really good wine. I don't know why it doesn't sell. Maybe it's your customer base, maybe it's your whatever."

Tyler Bertsch: But we, to be fair, we do have very newbie palates in this part of the country. Still. It is changing, but it's going to take time.

Jennifer Reeder: So her recommendation to me, and this is what I did, she's like, "Make some sweet and make some pink and do that." So I did. I have my good dry Frontenac Gris, I have a sweet version of it, and I have a pink version of it just to sell it. But it's hard because I have people who are really experienced wine drinkers and they love it. I've got a customer who's in DC, she's a woman who actually is a retired Defense Department official. Very experienced wine drinker from all over the world, and she routinely orders cases of my Frontenac Gris and my Petite Pearl. She could get wine from anywhere. She had a huge ball in Washington DC for all these big people, and she bought those two wines to serve to her international people. And so it is an absolutely good wine.

Tyler Bertsch: They're in a different class.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah. But here in our location, the people who like it love it, like you love it. Other people love it, but not enough people love it. So what do you do?

Tyler Bertsch: It's balancing what sells versus what you like. It's got to be frustrating.

Jennifer Reeder: It is. And I learned that the hard way. But I learned it with the support of my other winemaker peers in the business who guide you along and say, "Well, this is what you've got to make. If you want to sell it, this is how you've got to do it." So our top-selling wines, I will tell you, are our Firefly White, which is a white blend, and our Wild Colleen, which is a sweet rosé. 30% of our wine sales are the sweet rosé. I literally can't drink it because it's so sweet, but everybody loves it.

Tyler Bertsch: Did you ever make wine out of Saint Croix? Did you get it to the point where you were making it? I remember you said seven or eight years.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah, it was good. Actually after ours gave out, I bought some from Jim Ballard. So fortunately I've been able to get some from him and make our Big Buck Red, which is a blend of Saint Croix and Petite Pearl. Makes a nice blend, really good.

Tyler Bertsch: Interesting.

Jennifer Reeder: Trying to think of other... Oh, Traminette. That was another lovely grape that hasn't done well in Nebraska either.

Tyler Bertsch: Seems to do well in Indiana, but not in Nebraska.

Jennifer Reeder: I used to buy grapes from another grower, Bart Holmquist, who was a farmer here out by Eagle. He had some really nice Traminette. But after a few years his started not producing well, not doing well, and so unfortunately that was the end of that too.

Tyler Bertsch: Looking back in hindsight over the years, what do you think the biggest mistake you made that you wish you would have done different as far as growing grapes? Like trellis construction, planting, how you treat... anything.

Jennifer Reeder: Well, we didn't know. You don't know what you don't know. But looking back it was probably not the best choices. We planted like six different varieties, four rows of each. That's fine when you're experimenting and you don't really know what you're doing. But you can't run a commercial winery with the small quantities. But all of us were starting out that way and you have smaller growers and they call you, "Oh, I've got this ready, do you want it?" and you're like, "Oh okay," and they show up with two buckets. What am I going to do with that? Okay, I've got to throw it in with my other three buckets of this. But that's kind of how we all started until we realized you need to plant for volume.

Tyler Bertsch: What would you say people should plan on growing? 500 pounds? a ton? What do you think is reasonable to a northern Midwest winery to really make it worth it?

Jennifer Reeder: You mean like as a commercial vineyard?

Tyler Bertsch: Like if someone is starting out, "Hey, I want to be a grower," I don't even know how much I should plant in one variety. What would you say is like the minimum usually?

Jennifer Reeder: I would say you probably want to do an acre. Hoping to get 1,500 pounds to a ton, ton and a half maybe. Because you get about 150 to 160 gallons a ton from juice. That's about what you can expect to get for winemaking. So I guess I'd probably say I wouldn't start with less than that if you're planning to find a winery to sell it to. Because most of us now, we're small. We're like boutique winery size compared to the others. But still, dealing with less than 250 gallons of anything is really inefficient from a winemaking standpoint. Ideally you want to have like 500 gallons to go with of whatever varietal.

Tyler Bertsch: So your big takeaway is make sure you plant a variety that you can get volume in.

Jennifer Reeder: I would say, yeah. And don't go crazy and plant like six different varieties.

Tyler Bertsch: What are some other things you've learned?

Jennifer Reeder: Oh, gosh. As far as like grapes or wine?

Tyler Bertsch: Anything with... primarily grapes. Anything with growing grapes that you learned.

Jennifer Reeder: I'll tell you, it's very hard to manage a vineyard and run a winery. It's really hard. Even for us, like a three-acre vineyard, that's a lot of work. And also running the winery and making the wine and all that. So that's something to really consider if that's the direction people want to go in. It's easier in terms of labor and everything else to buy your grapes from another grower rather than try to do it all yourself, but then the economics of that don't work out the best all the time.

Tyler Bertsch: And you gotta manage growers, and you gotta make sure they know what they're doing because you're reliant.

Jennifer Reeder: If you find good growers, it's a really good thing. It makes it so much easier. Honestly, in all these years, my favorite part of this is the whole harvest and crush and winemaking part. That's what I live for. That is my... I love it. And it's crazy and a mess and chaos, but every year I feel like I love the fermentation and the mess and all that stuff and just like the idea that every year you're gonna do something new. Like, okay, you get these grapes, do all your analysis on them, the juice and everything, and you're all excited. I go through all the yeast catalogs and pick out whatever yeast I'm gonna use and this and that, and maybe I'll try this this year, different blends and all that. And it's just fun, it really is. It's just like because it's creative, but it's also kind of science-y and all of that stuff, and it's like all the hard work that everybody does, this is like it. This is where all the growers' work that they put in, everything else, we're gonna do all this stuff and make some really good wine.

Tyler Bertsch: And each vintage has its story, which is cool.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah. And you go back and talk to people like, "Oh yeah, I remember that year? I remember the wine from that year was like this." It means a lot.

Tyler Bertsch: Yeah, I went over to Italy back in 2018. I just remember Montepulciano. I just remember driving around and talking to people, and they're all gonna sell you 2012, 2012, because it was a bad year. And nobody wants to buy it, but hey, you're a dumb tourist. So every place we went, sure as heck, 2012, 2012, and I knew they're like, "Ask for 2016." So you're like, "I think I'll pass on that one." But I like that because I like the variation of it. If I didn't, it's like I'll grow corn and beans like everyone else.

Jennifer Reeder: Well, and the thing is, most years are pretty consistent, but once in a while you get that year where you're like, "Oh yeah, I remember we had really good whatever."

Tyler Bertsch: Really dry years really change things. And you know, Brianna, you get kind of a passion fruit or pineapple. People say in really dry years when they harvest Brianna, they walk through and they can smell the pineapple.

Jennifer Reeder: You can. And that's another thing too, you probably know this too, when they start flowering, can you smell the perfume?

Tyler Bertsch: I can't because I don't have a very good sense of smell. If I get up close, yes.

Jennifer Reeder: I can, and I love it because I smell the characteristic of the wine in it. Oh yeah, I go through there and I can smell the aromas that I'm going to get in that wine. It's amazing. I just think it's fabulous. But yeah, there's a lot about it that's just really cool.

Tyler Bertsch: What about trellis construction? Were they all VSP, high wire, what?

Jennifer Reeder: All of ours have been high wire except for that Bianca, which we did and you had to do it that way. It grew like this, like fingers growing straight up. There was no way you were going to get it to—

Tyler Bertsch: So it was like a fan.

Jennifer Reeder: It was. Yeah. It was really, and it wasn't going to do anything else. It was going to grow that way. No, that's how we had to do it. But I really feel like at this point with our grape varietals, we’ve picked out some good directions to go in.

Tyler Bertsch: We're starting to nail it down a little better.

Jennifer Reeder: Brianna's always good. Lacrosse is solid. Some of these new varietals I think are going to be filling in for things that we were missing out on. We've got some solid reds now, which has always been a challenge. And something interesting that I learned not too long ago—there's a lot of Frontenac in the state. And I started off, when we started off, I was buying some Frontenac and I just didn't care for what I was getting out of it. It was real acidic, color was bad, I just didn't feel like it was doing well. But I've just recently... we've been participating in a winemaker's round table with Frontenac being one of the varietals that everybody's been working with. I didn't have any, but everybody else did, but actually, it was making some good wine.

Tyler Bertsch: It does, but it's people that know the secrets, they can make it really good.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah. And so we were talking about that. I was really anti-Frontenac for a long time, but trying these wines, I actually am pretty pleased with what's coming out here. And the thought maybe too is that the vines have matured and maybe are producing some better quality grapes. And everybody just knows what they're doing a little bit better too. So that's probably part of it. But yeah, I was happy to see that happening. Petite Pearl's always going to be a good one, I think.

Tyler Bertsch: I'm going to be doing some experiments doing leaf pulling on that and Frontenac too see what the harvest, how it affects it in the flavor and stuff.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah. I mean, Petite Pearl has never had much of a canopy anyway. Does it? No, not really. When I look at Henry's out there, it's very manageable. It's very consistent. It looks like it's pretty under control.

Tyler Bertsch: Was there any of your varieties that are really vigorous? You have Lacrosse, is that your most vigorous?

Jennifer Reeder: I would say that was definitely the most vigorous one. Yeah, it really is. So I think that's one everybody can count on. It's always going to be one that does—

Tyler Bertsch: Was St. Croix vigorous?

Jennifer Reeder: It's vigorous. It was crazy. It was like a jungle. But sweet. Maybe that's its problem. It just grew too fast. And especially after rain, it would just send out a crazy canopy and long, long shoots and trundles and you'd have to go in there and just fight it. Mow it down. But it was brittle.

Tyler Bertsch: Did you ever fertilize much?

Jennifer Reeder: We just do a little bit of nitrogen, not anything fancy. So I think we've been okay with that.

Tyler Bertsch: You haven't had any mineral deficiencies that you know of or anything?

Jennifer Reeder: No. We should probably test again. It's probably time. It's been a while, so we've just been going, "Seems to be okay." But yeah, it's probably time to do some of that again to see how it's going. But I mean, you look out there and canopy looks good and berry fruit set looks good and just gotta get through it.

Tyler Bertsch: Any of them do—and maybe we already covered it—but the herbicide, any of them do better with that? I know you said St. Croix was terrible.

Jennifer Reeder: As far as resistance goes?

Tyler Bertsch: As far as either resistance or it recovered really fast.

Jennifer Reeder: Recovery. Well, I do so far I would say that Lacrosse was one. It seems to be. And again, is it the location where it doesn't get hit as bad, or is it just seems to be okay getting through it? That might be part of it too.

Tyler Bertsch: Anything else you can think of grape growing-wise that you would've done different other than not plant all those experimental rows?

Jennifer Reeder: I think we did okay with our trellising. We went with the high wire. I don't think so. We did pretty basic stuff. We didn't do anything too crazy. We followed the path that everybody was on and pretty much avoided too many mistakes.

Tyler Bertsch: I guess the last few questions I want to ask are generally about the history. Nebraska is rebuilding what disappeared from basically in the 1930s and 1940s. It disappeared after that. Then it started to come back with Ed Swanson and that kind of stuff. Is there any historical things or what have you seen change in the years that you've been doing this?

Jennifer Reeder: I was going to show you this chart. Speaking of changing, it's in wine consumption. Have you seen this? Where we were doing okay, doing really good until 2017, then COVID. Bounced up a little bit, and now here we are. So we're all scratching our head. What has made such a big difference other than that whole COVID period, which did mess things up pretty bad? We did have a little bounce back, but since then, why are we struggling so hard with wine consumption? There's a lot of things, like generational changes, demographic changes, a concerted effort by Health and Human Services over the last 10 years to tell everybody that drinking wine is going to kill you, or any amount of alcohol is going to kill you. There's no safe amount, especially over the last five years or so.

Tyler Bertsch: But they never do that with candy or vaping or whatever gets going after that.

Jennifer Reeder: Not at all. Or soft drinks or what have you. We don't have as good a lobbyist.

Tyler Bertsch: I'm a little more cynical, and I've said this to a million people, so sorry to people who've already heard this, but I think it has to do with more discretionary spending. I read an article this morning about it's not just vineyards out in California that are getting smoked. It's almonds. It's everything. I think when people struggle as the Federal Reserve lowers liquidity, people start going back to more staple foods, which are row crop, cheap, mass produced. I think those other things you mentioned are important too, but in my opinion, it's maybe not as bad as it looks and some of the top line reasons they give. I work in industries where I can see it affecting everybody. I think everybody knows what's on TV is just straight propaganda. It doesn't matter what your political views are. I think the economy is maybe not as good as on Main Street or what your average person lets on, for sure. We just have to look at what's happened for real and where we're all at.

Tyler Bertsch: But do you think the consumer has changed at all? Like taste-wise, did you notice more customers coming in just straight sweet in the beginning and now you maybe get a little more?

Jennifer Reeder: Yes. In fact, I would say when we first started off, it was very much the white sweet wine. Now we're 50/50 red and white, which I really love, and it's dry red. Sweet white, dry red, and then that pink rosé. I would say definitely we've picked up on the dry red wine drinking side for sure because I think we're doing a better job making good red wine that people want to drink.

Tyler Bertsch: Kind of mentioning that you were talking about winning awards and stuff. I know Richard and Amy at Cellar have won awards and they have made great wine. Jim Ballard makes great wine. There's a lot of great wine makers here. Do you feel like—not just Nebraska, but let's say our region, Iowa, Minnesota—do you think we will eventually compete, or you think we are competing with some of those other states that are maybe more established?

Jennifer Reeder: I think we're competitive, for sure. I do. And I really do think the growth of the whole cold climate winemaking thing is definitely growing. People are becoming more aware. So, yeah, I do think we can compete. And maybe it's just a matter of time. Also, I do think, like when we all first started, when you look back, our customer base (and it still is probably for most of us) the age range is probably 45 to 65-ish. Those are the wine drinking people. Well, sure, when we started out, they were 45, and now they're 65 and 75 years old. And as people age, they're obviously probably not going to spend as much or drink as much wine. So I think that's one of our issues too, is that our initial cohort of wine drinkers stuck with us, and they're still with us, but they're also a lot older, and so they're not purchasing the wine like they used to. So the trick is what we're all trying to go, "What do we do?" is how do we get our younger 30-something, 40-somethings to—

Tyler Bertsch: Entertain, baby, entertain, right?

Jennifer Reeder: Get into... well, and that's the other thing too, to get into the wine culture. And that's interesting that you say that because... how old are you? Can I ask?

Tyler Bertsch: 37.

Jennifer Reeder: Okay, you're the same age as my kids. Yeah. So that's so interesting because first starting out, I don't think any of us thought we'd have to have bands playing, this and that.

Tyler Bertsch: People just come and drink wine. Yeah.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah. That was honestly... and I wish that were the case because doing all these events and everything is, God, it's exhausting and it's so expensive, and it just is a lot. And it'd be so simple if you could just say, "Come on out, bring your friends, have some bottles of wine, sit around the fire, enjoy some time." But that isn't the case. So, you know, you gotta give people what they want, I guess. And yeah, I don't know what the answer to that is.

Tyler Bertsch: Last question. What are you most proud of in all the years doing all this?

Jennifer Reeder: You know, I am proud of our industry as a whole, just seeing how everybody has just really learned and worked and done so much and really grown and brought things forward. And everybody took a risk. I mean, it's tremendously risky.

Tyler Bertsch: You're pioneers again. You had to relearn all this. As you read in that history, it disappeared for 60 years, basically.

Jennifer Reeder: And maybe it's going to happen that way again. I don't know. I hope not.

Tyler Bertsch: No. Not if I'm alive.

Jennifer Reeder: No, no. See, that's just it. And that's encouraging to know that a younger person is really interested in this. But what am I most proud of? I'm just proud of being part of it, really. I'm proud of being part of it and knowing the people I know and being able to work with these people and do things like this is just like a dream sometimes. Because I did one thing for a while, I worked in healthcare. Everybody's had a career in something else.

Tyler Bertsch: It's like whenever I meet people, I start talking, "How's work going? Blah. How about grapes? All right, let's do that." Who wants to talk about the real stuff? Let's talk about—

Jennifer Reeder: It's fun and it is cool, and it's unique, and it's just like a special thing to do. There's a lot of passion in it, which I love. Everybody's very dedicated, very passionate about it. You know that. Like, you feel that. So, you know, and I'm sure this time of year you're all excited about everything out there. Get your pruning done and looking forward to what crop you're going to get. And I love that part, like the whole cycle of it and everything. So yeah, I would say overall that's what... I'm just proud of being part of it, and everybody contributes something of value to it, and hopefully I can, and I want to keep contributing something of value to it.

Tyler Bertsch: Well, good. Well, I'm glad I captured that. But I'm sorry we have to disown you for not liking Edelweiss.

Jennifer Reeder: I know. I will take the hits. I'm fine with it. I know I'm like weird about that. But I'm like, you guys, it is—

Tyler Bertsch: That's a sacrilege in Nebraska.

Jennifer Reeder: It is. And I used to be like, "Well, I better not say anything." And I went, "All right. Whatever. I'm going to say it." It's okay. Plenty of people make good wine with it, and that's what they like to do, and I'm just like, "No, I have other things I want to make wine with." And I do. I mean, look at me making fabulous Frontenac Gris, but it's hard to sell it. So what do you do?

Tyler Bertsch: All right. Well, I appreciate it.

Jennifer Reeder: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Tyler Bertsch: Do I have your permission to post this on the website?

Jennifer Reeder: You can. I don't think I said anything too off the wall. If you listen to it and you go, "Maybe I better not put that in there," I'll use your judgment.

Tyler Bertsch: All right. Well, I appreciate it.

Jennifer Reeder: Yeah, absolutely.