By Celeste Baumgartner Ohio Correspondent
HAMILTON, Ohio – Hanover Winery’s Marquette won the Overall Best of Show and Best of Ohio at the 2023 Ohio Wine competition held recently. “The Marquette wine was perfectly balanced with hints of dark fruit and plum upfront, with subtle hints of black pepper, spice and earthy notes on the finish,” said Todd Steiner, Ohio Wine Competition director and enology outreach specialist at Ohio State University. “Additionally, the wine offered a pleasing integration of toasty oak and vanilla leading to a medium-bodied wine resulting in a long, pleasing finish.” Hanover Winery owners Beth and Eddie McDonald first planted Marquette grapes after the severe winter of 2014 froze most of their vineyard. Marquette is a red winegrape cultivar released from the University of Minnesota grape breeding program in 2006, said Dr. Maria Smith, viticulture outreach specialist at Ohio State. Because of its exceptional winter cold tolerance, disease resistance, and high-quality wine potential, it has become one of the most widely planted University of Minnesota cold-hardy selections in Ohio. “Most grapes, their root structure is only good to about 10-below zero,” Eddie McDonald said. “Marquette is good to 36-below zero. It is a nice medium-bodied red wine. We call it a summer red. It’s easy drinking.” Besides Marquette’s Double Gold medal, Hanover received three other golds, two silvers, and five bronze medals at the competition, which had a record-breaking 432 entries. The McDonalds opened their winery in 2009. They have about seven acres of vineyard where they grow Traminette, a Vidal blanc, Seyval Blanc and some Concord. They have about 1,000 vines of a grape called Norton. “That’s a red wine that has been around since the 1800s; it originated in Virginia,” Eddie McDonald said. “We haven’t harvested a crop yet; we’re hoping to this year.” McDonald’s interest in winemaking started about 25 years ago with a winemaking program he saw on TV. He told Beth he wanted a winemaking kit for his birthday, but after seeing a kit decided he’d rather make wine without it. So, he found some wild plums and made wine. “After that I did a whole lot of reading and studying, rubbing elbows with people who have been in the business, and joining the Ohio Wine Producers Association,” he said. Hanover’s wines are hand-crafted and bottled onsite which enables them to keep the stabilizers and additives at a minimum. They annually produce about 8,000 gallons of wine. McDonald knows what he wants the wines to taste like, he said. He does things scientifically in the winery, using all the testing equipment. When he thinks he’s got it right he takes a glass into the house. “I get it to where I like it and Beth usually has the final say,” he said. “I do everything the way I like it to be done, color, filtration, taste, and then I’ll take a glass into the house and she’ll taste it; I might make adjustments. Nothing gets bottled till we both think it’s right.” Beth takes pride in their creative labels and names, often featuring one of their dogs. She takes many of the photos herself. “I liked the artsy part of the label,” she said. “Then someone decided that for our branding we needed to be more consistent with the labels. I let them change that for a bit and then I went back to fun labels.” Hanover Winery is open Thursday through Saturday year-round. In the summer visitors can enjoy the scenic rural setting at one of the tables around the pond or have a tasting in the recently added courtyard. During winter the inside tasting room is open. They recently added food, beer, and bourbon to the mix. Coming soon is an outside wood-fired pizza oven. According to the Ohio Department of Agriculture, a new study showed that Ohio’s wine and grape industry brought in $6.6 billion in economic activity, created 40,399 jobs, and produced upward of 1.2 million gallons of wine in 12 months. Ohio is home to 323 wineries and is ranked seventh in the country for wine economic output. For information visit www.hanoverwinery.com. |
