A Winning Wine Weekend

EUREKA SPRINGS VENUES HOST TASTINGS, MEALS

By Sara Sullivan

Posted: November 11, 2009 at 4:52 a.m.

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SPRINGDALE — It has flavor notes of blackberry, black currant, cherry and peppercorn. It now also has 13 medals to its acclaim.

Keels Creek Winery’s 2006 Chambourcin wine won a gold medal and the Best of Show award at the 2009 Arkansas State Fair Commercial Wine Competition last month. The dry red wine is made from its namesake French-American hybrid grape variety, which “just does real well here in this part of the country,” said Edwige Denyszyn, who with her husband, Doug Hausler, co-owns Keels Creek in Eureka Springs.

The winery, which also is the site of an art gallery, opened in 2006. Because it is so young (it usually takes four to six years for vineyards to establish and production to begin), the winery gets the grapes for its wines from other growers, all within its local American Viticultural Area, a designated wine grape-growing region. “We get everything right here,” Denyszyn said. “We feel that’s part of who we are ... concentrating on varietals that do really well in our area.”

Like the Chambourcin grapes in the Best of Show red, which were grown in Lowell by Joe Bishop. Keels Creek also uses grapes from two other vineyards in Hindsvilleand Purdy, Mo., choosing not to transport the fruit for more than an hour.

The grapes are crushed, aged and bottled on site at Keels Creek using a very hands-on process, which is typical for small wineries, Denyszyn said. “It’s all very personal.”

And patrons can witness a part of that process for the very fi rst time during the Eureka Springs Food and Wine Weekend. From 2 to 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday, visitors can take part in a Barrel Tasting at the winery, sampling wines directly from the aging barrels. Participants will be able to compare nuances between barrels, as well as try a new wine made from an experimental grape variety, a Czech hybrid called the Laurot.

A barrel tasting - which involves the use of a glass tool called a “wine thief” to draw wine out through a hole in the barrel - is done every couple of months to see how a wine is doing as itages, Denyszyn said. But this is the first time Keels Creek Winery has opened that process to the public. In fact, “this is the first time we’ve really had enough barrels there to make it worth it,” she said with a laugh.

The barrel tasting will include a light food pairing, and costs $35 per person.Reservations are required and can be made by calling 253-9463.

The 2009 Eureka Springs Food and Wine Weekend is from Thursday through Sunday, and includes a variety of wine tastings, seminars and dinners.

For more information, visit www.eurekaspringsfoodandwineweekend.com or call 253-6756.

Entertainment, Pages 10 on 11/11/2009

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