EDITOR’S NOTE: This is Part 1 of a two-part series about the expansion of DesJarlais Farms & Winery in Sturgis. Today’s story focuses on planting the vineyard and deciding to establish a winery. Coming Monday, the DesJarlaises talk about wine making, their apiary and also hosting Sturgis Motorcycle Rally visitors.
STURGIS — Joe DesJarlais III and his sister, Tami, realized later in life what a gem the family had in land their grandfathered had settled more than 80 years ago on a hillside in Sturgis.
Joe said his grandfather, Joseph Henry, planted grapes on the land in the early 1940s.
“Supposedly he made wine,” Joe said. “My sister said he made wine because she would sneak down into the basement when we would visit and sip that wine. I don’t remember her ever sharing with me.”
Joe moved to Denver to go to college. He remained there and worked, raised a family and recently retired.
“The crazy idea of doing a winery and vineyard came up. We started making wine and practicing. We got better and better at it,” Tami said.
The wine making started in Denver with peaches, cherries, plums and apples.
“We got hooked and inspired to plant the first stage of our vineyard in Sturgis on the family farm and in 2012, we were making wine in both locations,” Joe said.
In the process, the family sought out a variety of grapes that could be grown in Sturgis.
“When we sent the first soil samples to Iowa State they said, ‘you can’t grow grapes there,’” Joe said.
But being stubborn, the DesJarlaises forged ahead.
“We planted them up there anyway,” he said.
The new vineyard on the slope of the DesJarlais’ property was planted in 2012 and then expanded in 2013 using the northern cold climate grapes developed by the University of Minnesota. Over 400 grape vines with 10 different varietals were planted along with a small diverse orchard and berries.
“That gives us a better offering of grape and country wines,” Tami DesJarlais said.
The DesJarlais’ research showed that vineyards are to be planted north to south and on a slope because the grape vines like to have well-drained soil.
It takes hundreds of hours to care for the vineyard. The DesJarlaises don’t use any pesticides on their grapes. Instead, they weed by hand.
“If you do every row, up and down hoeing, it’s a mile. So, if you’d like to hoe for a mile sometime, come on over. We do Weeding Wednesdays,” Joe joked.
The family planted 10 varieties because they wanted to see which would produce the best so they could plant more of those.
“I don’t think we are crazy enough to plant any more. We think it is better just to buy them from other sources here in South Dakota,” Joe said.
The DesJarlaises do buy grapes from the Red Valley Vineyard near Summerset. Those are the grape vines people can see growing on land along Interstate 90 just south of Piedmont.
They supply DesJarlais Farms with Brianna, Frontenac Blanc and St Croix grapes. Red Valley Vineyard also will be offering Petite pearl and Itasca grapes which should be wine ready in 2021, Joe said.
“We contract to buy every grape they grow,” he said.
The grapes in the DesJarlais Farms vineyard include Marquette, Sabrevois, Frontenac, St Croix, Brianna, La Cresent, Frontenac Gris, Edelwiess, St Peppin, and Swensen. Their grandfather Joseph Henry planted concord grapes in the back yard.
Ten of the 30 rows of grape vines at DesJarlais Farms are the Marquette variety.
“Its production is insane. You can’t ever keep up with it. I tend to go work on the other vines first because they are much easier to maintain,” he said.
And the wine produced from the Marquette is Joe DesJarlais’s favorite.
“It’s as close to a Merlot as we can probably grow,” he said.
Joe DesJarlais said they know that they are beholding to Mother Nature when it comes to growing grapes. They lost the entire crop in 2019 to hail.
“It happened on July 5. We had hail and 60 mph winds that stripped the vines to sticks. We lost all of our grapes and the vineyard in Summerset lost all of theirs, so we don’t have a single grape from that vintage which is painful. We learned.” he said.
They actually learned from fellow Sturgis vineyard owners, the Jacksons at Belle Joli, that adding netting to the grape vines can shelter them somewhat from hail.
The DesJarlaises added the netting after adding a tall deer fence.
“Mother Nature keeps tricking us and adding things,” Joe said.
The DesJarlaises are still reeling from the 2019 hailstorm. Joe said this year’s crop was about half of the 2,400 pounds of grapes they harvested in 2018.
Grape vines are hermaphrodites. They have both male and female reproductive organs, so they can self-fertilize. In short, they don’t need bees to make grapes.
“It’s best if they just have a light breeze and they just kind of pollinate themselves,” Joe said. “This year, we got rain the one week we didn’t want it, because if it rains on the buds or those flowers, it washes the pollen off and they don’t pollinate.”
The vineyard is plumbed for drip irrigation which feeds two gallons of water per hour. They operate the irrigation from a well on the property for four to five hours a day.
“Grapes really like to starve a little bit. If you make them struggle, they taste better. Well, the wine tastes better. It’s a fine line between watering them and not watering them,” he said.
All the grapes grown at DesJarlais Farms are a variety know as northern cold climate grapes. They will sustain to temperatures reaching 20 degrees below zero.
Joe and Tami DesJarlais’ dad, Joseph Eugene, bought his boyhood home off what is now Ball Park Road in Sturgis from his mother, Mae, in 1970 and began building his vision of paradise from the ground up. Using plans from high school drafting class, Joe Jr. built the family’s current home and he continued building and shaping the property right up until his death in 2017.
Their mom, Sylvia, still lives at the home with Tami. They also have a brother, Scott, who lives in Tennessee.
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October 10, 2020 at 07:00PM
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