The Story
The winery was named by Joe Swan when he founded it thirty
years ago. Joe came to winemaking from an unlikely background. He grew up the
son of teetotaler parents (his mother was in the Women's Christian Temperance
Union) in the farm country of North Dakota. He was an avid reader (there not
being a whole lot else to do), and he happened to read about wine. Not lacking
for imagination but definitely lacking for grapes, he nonetheless set out to
make wine. Using his mother's ringer washing machine, he squeezed the juice
from some rhubarb from the garden, and, in a crock he had secreted in the
attic, proceeded to produce his first "wine".
History doesn't record the score this first effort received
from the critics, but one can safely assume that it didn't rival his later
efforts! Nonetheless, the beginning of a quest to become a winemaker was born.
