No tour of a winery would be complete without a discussion of the wines. Valley Vineyards offers the third-largest estate winery in the state of Ohio, with some of the oldest vines in the Ohio River Valley. After forty years of making wines, it should come as no surprise that they do it well.

During the tour of the cellar, Joe Schuchter, grandson of Ken Schuchter, founder of the winery offered Brett Johnson and myself a barrel tasting of what will be released as the Valley Vineyards Ohio River Valley Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 ($39.99), a silver medal winning wine at the 2010 Ohio Wine Competition. This wine would stand against any similarly priced Cabernet Sauvignon from California or Bordeaux. It offered a nose of cherry, violets, and tobacco, with intense flavors of cherry, plum, and chocolate. Though aged for 24 months in oak, the effect on the palate was a wonderful compliment, offering sweet vanilla notes without overpowering the fruit flavors. It also offered a deliciously long finish.

We were also able to try the Valley Vineyards Ohio River Valley Syrah 2008 ($29.99), produced from vines planted in 1964, the oldest vitis viniferia vines in the Ohio River Valley. This is a dark, smokey wine with great concentrations of jammy, dark fruit flavors. A review on this wine can be found in a previous post here.

We then ordered the Dry Wine Tasting Tray ($8.00) from the tasting room, which offered 9 different white and red varietals.

We started with the Valley Vineyards American Chardonnay ($9.99), a wonderful example of unoaked Chardonnay. Fermented and aged in stainless steel, this wine offers clean, crisp melon and citrus notes with a great core of acid. Unoaked Chardonnays have received a great deal of attention in recent years from wine publications and critics and this wine is a great example of why: its clean finish and beautiful structure would compliment a wine variety of summer dishes or be perfect to sip all by itself!

Then came the Valley Vineyards Ohio River Valley Traminette ($12.99) which delivers peach, apricot, and grape-fruit notes around a semi-sweet core and a nose of pure hibiscus and honeysuckle. This wine won a bronze medal at the 2010 Ohio Wine Competition.

The real joy was in the Valley Vineyards Ohio River Valley Seyval Blanc ($8.99), a wine which won a silver medal in the 2010 Ohio Wine Competition. This wine is produced from thirty-year old vines and is aged sur lie in new and used oak. It is a creamy, full, complex wine with hints of brioche, crème brûlée, and toasty vanilla. It is decadent with layers of rich, intense flavors. It is an unbelievable value for the price (order a bottle from the website, before they read this and raise the price!).

The Seyval Blanc was followed by the Valley Vineyards Ohio River Valley Vidal Blanc ($8.99), which is a tasty little wine showing nice flavors of pear, honeysuckle, and almonds. Do not confuse this wine with the Valley Vineyards Vidal Blanc Ice Wine ($24.99/half bottle), which Valley Vineyards was the first in Ohio to commercially produce in 1992. This was a bronze medal awarded wine at the 2010 Finger Lakes International Wine Competition.

Next came the Valley Vineyards Ohio River Valley Cabernet Franc Rosé ($11.99), a gold medal winning wine from the 2010 Ohio Wine Competition. Its a wonderful summer wine, offering pleasing notes of strawberry, orange peel, vanilla, and a twist of lemon around a delicate acidic core. Serve this on a hot summer day with a nice salad and enjoy!

The Valley Vineyards Ohio River Valley Hillside Red ($9.99) is a blend of French hybrids (Chancellor, Chelois, and Foch) and is, perhaps, a bit over-oaked. Look for cherry and vanilla notes, with a nice tannin structure. It was awarded a silver medal in the 2010 Ohio Wine Competition.

Next came the Valley Vineyards Ohio River Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 ($19.99). This is a delicious Cabernet Sauvignon, well worth the price! Chocolate, cherry, violet notes, and interlaced with toasty oak notes and a fantastic tannin structure! It is a bottle that could be served all by itself or with an amazing prime rib. A superior value for what the wine offers.

Strangely, the Cabernet was followed by the Valley Vineyards Ohio River Valley White Reflections ($9.99) and then the Valley Vineyards Ohio River Valley Red Reflections ($9.99), a review of which can be found here.

Valley Vineyards wines can be found at Kroger and bigg’s locations or you can request them from your local winestore through Buckeye Distributing. They can also be ordered online or purchased at the winery in Morrow. The tasting room is open:

Monday to Thursday: 11 am – 6 pm
Friday and Saturday: 11 am – 4 pm
Sunday: 1 pm – 6 pm

Valley Vineyards
2276 East US 22 & 3
Morrow, Ohio 45152

Proceed north up Montgomery Road until it ceases to be called such and you will notice, along with developments that seemingly have sprung from nothing, a sign that points to Valley Vineyards on the left.

From a parcel of land in the heart of Morrow there has been a forty-year tradition of agriculture and estate wines spanning three generations. Founded by Ken Schuchter, Valley Vineyards has earned a reputation for award-winning wines, a commitment to emphasizing the Ohio wine brand, and family-based values in all areas of its business. Today, though Ken has retired from the day-to-day operation, his son, Kenny Joe, and daughter-in-law, Dodie continue to strive to produce the highest quality grapes and wines from the Ohio River Valley AVA, the second largest appellation of origin in the United States, at Ohio’s third largest estate winery.

The founding of the winery in 1969, according to Joe Schuchter, Ken’s grandson, is remarkable, “It started off, there was a dinner between my grandpa, my great-uncle Jim, and their friend named Tony Williams. Grandpa was always kind of known as the business guy with his experience at General Motors, my uncle Jim was the farmer of the family, bringing his agriculture experience to the endeavor, and Tony Williams owned First National Bank of Wilmington, so he was the finance end of the business. And so, they were all having dinner with their wives at the old Charlie’s Crab in Montgomery, and they had some wine, and they were like, you know, we could make this! My grandmother…she really started pushing Grandpa and he started contacting the OSU and figured out what grapes and thought, again, that he ordered enough for two acres and it just kind of went from there.”

Although Ken thought that he had ordered grape vines for two acres, he had inadvertently ordered enough for twenty! What was supposed to be a hobby to produce wines for the family had suddenly become a commercial enterprise. In the first vintage, the 1970, Ken Schuchter was the winemaker. For the 1971 vintage, Ken hired outside help in the form of John McCan. According to Joe, “He was the winemaker from 1971 to about 1983 or ‘84, right around the time of the fire.”

In addition to the first commercial vintage in 1971, another tradition was begun that year: the Valley Vineyards Wine Festival. Nearly 10,000 people attended that first year, and it continued for thirty-seven years until the family decided to discontinue it in 2007.

In 1975, Valley Vineyards was awarded its first major accolade when the American Wine Society Annual Convention voted its DeChaunac the “best red in the nation.”

1978 saw the start of a tradition that continues to this day: the weekend grill-out. $59.00 (for a couple aged 21 and over), purchases steaks or salmon fillets for two, fresh salads, green beans, baked potato, mixed vegetables, rice pilaf, fresh bread, and a bottle of wine. You grill the steak and salmon on outdoor or indoor grills yourself. The grill-outs are 5-8:30 PM Friday and Saturday, and Sunday 4-6 PM (July-October). Reservations are requested by calling (513) 899-2485.

Greg Pollman, the current winemaker at Valley Vineyards, joined the team in 1986. He started working at Fountain Wine Cellars in Cincinnati in 1974 and went to Sublette Winery in Cincinnati in the late 70s. Asked to describe Greg’s style of wine-making, Joe says, “Greg is a winemaker who wins gold medals with his Cabernet Sauvignon and he wins gold medals on a Catawba…. for most, that’s incredibly bizarre. Most are focused even more… red or whites… let alone hybrids. But he does everything. Even his Concord wins a gold medal. And that’s why, over the years, I think that they kept him, even though as a winemaker, he’s not an inexpensive cost for the business. But no matter what wine we have, he does it well.”

Today, a third generation of the Schuchter family works for the winery, Joe and Kyle, sons of Kenny Joe and Dodie, as well as their older sister, Tiffany, play integral roles in the family business.

Of course a great deal has changed since the founding by Ken Schuchter and some things have remained the same. Although the state of Ohio boasts over 140 wineries and the second largest American Viticultural Area (AVA) in the U.S., the brand that “Ohio wines” represent is far from the reputation of that of California or even Oregon and Washington enjoy.

The tradition of a “family-farm” and a sense of community has lasted to this day, according to Joe. “When I was a kid, us, the Debevcs, the Ferrantes, the Heinemans, we all sat down to dinner, and brought bottles of wine. We all had different family backgrounds but would make a big dinner and everybody would trade little secrets on what they were doing, if somebody had a problem, they would help them out.”

Valley Vineyards has extended this sense of community, looking at the big picture of the Ohio brand, by fostering goodwill with the new wineries that have sprung up along the way, “If X winery down the street has a big problem with their Chardonnay, you know, Greg will go down there, jokingly try to charge them a fee… and they like that. We want everybody to do just the best that they can. And that’s just how we look at it. I think that… it’s because it’s in our blood and we see the value of it not just being Valley Vineyards has the capability of distributing here and not just getting a big presence, but it can be Ohio as a brand.”

This sense of uniting under the label of “Ohio Winery” has even rubbed off on other vintners who have come along later. Joe Henke, owner and winemaker at Henke Winery in Westwood, which was founded in 1973, when asked about competing with other Ohio-based wineries said, “I don’t see it as competition. No, we’re all in this together. When people come in, and if you’re heading in that direction, I’ll draw them a map and get them there. And our websites, we try to enter links so that if you hit ours, you can also print out a route to the next one.”

This community-oriented mentality has certainly served Valley Vineyards well. Already in 2010, the estate winery has won 13 awards from the Ohio Wine Competition, 4 medals from the 2010 Finger Lakes International Wine Competition, and they took a bronze at the Cincinnati International Wine Festival for a total of 18 awards in four months.

In honor of the forty-year anniversary of the founding of Valley Vineyards, the family has brought back some discontinued traditions and introduced what may become some new ones.

Look for Part Two of “Cincinnati Secrets: Valley Vineyards” next week.