North America's native grapes are the focus at Vox Vineyards

I am here in the TeraVox tasting room, which is inside of Green Dirt Farms Creamery, and Winifred is going to take me through a tasting of some of TeraVox's really interesting American grape varieties. You probably have never heard of, I would say, the majority of these grapes. That's correct. So Jerry Eisterhold, our proprietor, came across this book, Thomas Wolney Munson's Foundations of American Viticulture, and became so fascinated that he decided to source the grape varieties that Munson talked about in this book. The grape varieties that we grow are unique in that, instead of being native to Europe, which we call vinifera varieties, these grapes are native to North America, and what I love about these grapes is that they're unique to our place, but they have an incredible expression, and we specialize in dry style wines, and that's a little bit different than what the rest of Missouri is doing. You really are producing a large number of wines that are available for tasting. That's correct. So we grow over 30 different grape varieties, and of those 30 grape varieties, we actually produce approximately 15 to 20 different varietal wines within any given vintage. Tell me a little bit about the partnership here between the Creamery and also the winery, because the terroir that's expressed in the cheese that Green Dirt's making, and the terroir that's expressed in the wines that TeraVox is making, they're both so unique, and so seeing them here together is really a lot of fun. Yes, absolutely. So Jerry has been really, really close friends with Sarah Hoffman and her husband, John, the owners of Green Dirt Farm, and they've been friends for a really long time and have always wanted to create this food and wine experience, and I think that's really important when we talk about food in terms of locality. It does have a place, and that's really important. The wines that we craft and the cheese that Green Dirt Farm crafts, they just pair perfectly, and I think that's something really special. It's something to be celebrated, and it's more than just terroir. It's about community, and it's about understanding kind of what your local community is interested in and what they want to celebrate, too. So we should taste some wine. What do you want to start with? So what I'm going to start with is actually a varietal wine that's near and dear to my heart. This is our 2017 Wetumpka. This grape is quite unusual. It's got incredible chemistry that's completely different from your typical European winemaking grapes. It's much, much higher in acid. It's much more intense aromatically, and this is one of the few wines that you will taste that actually tastes a little like grapes. Oh. Most wines don't taste like grape once you vinify them, so Wetumpka is an outlier in that. I've never had a Wetumpka wine before, and the nose is intensely floral, but on the palate, it's like lime zest. Exactly. Absolutely. It kind of hits you with a real burst of acidity. Absolutely. It's surprising and really delicious. I absolutely love the Wetumpka with the Green Dirt Farm fresh cheese. Oh, cool. Particularly the rosemary flavor. That's one of my favorite all-time pairings. I just think it's absolutely fantastic. So up next, I'm going to pour for you our 2017 Cloita. Cloita is one of my favorite grapes. It produces for us right now quite a light-bodied red wine. It has beautiful acidity to it. It does. It's not overpowering, but it's definitely not going to fall flat once you bring food into the picture. Yeah, for sure. If we're outside of Kansas City, I would say this would be perfect with pulled pork. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. This is a white port-style wine made with the Wetumpka grape. That was the first wine that we tasted. Oh, I really like that. Yeah. It is lemony. It is. I expected it to be sweeter, and it's not. Even though it's a pork. It's got that acidity. It really is good. Yeah.