Happy national Drink Wine Day from the Darr College of Agriculture! Many may find ways to celebrate this special occasion, but our faculty celebrates in a way to honor our very own wine processing facility at the Fruit Experiment Station, located on the Mountain Grove campus.

The Fruit Experiment Station has processed numerous award-winning wines from their grapes that are grown on site. Grape varieties grown on campus are Norton, Vignoles, Chambourcin, Chardonel, Vidal Blanc, Traminette, Cayuga White, Vivant, Orion.

During the year 2015, Dr. Qiu began research to develop a new hybrid grape cultivar and successfully created the grape known as NC-6. This cultivar is selected from 100 siblings from a cross of Norton and Cabernet Sauvignon grapevines. These two cultivars are red wine grapes but the NC-6 results in being a white variety. The berries produced on NC-6 are slightly smaller than Norton and is able to survive winter weather conditions.

Over the years, there have been three vintages of the wine that have been made from NC-6. The wine has an aroma of fresh spring grass or fresh-cut lime. The palate will receive a sense of green apricot, plum, or apple. It is a light-bodied with complex structure of balanced acidity, crisp, clear, clean, and sharpness. This style of wine brings a new and refreshing sense to the wine industry that nobody has experienced before. It brings freshness to the mouth and uplifts the spirit.

We hope that you celebrate this national day in the best way possible; by relaxing and sipping on wine produced from our very own, Mountain Grove Fruit Experiment Station. Happy drinking!