Iowa Wine

The state of Iowa is located in the north of the central US, bordered by Missouri to the south and Minnesota to the east. It covers 56,300 square miles (146,000 square km), with the land most famously used for agriculture, earning it the moniker 'Food Capital of the World'. Iowa stretches between the northern latitudes of 40 and 43 degrees, a location which puts it parallel with northern California and southern Oregon in the US, and the border between France and Spain in Europe. The climate is more extreme than in these Old World regions, however, due to the lack of oceanic influence to moderate the climate. Hot summers and cold winters are a challenge for the state's vine growers, which they overcome through the use of native vine varieties and by seeking out more temperate mesoclimates.

Famed as a source of cereal crops, Iowa has increased its focus on wine production in recent years. There are now about 100 Iowa wineries, many of which have been founded in the late 1990s and the early years of the 21st century. Consequently, the state's acreage under vine is also rapidly growing. Iowa's soils vary as much as can be expected for an area this size, ranging from limestone and clay to sandstone and loam.

Iowa's viticultural history has been as turbulent as in its western neighbors in the 'Corn Belt'. Although once a major contributor to the country's wine production, under Prohibition Iowa replaced its vines with cereal crops. When wine grapes began to creep back into the state a few years after the end of Prohibition, they were met with the devastating 'Armistice Day Storm' of 1940 and then decades of widespread use of the herbicide 2,4-D.

As is the case in most of the mid-western states, the grape varieties planted in Iowa are almost entirely native wild varieties and French hybrids such as Chambourcin, Seyval Blanc and Traminette.

Until 2009 Iowa had no AVAs within its boundaries, but it can now lay claim to the northern section of the vast Upper Mississippi Valley AVA, introduced in 2009.