Indian Creek Winery

We are sad yet relieved to say goodbye to three of our largest trees at the winery. They have provided much shade and shelter for many a person and bird, but these Cottonwood trees in the Poplar family are known to grow faster than a thirsty hornet headed for a wine grape. Since we flood-irrigate this tier of the lawn, they drank that water up quick!  One could practically sit and watch these trees grow before their eyes. So we decided because of their shallow roots, and the way they have been showing up above the grass, it was time for them to go. We would not want any of these trees to blow over in a bad wind storm, potentially causing big damage to the winery, weddings or the cinder block wall.

Thanks to Woolf Tree Experts for doing such a wonderful job.

Dahlia Dog approves of all her new sticks!  This is the now-gone trunk of Tree #2.

You can get an idea of how large the tree (right) is when you see the weee man in it.

Read More

Wow, time flies too fast these days! 2009 has been a busy year for us, with many ups and of course, you can’t have ups without a few valleys. We thought it would be a good idea to post an end-of-the-year wrap up to summarize what 2009 has brought in store for Indian Creek Winery. Here we go!

January – March

- Spring Barrel Tasting: always a fun time sampling soon-to-be bottled wines.

- Valentine’s Day Tasting: Lots of chocolate & goodies to compliment the wines!

- Art Source Gallery every First Thursday tastings

- Our annual Unified Wine Symposium trip in January (a chance to go see some sunshine!)

- Winemaker’s dinner at ricks press room

- Bill Stowe turns the Big 70!

April – June

- American Winery’s Meet the People features Indian Creek Winery in 2 videos.

- Wine Writer Garry Scholz talks about our Mountain Syringa

- Budbreak April 29, Stowe Vineyard Chardonnay

- New winery dog: Dahlia

- 9 medals received at the Idaho Wine Competition

- Dahlia Series wine releases for our annual Spring Release Weekend

- Bottling Time! We bottle most of our reds in the summer and whites in the winter

- In May we suffered partial vineyard frost damage

- Mother’s Day Wine Fest

- We raised over $2500 for the Idaho Humane Society at their lawn party:

- First annual Savor Idaho event

- Our annual Father’s Day Open House: Happy Pappy’s Day (watch the video)

- Annual Habitat for Humanity’s Grapes N’ Cowboys: watch the video

July – December

- Man’s best friend party: over 30 doggies and their parents attended!

- Planting sticks in vineyard (will soon be baby vines!)

- In the News on KTVB: watch video

- Harvest Begins! September 19…beginning with Malbec.

- Our annual Harvest Fest! It was chilly but we still had some hard-core grape stompers!

- Thanksgiving Weekend Open House where Mama Mui created delicious Thai dishes each day.

Whew! That was just a short summary of our ‘09 but we can’t forget about all the wonderful memories with our family and friends. Without you we wouldn’t be here! We are very blessed and thankful for the local support and hope that it continues to grow each year!

Have a wonderful holiday season filled with love, laughs, family, friends, good food and of course, good wine!

P.S. If you can’t seem to get enough of our wine, consider joining our Wine Club…

Cheers!

Complete your Thanksgiving weekend with a visit to Indian Creek Winery for our 20th annual Open House. We will be offering wine samples straight from the barrels, select library wines for sample and sale, and Mama Mui’s Thai cuisine appetizers. We’ll also be discounting the 2006 Cabernet that weekend only for a ‘heck-of-a’ good price, and of course, our usual 15% off any case purchase.

We’ve added some new Indian Creek Winery apparel and creative holiday gifts to our tasting room gift shop. Come on out!

Thanksgiving Weekend Hours:

Friday, Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving Weekend 12 – 5

Tammy Stow-McClure showing off the El Gallo Giro goodies

The Grape Stompers at work

Darcy and Jay: winners of the 4th round Grape Stomp

The grapes are a juicin’

The Grape Stompin’ Competition

Kelly Pond swabbing for a grape stomper

Strange things lurk in the gardens of Indian Creek Winery

Professional Grape Stomper and winner of the I Love Lucy look alike contest, Jaiden Pond

Mike loading up some fruit to be crushed

Another winner of the Grape Stomp and I Love Lucy look alike contest

If you stomp it, you drink it…bottoms up boys

Darcey’s Jellies

Dahlia Dog making new friends.

Good time for the whole family

Getting ready for the Cork Spittin’ contest

Join us at Indian Creek Winery Saturday October 10th from noon to five to celebrate the harvest! Live music by Soles Rest, the valley’s best Mexican food: El Gallo Giro’s Taco Truck, grape stomping and cork spitting contests, gift shop specials, winery tours…and of course…wine!!! Sport you I love Lucy costume and the best Look-Alike (we will announce at 3 pm) will win a wine barrel (empty…no wine included in barrel)…open to both female and male genders For more info check out our Facebook Event Page

Check out a recent piece that KTVB Channel 7 did about our bottling process: http://www.ktvb.com/video/index.html?nvid=396913

The 2007 Pinot Noir and the 2008 Pinot Noir Rose are both in the bottle and ready for the masses. We will be releasing both of these wines next weekend (September 12th and 13th) so come on out. As always there will be snacks and entertainment provided by Dahlia, the winery pup. Here is a sneak preview of the new releases:

The Man’s Best Friend Malbec release party was a hit on Sunday. Dog lovers from across the valley (and even some from out of state) brought their dogs out and enjoyed the perfect late summer weather as they celebrated the release of our 2007 Mans Best Friend Malbec. If you haven’t read the story behind the label of the 2007 Malbec you can read it by clicking here. The new Malbec was a hit with the crowd. Many people had a lot of nice compliments with one person saying that it has a striking resemblance to many Mendoza Malbecs that he has tasted. But the party was not just about the wine, it was also about those furry little animals that bring so much joy into our lives, our best freinds, our dogs. Here are a some photos of some of the pups that made a visit on Sunday. If you have any photos you would like to share, please email them to us at icwinery@mindspring.com or you can also post them on to out Facebook Fan Page.

This is the new label for the 2007 Man’s Best Friend Malbec. The pup featured on the label is Einstein.

We were lucky enough to have Einstein show up to the party with his mommy, Brandy Stemmler

Baby D was the first to sign the doggy guest list.

There were many toys for all the dogs to play with, some lasted a little longer than others.

The dogs all had a lot of character to them.

Caroline Gatherers and her pooch.

Tweats? I wuvs tweats!

Dahlia Dog was so happy to meet many new friends and thanks all who came out.

While not all the dogs were able to sign the guest sheet, a few did. Hopefully we will see them again next year.

The 2007 Malbec is officially in the bottle and ready for release! On August 16th we will be holding the Man’s Best Friend Malbec Release Party at the winery. We invite you to bring your pooch to the winery and enjoy gourmet food, treats (for your dog too!), fun doggie give-aways, the new release of our 2007 Malbec, and of coarse all of our other wines.

As many of you know we have decided to change the Malbec label this year. While the Aussie label was very popular, we felt it was time to move on and in doing so we chose to donate the label to something that is dear to our hearts: animals. In July the Idaho Humane Society auctioned off the 2007 Malbec label, raising a whopping $2500! We took photos of the winning bidder’s pup and featured him on the Malbec label for the entire 2007 vintage. We are also donating a portion of every bottle sold to the Idaho Humane Society.

So come join us on August 16th from 12-5pm for the release of the new 2007 Man’s Best Friend Malbec and help support all the local animals in need by buying a bottle (or case ). For more details check out our Facebook Fan Page: www.facebook.com/indiancreek