People don't think
Hey, let's go to Cincinnati and enjoy some high quality wine.
But this region kind of spanning out from Cincinnati
was covered in vineyards during the mid 1800s.
We were producing more wine here than
anywhere else in the country.
This wine history was lost.
Why is that?
I don't know.
But what I do know is that there's a legacy here
that was worth exploring.
There was also some beautiful wine
that I had had from here that made me a believer.
I think a lot of people think you just like, kick your legs up and drink wine.
It's not like that at all. I'm Kate MacDonald, and I'm the owner and
winemaker here at Skeleton Root.
These are the fermenters.
So this has got basically two red wines that
have been fermenting on the skins for
about a week and so they're gonna get pressed
Skeleton Root really was born kind of in the mission to
resurrect a lot of these American heritage grape
varieties that really were kind of filling these
hillsides throughout Cincinnati in the mid 1800s.
So I was living out in the West Coast.
I was in the wine world out there
when I became aware of the wine heritage here in Cincinnati
by way of actually a book.
This one's where it started, for sure
In that it really just became an obsession almost from there.
There was an entire section on Cincinnati wine history
and it was largely rooted, kind of in the history of Nicolas Longworth. Longworth was principally making
dry still white Catawba and Catawba bubbly.
Those were the two wines that put this country
on the map from a wine perspective.
Neither of those wines were available commercially in any of my travels.
So it really was just kind of a mission to
recreate something that wasn't available that I couldn't try.
And now we have it.
You can see how gorgeous the color is when it's young.
I wish they stay edthat way.
I was aware of Catawba
as long as I've known about wine.
I knew it is pink, sweet Catawba.
It was what I would maybe drink
you know, when I was maybe not of age.
But it's a shame because there's this beautiful, nuanced wine in there.
I love it.
I also love a lot of our other kind of native friends too.
Isabella, Ives, Norton, they just like bleed these just amazing colors.
Which is always really fun. It's like a color show every day.
Do not let me forget to label this.
To make wine that connects with a place
which is really what wine is, it's a gateway to a place.
That meant so much to me.
Welcome to St. Clair.
Good to see you.
You know I was born and raised here.
But I couldn't get out of here fast enough.
I didn't intend to go back to Cincinnati.
But these wines were beautiful.
And they were from Southwest Ohio
and they rival any wines I've had anywhere in the world.
I'm not contributing to the sample pile.
This legacy that we have, that storied and beautiful and
also beautiful in the glass too.
I mean, it brought me home but it wasn't intended to
I don't I don't know if that makes any sense.
The most exciting thing to me is just not moment
when you have it in the glass
and you're just like wow, like this is this is right.
This is what it should be. This is where it should be
and that you made it to that point.
At some point, Bordeaux wasn't common knowledge.
At some point, Oregon Pinot Noir was not common knowledge.
The same can be true for Cincinnati.
I can't say that we have the answers but that is the journey.
There's a lot of hustle and that does get tiring sometimes
but there's nothing I would rather be doing.
What's the fun and going in and making something
that you already know how it's going to turn out?