WHY MN NICE WINE?
Our MN Nice Wines are made with wine grape varieties that were developed to withstand Minnesota’s harsh winters and ripen in our short summers. Grapes like Frontenac, Valiant and Frontenac Gris. Unfortunately, in 2008, these grapes were not widely known, even among Minnesotans. So, we developed this series of decidedly ‘Minnesotan’ labels to encourage Minnesotans to try wines made from Minnesota grapes. And it worked! Since we launched the Minnesota Nice series, these three wines have accounted for over 40% of our sales with Hot Dish Red our best-selling wine.
ORIGINAL 2008 LABELS
Each MN Nice wine label featured Spike and Ole, our MN Nice Moose, named for retired owner Kim Bredeson’s honest-to-goodness uncles, “Spike & Ole” who lived just south of Canada in Baudette, MN. Legend has it they made wine in their bathtubs out of any produce they could spare. That first year, we began with our Hot Dish Red, and Wobegon White quickly followed. The final wine in the trio was to be a blush wine but it was not “You Betcha Blush.” We originally called our blush wine “Rose Eh?” in honor of our roots near Canada. For those of you who grew up south of Canada, “Eh?” finishes most every Canadian sentence. Our original 2008 series consisted of:
2009 labels
We decided it would be fun to change up our labels each year featuring Ole & Spike in new scenes. Hot Dish has always revolved around food or wine, Wobegon always features a Minnesota Lake scene and our blush wine, features a winter scene. And speaking of our blush wine, in 2009 we decided we needed to change the name, as few folks south of US #2 understood the whole “Eh?” thing. So, we ran a contest on Facebook and the winning suggestion was “You Betcha Blush”. In 2009 we created “Landscape Labels” that wrapped around the bottles, allowing more expansive scenes. Hot Dish featured a backyard potluck, Wobegon featured an ice fishing scene and the new You Betcha Blush featured a pond hockey game. I wonder if anyone has any of these around?
2010 Labels
With this vintage, we returned to the standard two-part label, which was far easier for our bottling machine to apply. Two of this year’s labels, Lena’s Cafe & Backyard Game, are featured on our 2025 Anniversary Edition Labels:
2011 Labels
Most of our labels were eventually repeated in future years. Not the 2011 series. These labels are perhaps the rarest of all, as each was only used once, Hot Dish Red had Ole & Spike stomping grapes, Wobegon showed them cooking a shore lunch and You Betcha Blush had them riding “Snow Cats” through the woods. You never know – maybe these will show up again someday.
2012 Labels
All three of the 2012 labels were repeated in our 2025 Anniversary series. The Hot Dish label features Spike & Ole sampling some State Fair favorites; and showing off a fine stringer of walleye on the Wobegon label and in the penalty box on the You Betcha Blush. These labels were in a new, longer length, that remains to this day.
2013 Labels
This vintage featured the most popular scenes from our previous labels. Two are from our original 2008 series and one is from 2010.
2014 – 2015 Labels
All new art was commissioned for our 2014 labels. The scenes show Spike & Ole enjoying a picnic, lakeside in Adirondack chairs and leading the Winery’s Curling Team, “Cork & Hammer.” These labels did not have a vintage date and as such, were used for 2 years. Another change was the jade color scheme for You Betcha Blush. The Wobegon & You Betcha were used again in our 25th Anniversary labels.
2016 Labels
Something old and something new! The scenes are repeats: Hot Dish and You Betcha are from 2010 while Wobegon is from 2014. All 3 sport a new style that echoes the style of our Cold Climate wine labels.
2017 Labels
A couple of slight changes to the style, a darker band at bottom and top, a return to kelly green on You Betcha Blush and subbing our fireside Hot Dish for our diner Hot Dish and we have a trio that will remain unchanged until the release of our 25th Anniversary editions. Which have been your favorites?
