Gemutlichkeit, Gemutlichkeit, Gemutlichkeit, Free Live Music: Terry Nelson Country, Father's Day all Free Tours, Free Case Club Party, Anniv./Ethnic Fest. July.
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period, filling bottles, corking, label, and shrink wrap and back into cases and onto pallets. With our current system we are handling each and every bottle. How many bottles per hour did we average? Our old record was 667 bottles per hour. The totally automated bottling lines start at 750 bottles per hour."
The Singing Slovenes
Free Live Music: Duke Zecco, Free Case Club Party, Anniv./Ethnic Fest. July, Gemutlichkeit Soooooon.
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55419. Not sure about how many to pour yet but thinking 3 whites, Freizeit, Salier, Little Iza. If I do a red it will be Neuhaus as Draga already sells well there."
The Singing Slovenes
Free Live Music: Andrew Walesch, Moonshine boom.
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questions about the stories my dad had told me as a kid. She matched up very closely on the moonshine story about how they blew out the windows on the house. You see they'd hold a tub of moonshine behind the wood-stove to keep it warm so it'd age faster, so they could sell it sooner. Aunt Rose was ironing cloths using flat iron on the stove. These are the old irons that have a detachable hand and are heated by setting on top of a hot stove. Because she was working hard she was firing hot, the alcohol vaporized, and exploded blowing the windows out on first floor. The kitchen curtains caught fire but the house was not lost. I don't think this happened a second time.
I have to report that we are sold out of MN Crisp in the 22 ounce bombers. WE do still have inventory of the 1/6th barrels.Free Live Music, Iza's Birthday, Mein Onkel wine back, Our sixth Anniversary.
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5/16/15 7:30 am
 Good Morning:
Yesterday was special and today is also special. Yesterday 5/15/15 was our sixth anniversary of opening Millner Heritage Winery and today is our granddaughter Iza's eighth birthday.
 years, her height is now almost to my collar bone, but then I am not very tall. Back on her second birthday I got her a tiny toy John Deere Gator, we rolled it down a board to make it go across the room. She has always liked riding in our gator, soon I am sure she will be pushing to drive the it.___________________________________
Thank you to everyone who came to our Mother's Day Event. We did have some
 rain but all still went very nice._______________________________
Yesterday we bottled the 2014 vintage of Mein Onkel. The consensus is that this is
 Jon's best vintage of this label. It is still a semi-sweet, this vintage seems to have acquired a candy type flavor. You'll have to try for yourself at a tasting.________________________________
Yesterday was another mile stone, we finished tying the twine for this season. After pruning all 5,000 vines then the process is to go back and re-tie the condons to the
 trellis wires. It tends to be about ten ties per vine therefore 50,000 knots, we didn't count. We almost used eight balls of twine, the same twine used for baling hay. We use the thinner version giving us more length of material. We had a good dedicated crew, including myself, so the job though tedious went very good._________________________________________________________
 Last week I forgot to select a winner from the previous week's wine give away. The deal was that if you listened to my radio interview with slide show, you could win a bottle of wine.
In the entries there were a number of very nice responses. The following stuck out best to me. "Love that you were a dentist for 35 years before opening the winery! It's never too
 late to try a new adventure!Also like that you enjoy gin and tonics (my favorite drink!).
So--you thought you'd be like Ben Cartwright of the Ponderosa with your And your granddaughter is 8! How great that her namesake wine, Little Isa won
 the Governor's Cup Award in 2013 for best wine in MN! Very impressive! I will have to try that one the next time we visit!Enjoyed the story of how your son and Hungarian daughter-in-law met.
Most of all I like how much you and your family enjoy what you do and have fun with it! You're creating a great legacy! Cheers!" This person really listened to the entire interview and must have written notes, wow I was impressed. Now for the winner drawn at random from all the responses is Carol Bungert.
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boys doing the work of the vineyard, but it turns out your life is more like Hop Sing's! Yup--so it goes! : )
Free Live music at Millner Heritage!
This week our performer is:
Verlyn's Kling "Four Wheel Drive 1 Man Band,
Playing Country music
Saturday and Sunday 2 - 5 pm
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4/23/15 newsletter
/4/23/15 8:33 am Good Morning:
All is well here this week. Yesterday we had our oldest son Doug arrive home with his wife Angie and daughter Lisa, two year old. Last night we played with Lisa and Iza at Iza's house. I really had a problem getting the names mixed up with Lisa and Iza when talking.
Jon arrived home safely early Wednesday morning from Vegas. He sounded to me like everything out there is now expensive and home looked good upon his return. Yes, to me that is a vacation.
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If you like Minnesota Crisp come to the winery now. We do have some of the 22 ounce bomber left, but leaving fast.
Speaking of MN Crisp, I received a nice email last night from an upcoming bride.
" Hello, I am curious...do you sell kegs of Minnesota Crisp? We are enjoying a glass of it right now in Faribault and fell in love. It is delicious! We would love to serve it to our guests at our wedding. Please let me know. Thank you so much!"
Letters like this keep me going when cleaning, repairing, and maintaining.
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This morning I awoke with a thought in my head for a video, here it is. It is called the "Who You Mauma Rap." We are now up to 42 on our reservation list, call now. 320-237-1958 or email to donmillner@gmail.com include your best phone number, I'll return call for cc number. thank you, don.
4/18/15 newsletter
/4/18/15 10:33 am Good Morning:
I guess this was a good news week for someone, how's that? We are now living in Dassel, we lived almost 35 yrs. in Paynesville. We still receive the local Paynesville newspaper and each week when it arrives I have two things I look for on my quick scan. First the front page, if anything really big happen in town and second, yes you guessed it, the obituaries. I know many of the people in this section from the dental practice, all nice people. Well this was a good week because no-one died, not bad.
In other news, Scott our youngest son is cooking this evening. He is planning to cook shrimp seasoned with cilantro, sweet basil, and rosemary with assorted seasonings. We may be playing some cards later. He made a pan of his recipe one evening a earlier this week and wanted to know if I wanted to taste it, turned our I ate every bit of half, thanks Scott.
Also Jon is leaving today for a quick vacation to Vegas, traveling with another guy. They are considering to tour the Grand Canyon and maybe death valley. He is over due for a vacation, but then it's hard to get away when you are the wine maker and vineyard manager. I told him many times before that he should have gone to dental school.
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If you like Minnesota Crisp come to the winery now. The last of the 22 ounce bombers are in the bottle shop, I think they will sell out in the next couple of weeks, by the keg we have more inventory.
You can still sign-up as a bottling volunteer. It is always fun. Soon we should be hitting the bottling with vigor. This is the only job I know of where you can drink on the job.
To join us send your info to donmillner@gmail.com with the subject line "I love a good bottling party." Try it, You'll Like it!
Very important, please be sure to include your best phone number and also very helpful to include what days of the week you are available. Thank you _______________________________________________________
Yesterday we bottled our new label, "What the Foch." Made from the grape Marechal Foch.
I have to tell you that this is a slightly sweet, or also called an off-dry, wine with very much fruity flavor. (The fruitiness derived from a fermentation with a white wine yeast.)
Also, the name is eye catching intentionally for the wholesale, liquor store sales, where you are competing on the shelves with thousands of other names. So don't be offended by the name. The word foch is pronounce with an "O" sound. The official pronunciation click here.
Enjoy this wine, it is a very good flavor between dry and sweet.
4/10/15 newsletter
/4/09/15 9:330 pm
Good Evening:
Another week has slipped into history. This week Jon hauled two loads of wine and cider to our two distributors. While he was in the metro last night with the second load, he called me with news he had a flat tire and wanted to know if I had triple A. He solved his problem by borrowing a mobile air pump, inflated the tire, and was able to drive home. Today our repair garage found a big nail still in the tire, hence plugging the hole giving him time to drive home. It happens. In the old days my parent would have said he spun his wheels too much, but than it was in a rear tire on a front wheel drive.
Last Sunday we celebrated Easter in the evening. Iza came with a basket full of plastic eggs to hide. She is now having more fun hiding the eggs and watching for if we can find them. She is growing up so fast and yet she is only in second grade.
Last Saturday Iza got the idea to sell lemonade at the winery to earn some money. The day before she bought some lemons, a bag of sugar, and some paper cups using her own money. On Saturday morning Anna helped her make her lemonade and set up her table in the winery. The lemonade was good and she sold out plus got some money as tips. In the end she ended up with $23 total. She talked about that if she puts the money in the bank into her savings account, Jon would then match this money. Mary and I did the same when our kids were small, I still think it was a good lesson for our kids to save.
In the end Iza took a different path, Jon saw her with the neighbor kids with $5 worth of candy. He first thought the other kids persuaded her to buy their candy, in the end Iza fessed up that she drove her bicycle to the store and bought the candy for the neighbor kids. Hearing this it scared Jon and Anna that she took off to the store alone, given today's world. It was nice she wanted to share her good fortune, but she knew going alone wasn't allowed. On Sunday Jon told us they gave her a Don Millner punishment. What's that? She got to pick her own punishment with the condition that if it was too easy, they'd give her a really big punishment. From what I hear, Iza chose to do cleaning, including scrubbing toilets. Sometimes the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.
_______________________________________ As of tonight we are now down to about 3/4 of a row of Marquette left to prune. Today we worked in the drizzle and tomorrow we are planning to finish-up. After that
we need to tear all the cut canopy from the top wires to get it ready for the spring fungal spray. One spray in the spring is standard in grapes to kill one type of spores, it needs to happen before the buds open, that the grapes are still dormant.
We had a scare in the vineyard yesterday. My son Scott was pruning with me when he suddenly screeched out. In the corner of my eye I caught that he had both hands on his long handled loppers so his hands should have been safe. It turn out that he had his little pruner in a chest pocket on his coat and he pressed it closed with one of his finger between the blades as he was pushing with the loppers to cut a big grape trunk. He cut the finger but at least didn't cut it off. It bled good, he wrapped with tape and later sealed it with super glue. He was back to work today, he should be OK.
___________________________________________________ On the Wine side today Jon unloaded the 2013 vintage of Draga, made with the Marquette grape, from the barrels and loaded the 2014 vintage to start the barrel aging for this vintage. The 2013 vintage is now ready for bottling.
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4/3/15 newsletter
/4/03/15 11:00 pm
Good Morning: Before anything else, Happy Easter. I know today is Good Friday, but you may-not read this until Sunday. This is the first year we will be open on Easter Sunday, when you are done hunting eggs, come hunt for some wine. After 6 pm we will celebrate Easter.
Last week's news was the wine Little Iza is back on our shelves, this week we have MN Crisp, our hard apple cider, back on our shelves also. This is in the 22 ounce bombers, I believe this is the last cider bottling for this year. It goes fast, if you'd like to buy some do it now. For us it has been interesting to see how fast the cider has sold. Jon has been receiving calls from beer wholesalers wanting to include MN Crisp in their inventory. We are in the process of ordering three more 1,600 gallon tanks for next year, this should help very much to increase the quantity of MN Crisp. Below are to piece of art submitted by Shawn and Heather Orton from one of their sons. The first is Little Iza and the second is MN Crisp. I like them, the originals will be posted at the winery today.
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This week I have been working the vineyard quite regularly. We have just 5 rows of Marquette grapes left to prune. This grape has been more work than the others to prune this year because of damage they received two winters ago, the cold winter. What happened according to John Thull, from the U.of M., the extreme cold and wind dehydrated the trunks and cordons of the 
plants that now this thick woody part of many of the Marquette grapes are cracking. All we can do is to cut off this big wood and grow new from the ground level. I guess this too is called "Farming" and a part of our life.
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Mother's Day is May 10th, below is our flyer.
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1. Note: Easter Sunday April 5th, we will be open at the winery until 6 PM. Our family get-together will be that evening. Iza will have to hunt for eggs by sunset lighting.
2. We are now back to our Thursday to Sunday store hours.
3. If you'd like to be part of a bottling crew, email me at donmillner@gmail.com with the subject line "I love a good bottling party." Try it, You'll Like it! Very important, please be sure to include your best phone number with this message. Thank you _______________________________________________________
Time for Trivia and Free wine.
It is time for a new trivia contest. About 3 wks ago Mary, Iza, and our youngest son Scott did an afternoon painting with acrylic paints. Below are all three painting they did together. To win a free bottle of wine, attach the correct name to each painting. The painting are labeled A, B, & C for your reference.
Painting A
Painting B
Painting C
Send your answers of matching A,B, and C with Mary, Iza, and Scott to donmillner@gmail.com with the subject line "No Way Monet". (The letter t on Monet is silent.) To read more on Monet the artist, click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Monet
Thank you for your time.
Don Millner Millner Heritage Winery www.millnerheritage.com 320-398-2081 April 1st through December 31st Open: Thursday 11 - 7 Fri. & Sat. 11 - 8 Sunday 11 - 6
Join our newsletter!
Always be in the know! To Join Send an email to
donmillner@gmail.com with the subject line "Newsletter"
3/27/15 newsletter
/3/27/15 10:00 pm
Good Evening: This week was a get back into the swing of things. The last two days we have been bottling this years' Little Iza. It is another good vintage, have the same fruit forward character that our customers enjoy. It will be available at the winery tomorrow.
When we were working on the last 100 gallons Iza came and helped. She was putting the completed bottles into the cases after I put the labels onto them. She did a very good job almost to the end, then she wanted to run the labeling machine. I shook my head no to her. (It would not be a job she could handle.) In a few minutes she was gone off playing in the store and climbing on some of the pallets of wine. When we got to the last bottles we called Iza back to now put on some labels. She did the last four bottles of her namesake wine. It is good to see her involved and helping.
click here to see last label by Little Iza
LittleIzaLabelingLastBottle
LittleIzaLabelingLastBottle
If you'd like to be part of a bottling crew, email me at donmillner@gmail.com with the subject line "I love a good bottling party." Try it, You'll Like it!
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I also had a chance to work in the vineyard this week helping with the spring pruning. This is the dormant pruning which sets the bud count for this years' crop. We are over 3/4 done, with the grapes coming through this winter much better than last year. During this pruning we are cutting the great bulk of the plant off, leaving the trunks and cordons with buds where the growth will soon come. Jon has been busy in the winery this spring that Jim, Holly, and our youngest son Scott have done the bulk of the work. Anna has also been in the field to a lesser extent, myself probably the least.
My pruner looks just like this one, but this is not my hand.
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Minnesota Crisp
If you are interested to have a keg of cider for a party or for your personal inventory they are available for $87 for a 1/6 barrel, over 5 gallons. That is about half the price of buying by the bottle. (Less than $17.40/gallon. Wow!) Jon has purchased an inventory of pump up tappers for your use. No additional cost, just deposit on the keg and the tapper.
Our current inventory of the 22 ounce bottles in now very low. I expect we will sell all the bottles on the shelves tomorrow. Next week Tuesday Jon is ready to bottle the last 500 gallons of MN Crisp, don't miss your chance. Again, this is made from 5 types of apples, all grown in Minnesota at Trump Orchard, Fairbault. The pressed juice is delivered to us to ferment with no additives or processing. It don't get any better than that.
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1. Note: Easter Sunday April 5th, we will be open at the winery until 6 PM. Our family get-together will be that evening. Iza will have to hunt for eggs by sunset lighting.
2. Next week April 2nd, we go back to our Thursday to Sunday store hours. 3. In April we are looking to do another customer appreciation meal event. Entry requires use of your Millner Heritage 6-pack bag, find you bag or buy a case and get it free.
4. Lastly, mark your calendar for Mother's Day on May 10th. We have another great event planned for you, details to come soon.
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Time for Trivia and Free wine.
Last week I gave two trivia questions listed below.
1. The photo below is our granddaughter Lisa eating her breakfast. As you can see much of her meal is on her face. The question is, what is she eating? Hint, the first letter is a "B".
The answer is Beans and the lucky winner is Eileen Pohlkamp from Pierz, Minnesota my original home town.
2. What is Mary touching in this metal box, rare everywhere but Houston has one? Hint, it is out of this world and yet you see it every month. (Not your mother-in-law.) 
The answer is moon rock and the winner is Kirk Ryerson.
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Lastly, trying to think of something smart to say to close this newsletter, if you hang around our winery enough you might be able to do this.....
The video of him walking is on my face-book page at FaceBook . The history of our youngest son Scott walking on his hands started when he was maybe 8 or 9 yrs. old. He'd practice almost every night, slowly getting better. After a few years he got it. Good job Scott.
02/26/15 newsletter
/02/26/15 3:00 pm
Good Afternoon: How are you today? I guess I'm OK, feel that for being retired it was kind of a busy week, better than being bored and waiting to die. I worked this morning at the winery. Opened for our electrician to do some updating in our pavilion. We are adding secondary lighting, I call it mood lighting, adding more electrical outlets, insulating the ceiling, and putting in a propane heating unit. In essence we are extending the usage of this building to include earlier spring and later into the fall, like a three season porch. I am intending to have our Mothers Day again in the pavilion, this will be good if the weather is bad.
Do you have a smart phone? I have a flip phone, many consider this a dumb phone, but then it maybe isn't that dumb. This morning I was calling with my flip phone to order a propane tank for heating the pavilion. The lady asked who and where the billing should go to? Being that Jon's wife Anna now pays the bills she needed mailing address and phone number. I looked up Anna's number in my phone, with all the speed dialing we don't even know each others phone number these day.
Some how after I gave her Anna's phone number I must have pushed the wrong button on my phone, big fingers & little buttons, and it dialed Anna's number. Not seeing this I was rather surprised to hear Anna's voice, she is currently in Hungary visiting her family. I grew up in a home where it was a big no no to call long distance, I guess this is still in my psyche. I didn't know this dumb phone could call across the planet. Not knowing what to say, I asked her, "How are you?" In her Hungarian accent she replied, "Goood." I replied, "Yeah you sound good." I should have talked with her a minute or two, I feel badly now that I just said a quick goodbye. Next week Anna comes home, I'll have to talk more with her then.
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Minnesota Crisp
This week we did another bottling of our hard apple cider, Minnesota Crisp. It comes in a 22 ounce bottle, being that it is slightly carbonated the filled bottles must be lighter that wine, it has been flying off the shelves. We filled about 150 cases and much will go to wholesale quickly. If you'd to share in this batch, come in Saturday. I have marked the locations where it is sold in our wholesale network with an apple leave next to the liquor store name. http://millnerheritage.com/wines/local-wine-stores/
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And the answer to last week's trivia...
It is time for the answer to last week's trivia. The question was, " Without googling finish the sentence, Viniculture is the study of ........." The answer is, growing grapes for wine making. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/viniculture
Viticulture is the general term for growing grapes. Viniculture is the growing of grapes specifically for making wine.
And the winner is Sherri Smith with "Viniculture is the study of .........growing grapes specifically for making wine."
Thank you for your time.
Don Millner Millner Heritage Winery www.millnerheritage.com 320-398-2081 April 1st through December 31st Open: Thursday 11 - 7 Fri. & Sat. 11 - 8 Sunday 11 - 6
Join our newsletter!
Always be in the know! To Join Send an email to
donmillner@gmail.com with the subject line "Newsletter"
