Glendale's Hogg Hollow Winery set for fall entertainment

While the summer's drought decimated the year's corn crop, a local vintner says the grapes are producing some excellent wine.

Steve Hogg (pronounced like "Hogue") owner of Hogg (pronounced like "hog") Hollow Winery in Glendale said grapes suffer their share of natural hardship, but drought is not a killer of grapes.

"The drought didn't really hurt them. We've got real good numbers. What hurt them was the late freeze," he said.

The vines had about 8 inches of growth on them last spring when there were two days of below freezing temperatures.

"The flowers were already out," Hogg said.

The flowers grew back, but they did not produce the volume of fruit of a normal year. The grapes that did grow are excellent for making wine and juice. In hot weather the grapes don't fill with water, they fill with sugar and acid.

"That's good for wine makers and connoisseurs," Hogg said.

Hogg plans to share some of his harvest at a festival following the Sustainable Living Expo just down the highway Oct. 27. The festival at the Dixon Springs Ag Center runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Hogg Hollow Winery's begins a little after 4 p.m. On the agenda is friends enjoying wine, and southern cooking around a campfire.

"The first year of the expo, the expo people were looking for a place to go when they got done," Hogg said.

It was a small party. The second year he did some advertising. It produced a couple hundred people and this year Hogg expects the After Expo Party is a bona fide fall festival.

Glendale-area shrimp farmer Grover Webb will have his shrimp and there will be some homemade gumbo available.

"We'll have a two-piece band back by the pond and a campfire. It's very laid back. We're not doing anything like our Spring Thing (the winery's larger springtime wine festival) it's very laid back with family and friends kind of thing," Hogg said.

For expo organizers and some of the attendees, the After Expo Party has become a tradition that could grow to eclipse the winery's spring festival. After year's of moving the date of the Spring Thing and finding no time that has not been boiling hot, Hogg isn't sure that he will even continue the spring event. His winery may be better suited for the cooler fall weather.

Hogg will have signs out on state Route 145 directing travelers to the winery, located at 48 East Glendale Road, Golconda.

While the wine is the priority, Hogg has expanded his interests and products this year.

"We have a little over an acre heirloom garden of non-genetically modified vegetables," Hogg said.

Because the winery has a licensed production room for grapes, he can process, can and sell tomatoes, okra, relish, pickled purslane, pickles and salsa.

"We garden the way grandma used to garden and can the way grandma used to can," Hogg said.

Hogg and wife, Debra, have been keeping a schedule of getting out in the early morning to harvest vegetables, canning them all afternoon and cleaning up until dark.

"We got all the grapes harvested and they are fermenting right now. We took half of it and made juice," he said.

He sells both white and red grape juice and 12 wine varieties. Currently sold out of blackberry and vignole with plans to replenish the stock next spring, Hogg said his most popular wines are Hogg Wild, a blend of red and white grapes and blackberries and Heavenly White.

The Hogg's are planning a second festival coinciding with the shotgun deer season. On Nov. 17 the winery hosts a Deer Widow's Day geared toward the wives left alone while their hunters take to the woods in pursuit of whitetail deer.

"We'll set up beauty spa items, Pampered Chef (kitchen items), have a massage therapist, manicurist," Hogg said.

The event will run noon to 7 p.m. Nov. 17 with finger food available.

"So if you hunt, give your wife $20 and send her our way," Hogg said.