My friend, Steve Somermeyer, is a retired chemical engineer from the Eli Lilly Company in Indianapolis. His passion in life is fine wine. He now works as a winemaker at the in Plainfield, IN and long ago extended to me a standing invite to come out and see the operation when I go to Indianapolis. I was in Indy recently and took Steve up on his offer.
Surprisingly, Indiana has over 30 wineries across the state. Wineries began to flourish in the early 70's when William Oliver, a law professor at Indiana University, wrote a law that allowed small Indiana wineries to produce up to 100,000 gallons of wine annually. That law was passed by the Indiana state legislature and has been amended to allow for even more production of wine (thanks to a 1 percent tax on all wine sold in the state of Indiana).
Oliver, who was making wine in his home, opened the Oliver Winery in 1972. The winery, located outside of Bloomington, IL (see map), is the largest in Indiana and now makes upwards of 500,000 gallons, or 210,000 cases, of wine annually.
Conversely, the Chateau Thomas winery makes about 40,000 cases of wine a year. But, it's the 4th largest winery in Indiana.
The winery was started in 1984 by Dr. Charles Thomas, an Indianapolis Obstetrician/Gynocologist. Dr. Thomas was making wine in his home and then moved his operation to a small building not far from his hospital. Steve joked (or maybe it wasn't a joke) that Dr. Thomas used to go to the winery to work on his wines in between delivering babies.
Dr. Thomas retired from medical service about 10 or 11 years ago and put all his time and effort into the winery. The winery moved to its present location in Plainfield (see map) in 1997. According to Steve, they've run out of room to expand the winery. After a quick look through the operation, I can see why.
Like many other Indiana wineries, Chateau Thomas doesn't actually have a vineyard where they grow their own grapes. Due to Indiana's harsh winters, the grapes don't grow as well as the varietals found in California, Oregon or Washington. And that's where Chateau Thomas - and other wineries in Indiana - get their grapes.
I've been to wineries before, but I was never afforded the in-depth look into the wine making process. Steve took me back into the wine making area and introduced me to Michael, his winemaking partner, and Adam, their assistant. The area was a cramped area of barrels, fermenting tanks, grape tanks and inventories of bottled wine. To say that they were bursting at the seams would be an understatement.
Steve gave me a great little tour and talked about the operation. Here's a picture of Steve stamping down the wine in a container (right) . He also offered some samples of wine directly out of the barrels. That was a first for me.
Now, I'm used to these Midwestern wineries that make the sweet, syrupy wine that I just can't stand. The wine that Steve and Michael make for Chateau Thomas is far from that.
Well, it is and it isn't.
They do make the sweet wine - in fact, their top seven best selling wines are the sweet wine variety. After trying about six or seven wines, Steve said, "You haven't even tried our best selling wines." I just shuddered when Steve told me that and he sort of shuddered back.
Steve is into what I'm into - stout, dry reds; and full, fruity whites. And that's what he let me try - both directly out of the barrel and in their wine tasting area. But he said that the sweet wines pay the bills and allows them to play around with some of the full-bodied blends they have to offer.
In fact, he showed me a large file that was full of tasting notes from different varietal mixings they've played with over the past few years. He said that it's really fun after the day of work is over to sit back and play around with some of the wines. Steve said, "Even if we're having a tough day, there's always wine at the end."
Steve knows that I'm a big meat eater and one of the first wines that he had me try was a 2003 Malbec, a hearty red with a smooth finish. I liked it immediately. He also had me try one of the 2003 Petit Verdot, a lighter wine with a hint of cherrys and blackberrys. Another one I tried was the 2001 Cabernet. It was very good. I inquired about the 1991 Cabernet they had on the shelf and Steve steered me away from that. "Those have run their course."
Actually, I must have tried about 15 different wines both in the tasting area and out of the barrels. It was a great experience. And I got a nice little buzz out of the thing, too.
I bought four bottles of wine - I took one of the 2001 Cabernet, one the 2003 Petite Verdot, and I thought I was grabbing two bottles of the 2003 Malbec, but I accidentially grabbed one of the Merlots instead of getting a second Malbec. That's OK - it's not like I won't be back there.
I've been to wineries before, but never had the upclose experience that Steve gave me that afternoon. It was fun and I felt like I was given the V.I.P. treatment by Steve. The Chateau Thomas winery does conduct tours, but I don't think you'll get the same tour - and tastings - that I had.
Does Chateau Thomas Winery in Plainfield serve food during their week-end events and music??? If they do, is there a menu I can pull up on the site?
Thanks!
Posted by: Marti Gonterman | June 28, 2013 at 12:48 PM