Posted on Fri, Dec. 31, 2004
Amateur credited with boosting winemaking
BY JOHN BREWER
Pioneer Press
Elmer Swenson became fascinated by grapes as a child, and the Wisconsin dairy farmer spent 60 years tinkering in his spare time to produce a sweet-tasting table grape to rival the varieties from California.
Along the way, say colleagues and friends mourning Swenson’s recent death at age 91, he figured out how to grow grapes that not only tasted good but could survive cold weather, and his varieties today form the backbone of local winemaking and are found around the world.
“He is greatly revered,” said John Marshall, owner of Great River Vineyard and Nursery in Lake City, Minn. “He is almost like a patron saint to northern grape-growing.”
Swenson first took an interest in grapes when, as a child, his grandfather gave him a book on growing grapes. He converted some land on the family’s 120-acre homestead in Osceola, Wis., in the early 1940s to raise the fruit.
Making a world-class table grape “was Dad’s passion, his hobby,” said son Alan Swenson. “He’d be in that vineyard from the time it got light enough out until the mosquitoes drove him in.”
In 1944, as Swenson was beginning his work with grapes, the University of Minnesota held a public open house at the Horticultural Research Center in Chanhassen. The university was releasing four new varieties of grapes.
According to Peter Hemstad, a research viticulturalist at the U, Swenson was impressed with the school’s work and brought some of the grapes back to his farm.
He cultivated his vines quietly for the next 25 years as he ran the dairy farm and raised two sons and two daughters with his wife, Louise.
In 1969, he returned to Chanhassen with a basket full of grapes.
“At first people didn’t take him seriously,” Hemstad said. Viticulturalists have degrees, for one thing, and Swenson never graduated from high school. But somebody tried one of the grapes.
“It was a lot better than anything the university had come up with,” Hemstad said. By the end of Swenson’s visit, he had a job as the school’s senior plot manager.
In 1978, Swenson and the U jointly released two of Swenson’s table grape creations: Edelweiss and Swenson Red.
It was these grapes that overcame the central problem of growing in a cold region: the vines were able to survive the winters and the fruit tasted good.
“(Elmer’s) grapes, they started out filling a niche for cold-hardy, and now they’re grown in areas where you don’t even need cold-hardy. He was definitely a real pioneer,” Hemstad said. “His influence has grown much further than anyone would have imagined.”
Especially among winemakers.
“We thrive on Elmer’s varieties,” said Robin Partch of Northern Vineyard Winery in Stillwater.
When Swenson’s varieties were introduced, there was one winery in the state. Today there are around a dozen.
“It continues to grow because of his work,” Hemstad said.
Swenson retired from the U shortly after the grapes were released and continued to cultivate vines in Osceola.
Today he is credited with creating 12 varieties of table grapes and three wine grapes.
Swenson’s St. Croix variety has won wine awards in Connecticut and California. It is one of the top five grapes grown in Minnesota by vineyards. Some of his grapes have been established in the Baltic nations, Canada and the former Soviet Union, said Marshall.
Swenson tended his vines up until about a year and a half ago. Health problems forced him a year ago to move into his daughter’s home in St. Paul. He died Dec. 24 and was buried Wednesday not far from his 10-acre vineyard.
Members of the Minnesota Grape Growers Association over the past two years had been tending to Swenson’s acreage, sending cuttings from his vines to area vineyards as part of the Elmer Swenson Preservation Project.
Swenson’s impact is still felt at the university, too.
“We are carrying on his work,” said Hemstad. “A lot of our projects have his grapes in the background. He moved the possibilities of growing here forward.” John Brewer can be reached at 651-228-2093 or jbrewer@pioneerpress.com.
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