[motorcycle engine rumbles]
- The road to Wollersheim Winery was an unusual one
for Philippe Coquard.
- I am a 13th generation winemaker.
Goes back to 1490.
It's part of the culture.
It's part of our heritage.
- Philippe arrived in Wisconsin in 1984 as an exchange student.
He has French roots in vineyards that go back 400 years.
- My father chose Philippe's name off a list of several
FFA students because of the region that Philippe was from,
Beaujolais being a wine region.
- In Beaujolais, we can make outstanding wine,
but in general, Beaujolais is known to be
an everyday dinner wine.
Nothing fancy.
First impression of Wisconsin?
Cold.
My intentions were not to stay a long time.
But life took a different turn and here I am today.
- For more than 30 years Philippe has been making wine
at Wollersheim Winery.
Incorporating French traditions
passed down through the generations.
- Somebody has to do the quality checking, you know.
There is so much value in the old way of doing things,
timing of harvest, handling of the fruit.
- Wollersheim Winery is nestled on a hillside
across the Wisconsin River from Prairie du Sac.
- The region is beautiful, rolling hills,
southwest facing slope.
You can find a lot of places to grow grapes in this region.
We grow about 27 acres on-site,
mostly French-American hybrid:
Maréchal Foch, Leon Millot,
and two American hybrids,
St. Pepin and La Crosse.
Typical day
starts around 6 a.m.
and has no end.
[chuckles]
Crushing it,
pressing it,
fermenting it,
240-some-thousand gallons.
So, it's respecting tradition
with the scientifical understanding.
- It's reading at 16.1%.
An indication of the sugar and the ripeness.
- Checking with my daughter in the lab.
- This time of year, I get samples every week
from all of our growers around Wisconsin.
-It's that passion for the taste or the understanding of
what's going on in the barrel, in the bottle, in the batch.
Just loving the taste of the wine.
[bottles clink]
- What's going on, today being a bottling day?
Setting the bottling line.
It always starts with the wine.
And everything else is after that.
I always say, "I have more wine flowing here than blood."
- Wine making is in Philippe's blood,
but it's the owner's daughter that captured his heart
years ago.
- I was in my first year of college at UW-Madison
when I heard that Philippe was coming.
[laughing warmly]
- Yes, I remember the first day I saw Julie.
- I remember asking my sister, "Oh, what is he like?"
- It's a lasting love.
And it's maybe more important than at the first sight.
-Julie's parents turned over the reins of the winery to Philippe
and saw him marry their oldest daughter.
- It's a great story.
- Through the years,
their family and Wisconsin's wine landscape have expanded.
- When I came on board, I think there were
seven or eight wineries.
And today I think it's 110.
- Philippe sees growth in the buy local,
farm-to-table movement, but marketing Wisconsin wine
can have its challenges.
- For about ten years, when we introduced the "Prairie Fume,"
we never played the Wisconsin flag.
It was like, "Eh, Wisconsin? I'd rather pass."
Man, that wine has won more gold medal
than any wine in the Midwest.
And now we can put the Wisconsin flag in everybody's face.
We don't have to make excuses.
What we do in this state with the grapes we have,
we can do it as well as anybody else.
Our name, Wollersheim Winery, is known nationwide
to be a high-quality winery.
We welcome 150,000 people a year.
- And the Wollersheim and Coquard name
will roll into the future,
as a new generation joins the family tradition.
- Our kids, my wife, our family, it's what we do.
Continuing that into the wine business
for many generations to come.
- And despite Philippe's initial reservations
about winemaking in Wisconsin.
- Without any regret, I have loved this life.
I will continue to love this life.
I have spent more time in Wisconsin than I have in France.
This is my life.
People are like, "When are you going to slow down?"
Why?
What's the point?
[motorcycle engine rumbles]