George Paul’s Cold-Hardy Vinegars From The Sandhills Of Nebraska
*USI Vinegar Competition Winner
(US Vinegar Producer of the Year)
In 1999, George Paul Johnson planted grapes in the half prairie, half dunes Sandhills region of Cody, Nebraska. No one really expected him to be able to wine from such ill-suited terrain with harsh snowy winters, but by planting climate-conscious hybrid red grape varieties, including Brianna, Prairie Red and Temparia, the first wines were remarkably fruity and balanced, with a nice touch of acidity, reminding Johnson of Trebbiano and Lambrusco, the Italian grapes that make balsamic vinegar. This inspired him to give wine making in the Great Plains a go. But it wasn’t until 2009, when jump-started by a Nebraska Agricultural Innovation and Value-Added Agriculture grant, that Johnson opened a facility to make wine, red, white, apple and raspberry to be exact — the end goal of turning them all into vinegar.
“I ranched for 27 years, and was basically retired,” says Johnson, “but I’ve always liked planting trees and fruits,” Johnson told me. He had a few cold-hardy grape vines in his front yard (he now has 50 or so), and convinced a neighbor 10 miles down the road to grow more on their property (including Prairie Red, St. Croix, Frontenac and GR7 varieties).
Johnson made wine at Niobrara Valley Vineyards for a handful of years before fully investing in vinegar, liquidated his business and investment portfolio, and put half a million dollars into the business, shortly before the 2008 crash. In May of 2007, Johnson broke ground on his vinegary, using a strawbale construction for its energy-efficiency–and aesthetics.. “This building method was developed over 100 years ago and has been regaining popularity,” says Johnson. Bale walls are over two feet thick and provide tremendous insulation from the dramatic temperature fluctuations, and wind as well.
His commitment to sustainability carries over into the product itself. “If our [base] product needs to be a little sweeter, we use juice, rather than sugar,” says Johnson, who freezes the juice first, and concentrates it upon thawing, getting the sugars up to 30-40 Brix. “When you add [white] sugar to a wine you can introduce faults and have to start using some SO2 (sulfur dioxide),” Johnson raises. With George Paul’s natural vinegar making methodology, he’s able to preserve some of the flavors of the fruit in the final product, as if it were an aromatic off-dry wine.
Apples come from Arbor Day Farms, a nearby heirloom orchard, and raspberry vinegar was an accident, says Johnson, “a friend of Swanson’s had a freezer full of tubs [of raspberries].” For many chefs around the Salt Belt, from Omaha to Lincoln, even Chicago and St.Louis, t’s George Paul’s 5-year aged Emilia, which is named for Johnson’s daughter, Emily, (who now does the blending for the vinegars), an ode to balsamic vinegars of Reggio Emilia in Italy, that first had them singing praise for their local vinegar maker. Having been in business now for a decade and half, Johnson still ages all of his vinegars for at least 18 months, and up to 10 years for Emilia. He jokes that he’s left his oenology in the past, but continues to quip that, “it’s quicker to make wine, but it’s easier to make vinegar”.
