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A higher peak – Missoula’s Lolo Peak Winery to double annual production to 20,000 bottles

A Missoula winery that got its start, in some respects, with an overloaded apricot tree 37 years ago, is in the process of doubling its yearly production to 20,000 bottles.

By VINCE DEVLIN of the Missoulian

http://missoulian.com/articles/2004/05/12/business/bus01.txt

Lolo Peak Winery http://www.lolopeak.com/ is using a low-interest loan from a Montana Department of Agriculture program to add 14 tanks at its location at 2506 Mount Ave., just off Reserve Street.

The expansion was on hold briefly earlier this week, while Lolo Peak bottled a new batch of plum wine.

Vintner Judy Chapman and her husband, Mark, were joined by Judy’s sister and brother-in-law, Helen and Sam Johnson, as they filled and corked nearly 500 bottles Wednesday. On Friday, the winery bottled a batch of cherry wine.

Lolo Peak makes fruit and honey wines from locally grown gardens and orchards.

"There are thousands of wineries making grape wines," Mark Chapman said. "We don’t, and have no intention to. We’re doing stuff that’s indigenous to western Montana."

Apples come from the Bitterroot, rhubarb and plums from the Missoula area, raspberries from the Mission Valley and cherries from Flathead Lake.

Fruit is washed and run through a hand-cranked crusher into a tank for fermentation. After five to 10 days there, it’s transferred to the tanks – the winery is adding nine 225-gallon and six 500-gallon tanks to its arsenal – and allowed to settle for several months.

The amount of time depends on the fruit. Lolo Peak does not filter its wine, which can speed up the turn-around time significantly, but "loses a lot of the flavor," according to Judy.

After it’s bottled and corked, the wine must still be hand-dipped in wax to seal the top, labels are rolled on by hand, and "Made in Montana" stickers are applied.

"It’s a low-tech, hands-on business," Mark said.

The bottling and corking equipment is made in Italy, and "All the instructions came in Italian," he added.

Judy became interested in winemaking when she helped her father turn a a bumper crop of apricots into wine nearly four decades ago.

As she approached her 25th anniversary as an employee at St. Patrick Hospital, where she still works one day a week, she decided it was time to try to turn her hobby into a vocation. Lolo Peak Winery began by leasing space in a warehouse in 1998.

It moved into a new building at its present location in late 2002.

Lolo Peak wines can be found in Missoula at the Good Food Store, Bi-Lo Foods, Grizzly Grocery, the Montana State Liquor Store downtown, Osco Drug and in the gift shop at the winery itself, where customers can taste before they purchase.

There are other outlets in western Montana, and the winery just signed a statewide distribution deal with Osco Drug.

After the expansion is completed, Lolo Peak plans to add blackberry and strawberry wines made from fruit grown in the St. Ignatius area, as well as a pear wine.

Wine menu

The current Lolo Peak wine list:

* Apple and Honey Wine

* Cherry and Honey Wine

* Rhubarb Wine

* Montana Cherry Wine

* Montana Warmer Wine (available October through March)

* Plum Wine

* Raspberry Wine

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