It is quite difficult growing grapes in the frozen nether regions of Alaska. Primarily for this reason, the state’s four commercial wineries do not have grape vineyards. As a matter of fact, most of the wine produced in Alaska is made with other fruits and berries. Two of the wineries, however, do produce grape-blend wines using premium grape juices imported from Canada.
Bear Creek Winery in Homer makes berry wines or mixes the juice imports with fruits and berries they grow themselves. Blueberries are a local favorite, but the berry most in demand for their wine is the cranberry. Bear Creek makes a straight cranberry wine, and one they have come to call Crush. Crush is a cranberry and blush wine blend and they can hardly produce it fast enough to keep up with the orders that come in. Honey wine is another favored product of Bear Creek.
Anchorage boasts not only the largest winery in Alaska, but also the first and arguably the largest do-it-yourself winery in the country. Denali Winery is unique in that its customers may go in and purchase the wines produced by the winery, or they can create their own wine blends using five-gallon kits. The batches they mix will then be tended through the fermenting and aging process by Denali staff, after which the customer will come back and bottle their individualized wine by hand. Each kit can produce over four dozen bottles of wine. The commercial products made by Denali include blueberry, black currant, strawberry and rhubarb wines and blends, as well as more traditional Merlots, Reislings and Chardonnays. Denali Winery is the only Alaskan winery and probably the only winery in the United States to produce an ice wine, which is a sweet dessert wine made from grapes that have been frozen on the vine.
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