Edelweiss, Edelweiss

Edelweiss is a well-known flowering plant native to the Alpine region of Europe. The flower derives its name from the German words edel, which means noble, and weiß, which means white. (Note: the “w” is pronounced like “v,” thus the plant, phonetically pronounced, sounds like edel-vice). Both the leaves and the flowers of the Edelweiss plant are covered with tiny white hairs. This gives the plant an almost wooly appearance, suitable, I suppose, for thriving in the most inaccessible areas of the high mountain region. Edelweiss is the symbol for mountaineering in Slovenia and widely-regarded as the unofficial flower of Switzerland.

In 1980, grape breeder Elmer Swenson, oftentimes called the Godfather of the Minnesota wine industry, introduced his first cold hearty grape – it is an early-ripening table grape also suitable for winemaking. It makes a sweet, Riesling-style white wine. Swenson named the grape Edelweiss.

While you won’t find an Edelweiss plant growing anywhere near Four Cedars Farms, beginning next Spring, you’ll see Edelweiss grapes growing en masse just beyond our driveway.

We chose Edelweiss as one of two cash-crop varieties because of its use in wine blending, its disease resistance, its hardiness and because it ripens earlier than the other varieties we plan to grow, which will spread the burden of harvesting several tons of grapes over more than one weekend.

The Edelweiss...