Think you know wine? This small Idaho winery spices up its offerings in Garden City
One of the offerings at Potter Wines in Garden City is bright with a kick of heat that covers the tongue and throat at the end of a sip.
Another glass smells almost like bacon, with an intense blast of smoke to the nostrils. It’s more grape-forward initially than a flash of heat.
Now, you might be wondering — why is this drink so spicy? That’s because this local urban winery is home to jalapeño wine and chipotle wine, along with other more standard options. These unique wines and the tasting room are the brainchild of husband and wife Von and Crystal Potter, the owners.
“You get every reaction in the world,” said Von, the winemaker, standing behind the bar. “Some love it, some not so much. But even the ones that don’t love it admit that it’s kind of a neat little concept.”
Inside, green-labeled bottles sit next to red-labeled bottles on glass shelves. Signs behind the bar feature sayings such as, “My book club only reads wine labels.” The concrete floor and collection of tables, chairs, cozy blue sofas and yellow armchairs showcase the modern-meets-art deco theme.
Their journey brought them to a nondescript strip mall along Chinden Boulevard, which has become a local wine and beer corridor.
But these products have a presence throughout the Treasure Valley. Their jalapeño wine lemonade (an easy intro with lower alcohol and spice levels) is sold at the Boise Airport. And Boiseans can taste their fare at local farmers markets.
Their ideas are homegrown — literally. The two got into amateur wine-making with grapes grown in their backyard.
Von thought jalapeño wine would be a good thing to cook with, so he told Crystal — who wasn’t exactly on board. But then Crystal tried it. And it was love at first sip.
“For as doubtful as I was … I did not want to like it,” Crystal said, laughing. “I was just as shocked as everybody else when they first hear about it.”
To make it, the couple runs all their peppers through a commercial meat grinder. By the time fermentation is done, 300 pounds of jalapeños will fit in a five-gallon bucket, Von said. All that’s left are the seeds.
Their story is marked by little moments of invention and ingenuity. For example, their jalapeño wine lemonade came from family combinations: Von’s grandfather combined the wine and lemonade once because the wine was too spicy for him, and another time Crystal thought a lemonade was too sweet, so she added the jalapeño wine.
“We created as we go along,” Von said. “Somebody has some crazy idea, we try it, and more often than not, it works.”
In the fall, Potter Wines offers a drink of mulled spice wine with jalapeño wine, white wine, mulling spices and apple juice. It’s served warm.
All of these different drinks make the couple kind of the “black sheep” of the wine industry, Crystal said.
“Don’t hold back because of what you think the industry will accept,” Crystal said. “Have fun with it and make what you like. We only put out wines that we ourselves will drink.”
