Welcome to Bunnycup Winery!
Wow, it’s amazing to finally be able to say that.
Our journey began nearly 3 years ago – right after the world was coming out of Covid 19 and I had left my job of more than 16 years. Because we were all in transition, it felt like anything was possible, and it was time for us to chase our dream.
We had been visiting wineries and making our own wine for many years – always talking about “what if”… Could we build a winery of our own? The answer, it seems, is – yes!
Now we are finally open and spending our days making wine to share with the great people around our lakes. We are excited to be able to chase our dream, and so happy that you are here to share it with us. We have hired some great staff, the tasting room is finally open, and we have tons of fun stuff planned for you all summer long!
We can’t wait to meet you and share a glass on the patio! Cheers.
Our Estate Vineyard
After months of youtube training, we planted our first row of grapes in the summer of 2020. To be honest, we knew almost nothing about growing grapes – and until this point had essentially killed every house plant we ever tried to raise. However, if we wanted a winery – we needed to grow some grapes. We decided to start with Frontenac Gris – a cold weather white variatel developed by the University of Minnesota. Since then, we have planted another 4 rows totalling 105 vines, and they seem to be growing very well. We had our first real (although very small) “harvest” in 2023. If you stopped in and tried our Frontenac Gris wine, it’s possible that you sampled some of the first grapes we ever grew here at Bunnycup!
After proving that we had what it took to keep them alive through the winter, we decided to also plant 5 rows of our favorite cold-weather grape – Petite Pearl. The Petite Pearl is a new cold-weather variety, also developed in Minnesota by Tom Plocher. Some of the best wines we have ever produced were with the Petite Pearl grape, and we can’t wait until 2024 to get a full harvest and see what we can do.
Late in 2023 we decided to expand our vineyard again, allowing for more than 100 new Petite Pearl vines to be planted in the spring of 2024. We can’t wait to see the vineyard full!
Snowdrift Vineyard
Iverson Snowdrift Vineyard was planted over many years starting in 2007. It now contains many grape varietals that you may have seen on our menu, including Frontenac, Frontenac Gris, Marquette, Prairie Star, and Sabrevois.
We formed a partnership with Rich Iverson and took over day-to-day management of vineyard in the spring of 2023. We are now happy to say that the vineyard has been producing exceptionally well, and we couldn’t be happier with the end result – more than 2500 pounds of grapes! If you have not had a chance to try any of the wines we made from Snowdrift grapes – you’re missing out.