What is wine flour?
At 26 years old,
I’ve been asking myself this question for over five years now.
In that time, I’ve gone from a focus
in renewable energy to sustainable agriculture,
with a specialization in gourmet food production.
I’ve asked myself this question thousands of times;
and now, thousands of others are asking me.
But like all questions and lessons,
there are numerous layers that need to be peeled
in order for the answers to be seen.
In my first lesson, I needed to know where wine flour came from,
in order to truly understand what it is or what it could be.
Wine flour is made from wine grape skins.
After the wineries pressed the grapes for their juice,
wineries create a product they called grape pomace.
Pomace is made up of seeds, skins, and sometimes stems,
with about 80% of pomace being skin
and 20% of pomace being seed.
Wineries generally throw away this valuable resource,
but many would rather not.
And most producers I have met
would prefer to have limited to zero waste streams.
However, time is the limiting factor here,
and an infinite lesson reminding us that we can never do anything alone.
So, in my first lesson,
I learned that if I were to target the skins of the grapes,
then I would be making the quickest impact;
I also learned that by offering to remove pomace from winery press pads,
I would be making some farmers extremely happy.
In my second lesson, I needed to figure out
how I was going to bring this innovative flour to market,
and how I was going to set Finger Lakes wine flour apart from the rest.
Although we target the skins of the pomace for our flours,
all of the pomace has value.
By separating the seeds from the skins,
drying this material using passive solar dehydration,
grinding the skins into really fine powders,
and hand sifting these powders
is how our wine flour is made.
We save the seeds for grapeseed oil,
which we have not yet released.
Although grapeseed oil is high in proteins, fats, omega-6s and omega-9s,
it’s extremely difficult to make, as grape seeds are about 5% oil at best.
In my second lesson, I learned that by minimizing the use of equipment,
our process ensures that when you cook or bake with our flours,
your recipes will be packed with flavor and nutrition.
In my third lesson, I needed to figure out
if wine flour could be important enough to establish new markets
and turn something very few have ever heard of into a household item.
Wine flour is gluten-free,
high in protein, fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.
The flavors mimic the grapes they come from
and are various shades of purple if they are red variety,
or gold, if they are a white variety of grape.
They are a baking and cooking supplement, not a substitute:
meant to add flavor, color, and nutrition to any and all recipes.
In each pound of wine flour,
you have 100 grams of protein and 150 grams of fiber.
This is why they must be treated as a supplement.
Although our company specializes in gluten-free baking,
you are not required to bake gluten-free;
and if baking isn’t for you any way,
you are not required to bake with them at all.
Our wine flour is great to thicken any sauce:
from mac and cheese to gravy,
to any cream, chicken, beef, or duck sauce you can think of.
They are great for thickening a stew or a pie filling,
for making purple bread, purple pasta, and, yes, purple pancakes too.
When I was first learning how to use wine flour in baking and cooking,
I did not take into account this high fiber and protein content.
I decided I would make purple biscuits with the Cabernet Sauvignon.
I did a 1:1 ratio of wine flour to all-purpose;
the batter was thick and extremely hard to stir,
yet, I put them in the oven anyway;
and upon taking it out of the oven,
however, my purple biscuits turned into purple rocks.
There are 16 tablespoons in a cup,
so the proper baking ratio is actually 1:16 or at most, 1:8.
As long as you treat wine flour as a supplement, you will quickly learn
that the flavors, color, and nutrition can offer something unique to your recipes.
In my third lesson,
I also need to notice how much of an impact
I could potentially be making by producing wine flour.
While at first, the numbers were overwhelming,
the Finger Lakes wine industry produces over 11,000 tons of grape pomace annually;
that number is only growing.
In the last three harvest seasons,
our company has collected over 60 tons of grape pomace.
We, too, are only growing.
So, in my third lesson,
I learned that I’d be crazy enough to try to harvest these valuable nutrients,
these valuable flavors from such a healthy piece of fruit.
Not only would I be providing nutrition in a new and exciting way
but I would be able to help farmers and the environment while doing so.
And finally, none of these lessons,
none of these questions would be able to be answered
without the existing industries which wine flour was born from;
without the Finger Lakes wine industry or the Finger Lakes farm-to-table movement,
it would be extremely difficult for Finger Lakes wine flour to exist at all.
It’s been almost 200 years
since the first vines were planted in the Finger Lakes.
In that time, we have grown from just one acre of grapes to over 11,000 acres.
We have grown from a handful of wineries operating before Prohibition
to over 120 operating today.
We are producing more pomace than ever,
so increasing our area’s viability by utilizing all of our resources
is essential.
But the Finger Lakes did not always look this way;
and in the early 70s, grape farmers were actually moving out of the area
because government policy would not allow direct sales to customers.
For the farmers that stayed,
their dedication paid off when a bill was passed
which lifted the retail restraint on New York State wine.
Within nine years after this bill,
the amount of wineries in our area has tripled.
It’s safe to say
that without the pioneers from the Finger Lakes wine industry,
the Finger Lakes would look much different today.
The same can be said for the Finger Lakes farm-to-table movement.
In the early 90s, almost no restaurants in the Finger Lakes were farm-to-table.
People said they were too expensive;
and at the time, TV dinners were still extremely popular.
However, there was one woman who stuck to her mission and her passion
to create local gourmet food.
And began a farm-to-table restaurant called Red Newt Bistro.
Within a decade, there were scores of farm-to-table restaurants
popping up all over the Finger Lakes.
And today,
there are hundreds of farm-to-table restaurants across New York state.
Being born and raised in the Finger Lakes,
I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of the best chefs,
the best winemakers, grape growers, researchers, hardest workers,
and the most passionate friends that this world will ever see.
It’s this dedication to new ideas that has made wine flour possible.
Wine flour’s innovative. It’s nutritious. It’s flavorful. It’s sustainable.
It’s the wine industry. The farm-to-table movement.
It’s being a community of pioneers.
So let me ask you one more time,
“What is wine flour?”
To me, wine flour is being able to drink our wine and eat it too.
Thank you.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
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