Going for Orange!

Tennessee Wine Pioneer Fay Wheeler was an active supporter of the University of Tennessee and served several years on an advisory board, and chaired a scholarship committee there. It's no wonder, since he was present during the state's vineyard experimental stages. He was its president in 1989 and served as a board member early on for more than 10 years in the Tennessee Oenology and Viticulture Society (TVOS) that oversaw test planting in 11 sites across the state.

One of those original sites, the Plateau Experiment Station at Crossville (now named University of Tennessee's Plateau Research & Education Center), was where grape research was being conducted. Fay recalled, "They had a good little vineyard there in 1977 with 15 different varieties of grapes. He made contact with them to help them harvest those grapes.

He would give them grapes to do their analysis and then he would buy the rest for 20 cents per pound, and it gave him an opportunity to check out the various varieties that he could work with easily and liked.

That gave him a launching pad. The University of Tennessee couldn't make wine or ferment grapes on their premises, so he did the trials back at home in Jamestown.

"Early on, we found four growers with sites located at higher elevations (above 800 feet), four at lower elevations and three near major TVA lakes. The TVOS planted 100 vines of 10 different varieties - everything from the finest old world grapes to the popular American varieties. We wanted to find out which varieties would flourish in certain areas. We got a grant through the Department of Community and Economic Development, the Department of Agriculture and in addition, the University of Tennessee provided invaluable assistance," said Wheeler.

In honor of those early days and because Fay Wheeler said UT was guilty of provoking his curiosity, Orange Squeeze was created. "We thought we would do something for University of Tennessee sports fans, so we came up with the idea for an orange flavored wine," said Wheeler. It was a big deal to Fay to get the UT orange capsule color right, so the first 50,000 capsules, that protective foil sleeve over your cork, were made in France. Now, it has a fun orange cork. "They like the name, color and especially the taste of the wine," said Wheeler.