Today's Article

"It's an 3underappreciated plant, I would say that."

But for Jeff Zeitler, it's the perfect place to find enough of the 4weed, to turn it into wine. Zeitler and his family 5forage this field every year.

"You hold like the base of the dandelion like right here, then I like to grab the center stuff and 6twist it a little bit to get most of it out."

"In a typical year we'll 7harvest about 10 to 15 gallons of 8pure 9dandelion fluff like that."

They use the flowers to make wine at Urban Forage Winery & Cider House. Zeitler and his wife opened it seven years ago.

"Kind of learned some recipes from others, created some recipes of my own, and realized you can make wine out of almost anything that 10contains 11sugar."

They forage around the 12Twin Cities all summer long, finding use for fruit that would otherwise 13go to waste.

"There are apple trees, cherry trees, pear trees all over the Twin Cities. Mostly in people’s yards, most people of those trees are 14thrilled to have somebody take an interest and wanna pick that fruit."

"I really like how my dad comes up with a lot of 15creative ways to forage all of these different things for his winery."

Once they're done, it's back to the winery on Lake Street.

"Those yellow moist 16peddles are what we are gonna take and we’re gonna put them right there in the hot water, and cook them down until we get sort of a dandelion tea."

Then, they get a second wash and head to the 17fermentation tank.

"Never have enough dandelions. They really taste very 18floral and nectary. Most people are really 19curious about it and they wanna try it at least once."

And so we did.

"Cheers!” – “Dandelion wine."