Minnesota wine refers to wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

 made from grape

Grape

A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...

s grown in the U.S. state of Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. Minnesota is a very cold climate for viticulture

Viticulture

Viticulture is the science, production and study of grapes which deals with the series of events that occur in the vineyard. When the grapes are used for winemaking, it is also known as viniculture...

 and many grape

Grape

A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...

 varieties

Variety (biology)

In botanical nomenclature, variety is a taxonomic rank below that of species: as such, it gets a three-part infraspecific name....

 require protection from the winter weather by being buried under soil for the season. Minnesota is home to extensive research on cold-hardy French hybrid and other grape varieties. Horticulturalist Elmer Swenson

Elmer Swenson

Elmer Swenson was a pioneering grape breeder who introduced a number of new cultivars, effectively revolutionizing grape growing in the Upper Midwest of the United States and other cold and short-seasoned regions....

 created commercially-successful, cold-climate varieties in Minnesota including the Edelweiss

Edelweiss (grape)

Edelweiss is a very winter-hardy wine grape variety derived from crossing the Minnesota 78 and Ontario grapes. It was developed by Elmer Swenson in 1980 in cooperation with the University of Minnesota. The clusters are large and rather loose, weighing a pound or more. Early picking of the grape...

 and St. Croix grapes. Oenology

Oenology

Oenology,[p] œnology , or enology is the science and study of all aspects of wine and winemaking except vine-growing and grape-harvesting, which is a subfield called viticulture. “Viticulture & oenology” is a common designation for training programmes and research centres that include both the...

 programs at the University of Minnesota

University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...

 developed the Frontenac grape variety in 1995, and continue to research new hybrids and techniques for grape growing in the state.