For the Love of the Grape

Filed in archive Wineries on October 8, 2006

My mother is what they call a tea-totaler. For religious reasons, she doesn't drink any alcohol, but she never has actually liked wine or any sort of alcohol, so it's not like the gave up a whole lot to begin with. I've never understood her distaste for it. She won't even cook with it even though the alcohol cooks out.

When we have family get togethers and want to celebrate, we will sometimes get some non-alcohol vino or bubbly for her and a few other non-drinkers in my family. (Yes, you guessed that I tend to be considered the black sheep.)

So, any way, my rambling started here because of this winery of sorts where they grow grapes but not actually make wine. Instead, The Redland Juice Company makes juice from their grapes. Of course, I like grape juice too!

From The Norman Transcript:

Grapes are naturally tasty, nearly any way you pluck, press or pasteurize them. And for former weather predictor jill Stichler, the sometimes sweet, sometimes tart juices derived from the cantankerous little fruits have turned into the lifeblood of a home-based business -- Redland Juice Company.

Nestled in the crook of Bryant Road and 108th Avenue off Slaughterville Road since 2003, Stichler and her partner-in-juice, Kathy Bates, have bottled a recipe for success with their line of gourmet grape juices ranging from vintage Chardonnay and Merlot varieties to a signature blend, Maiden Oklahoma and, most recently, an antioxidant-rich elderberry-grape blend.

Stichler, a native Oklahoman, said her business venture began the year she retired from the National Weather Service.

"Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to grow grapes, and then, in 2000, on my way home from work one day, I saw some guys up the corner planting some grapes and I just turned in there and introduced myself," she said. "It started there and really that's how it came to be -- it's like God leads you down a path and I think I'm just supposed to be doing this."

Though no Redland products contain alcohol, ironically it was from Stichler's attempts at wine-making that she and Bates dreamt of producing an all-natural, sugar-and-water-free juice variety.