LAURENS - Laurens, Iowa, is a long way from Laurens, France, but the two cities have a bond that keeps them connected.
Besides sharing the same name, the two are sister cities. Each year, representatives from Iowa travel to France and from France to Iowa to visit their sister city. In 2007, a visit from French guests -along with a gift of enough wine for the entire city - became the inspiration behind the Laurens Iowa Wine Festival, now held annually in conjunction with the town's summer festival, Celebrate Laurens.
"The main industry of Laurens, France, is wine production," said Julie Wurr, owner of Laurens' wine-themed store, Heart 'n Home. "In 2007, they sent over enough crates of wine for everyone with a Laurens mailing address to receive a bottle."
Saturday's wine-tasting event was a fundraiser for the Laurens Sister City Commission to help assist with travel expenses for anyone who might want to visit their hometown's French sister in the future, Wurr said. For $6 participants age 21 and over received a wristband and souvenir wine glass, along with the opportunity to sample 31 different wines from five Iowa wineries.
"There are 90 wineries in Iowa," said Wurr. "This event gets more of them into northwest Iowa. We usually pull in wineries from several different regions."
Tom Diltz, owner and winemaker at Rosey Acres Winery in Runnells, said he and his daughter, Diana Tuffin, make several trips to fairs, wine festivals and farmers markets throughout the summer. Diltz had seven of the winery's 12 signatures wines available for tasting and purchase Saturday.
"The bulk of our business comes from these events," he said. "Our best seller is the Paradise Mist."
Kenny Nielsen, of the Penoach Winery, made the trip to Laurens from Adel Saturday. He also makes it to several events throughout the summer to promote Penoach's custom wines.
"We've been all over the state," he said. We try to get out as often as we can. It's good exposure for our products, We also have tasting and entertainment events on-site at the winery."
Cheryl Bakker, owner of the Madison County Winery, had five wines available to sample and purchase, including one of their newest labels, Inspire, which featured the names of 200 breast-cancer survivors in the design of the bottle's pink label. Portions of the proceeds from Inspire are donated to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
John Larsen, of Sioux City, came to Laurens for the day to visit friends, but was also drawn to the Wine Festival.
"We decided today would be the perfect time to come to Laurens," he said. "We always enjoy going to wine tasting events."
"This is always a well-attended event," said Wurr. "Attendance has really started to build up for the past few years. There's a committee of seven people that make this run. It's been a well-oiled machine. Everyone pitches in to make it happen."
Contact Emilie Nelson at (515)573-2141 or enelson@messengernews.net
