FROM PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY TO GOURMET WINE JELLIES
When Jason Tlachac’s daughter Madison, now 16, was ill with appendicitis and craving a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, there was no jelly in the cupboard. That’s where dad stepped into action.
“She looked at me and said, ‘With all the grapes we have, there’s no jelly?’” Jason recalls. “So I went out to the vineyard, picked some grapes and made some jam.”
Jason and his wife, Theresa, started Vita Della Terra (translates to Earth Life) in 2007 after conversations with Bill Schmiling, the retired owner of von Stiehl Winery in Algoma. They started out selling to von Stiehl for a couple years and then branched into the jelly-making venture.
At first, jelly was made directly from the grapes and then his older daughter, Bailey, came home from college and suggested they make wine from the grapes, then make the jelly from the wine, and the idea of making gourmet level wine jellies took off.
“We can only do that on a small level where large corporations can’t,” Jason said. During a yearlong process they fi gured out the proper heat ratios, temperatures, cooking time, pectin-to-citric acid ratios and other details.
“We grow all our own grapes and we make all our own wine, then we make the jelly from the wine,” Jason said.
The most rewarding thing for Jason is having customers at the Green Bay Farmers Market taste his jelly and tell him it tastes just like the wine in the store.
“To me, on the small level that I am, having a jelly that tastes like a commercial winery was the key that’s one of the most rewarding things,” he said. “For Theresa, the thing she likes most is interacting with the customers.”
Both daughters have an interest in continuing the vineyard. Bailey wants to add a winery while Madison wants to develop aged to perfection vintages.
“We want to build Door County’s smallest winery, with all the bells and whistles,” Jason said.
Vita Della Terra currently markets six varieties of jelly: Sweet Red Marquette Wine, La Crescent, Ruberri Wine, Sabrevole Grape, Brianna Grape and Summer Sangria..
“She looked at me and said ‘with all the grapes we have there’s no jelly?’” – Jason Tlachac
