“You know Ed, we could do this at home, something fun for people to do.” Ed was next to Linda at a grape stomp in California’s wine country, squishy grapes under his feet.

Ed was really a beer guy but he had let Linda talk him into the wine country vacation. Now here he was in a polo shirt and khaki pants rolled up to his knees, stomping on grapes. It wasn’t his idea of fun but everyone else was liking it in a big way. Leaning closer to hear Linda, he lost his footing and that was when Ed and the whole grape stomping contraption came tumbling down.
All Ed could hear was the sound of everyone squealing like pigs at his unfortunate mishap. Someone brought up the topic of Lucy and Ethel on television in their famous grape stomping shtick. Louder laughter. Someone else mentioned that Ed was lucky there wasn’t a camera on him because he could soon end up on YouTube like that Fox News reporter who had the same thing happen to her. Ed didn’t want to hear any of it. He just that instant wanted to go home. Little did he know, he would still be the, um, butt of grape stomping jokes at home.
On the way home, though Ed couldn’t tell a Riesling from a Chardonnay, Linda’s grape stomping idea had grown into a business idea. Linda was always having business ideas. Ed still cannot explain how. But the dream had expanded into a winery with wine tasting events. It wasn’t legal to make wine from feet stomped grapes but they could buy winemaking equipment and supplies. It only cost a couple of dollars to make a bottle. They could host the annual Grape Stomp. Charge for the stomping. Sell wine to visitors. Linda suggested they name it the Fargo Winery. Why Fargo? They lived in Isanti. Clearly, Ed wasn’t a creative dreamer like Linda. Obviously it would be a tie in with the movie Fargo. A winery with a movie theme kind of like “Sideways” was a movie with a wine theme. That would be original. Linda loves movies and she’s always thinking up ideas that the Coen brothers could use. Whatever.
“But we would need a building for this,” Ed had remarked after seeing Linda’s detailed notes written on hotel scratch pads. They needed sinks for sterilization. A place to store buckets, bottles, corks, labels. Acidulants. Clarifiers. Filtering and straining equipment. Not to mention corkscrews, chillers, aprons. It’s not like you could just do that in the kitchen sink. That’s when Linda mentioned Sherman Pole Buildings as a possibility. Didn’t someone say the buildings could be customized? And that’s when Ed envisioned a small corner for microbrewing. He is a beer guy after all. And at Sherman Pole Buildings we can make it happen for Ed and Linda, but we can’t stop anyone from laughing about his, well, fall from grapes.