A North Dakota Winery? How did that happen? Everyone seems to ask that. Maple River Winery was registered with the Secretary of State in North Dakota on March 19, 2001. Over 10 years ago!!!! Our focus was to utilize North Dakota fruit in making traditional wines in small batches like our ancestors did.

We worked with different people in locating fruit that we would need to produce our wine. We researched many areas throughout North Dakota and found millions of pounds of fruit growing wild. Our decision was rather than growing our own fruit, we would purchase fruit for winemaking from producers throughout North Dakota.

To date, we have had over 300 people bring fruit into our winery from all 4 corners of North Dakota and some from West Central Minnesota. About 80% of our fruit comes from North Dakota. This amount is continuing to grow. While by law, we would only need 51%, we feel strongly in promoting North Dakota agriculture as much as we can.