MEDORA - Those with a discerning palate will taste the Badlands and the Red River Valley in a new wine released this month.

It's a made from chokecherries picked in and around the Badlands that were fermented and bottled at Maple River Winery at Casselton.

The purple fruit of the western prairie successfully met a wine-making venture of the eastern valley just in time for Christmas.

Only 900 bottles of chokecherry wine with the Historic Medora label are available as of Dec. 3 and they're going fast, at least in Medora.

Karen Putnam, owner of the Medora Convenience Store and Liquors, said she can't keep up with the demand.

Leona Odermann, who directs the community Convention and Visitors Bureau, was among a faithful cadre of people who worked diligently to pick chokecherries while the picking was good.

More than 600 pounds were picked, cleaned and transported to the winery where owner Greg Kempel put them through the fermentation process this fall and into clear bottles that show off the wine's rich jewel-like color.

Kempel said the chokecherry wine from the Badlands tastes the way Grandma used to make it. It's fairly sweet, nice and smooth and has that notorious chokecherry bite as a finish, he said.

Serving temperature is a matter of personal preference. Room temperature is normal for reds, but "chilled is just wonderful," Kempel said.

He said working with the Billings County Historical Society was a wonderful cooperative opportunity and the society will get a small cut of every bottle sold.

He said the winery still has about 70 bottles on hand and most of the 900 are distributed to liquor outlets, including a few in Medora.

Odermann said Kempel's offer last year to make a private label wine for Medora seemed too good to be true, especially since he didn't ask for any pre-orders and agreed to work with whatever quantity the of berries the Badlands had to offer.

Chokecherries are like that.

Some years are poor, others superlative. This summer was just right, with no spoiling frost, adequate rainfall and heat at the right time to nurture plump purple fruit clusters.

Odermann said the pickers quickly learned how unevenly chokecherries ripen from one stand to the next.

Some also learned that poison ivy and chokecherries go together like, well, good wine, bread and thou.

No snakes were hiding in the shade beneath, thank heavens.

Odermann said the society organized a chokecherry festival for Medora and plans to do it again next summer, hoping for more cherries and more wine.

She said Medora visitors enjoy taking something home that's different than the usual souvenir. "It's new and unique," she said.

Medora has big plans for 2008. A Medora ball will be held in April in conjunction with the grand opening of the new Chateau de Mores interpretive center. It also will be the 150th birthdays of both the Marquis de Mores and Theodore Roosevelt and the 50th anniversary of the Burning Hills amphitheater.

It's Odermann's job to help provide reasons for people to go to Medora and next year, hopefully like chokecherries, they'll be ripe for the picking.

"We're going to party," she said.

Online wine orders are available at http://www.mapleriverwinery.com.