Getting an hourlong interview with Patricia Monaghan into a newspaper-length story was quite the challenge. She’s smart, funny and tremendously versed in Upper Midwest wine lore, past and present. So it was a bummer not being able to work several of her thoughts into today’s Liquid Assets column.

Such as her comparison of the atmosphere at local wineries vs. those in more established regions: “You’re right there talking to the people who started the winery and grow the grapes and make the wine. People are so accessible. You’re not just getting the part-time person who’s intoning ‘be sure to note the blackberry overtones.’ “

Or her pointed response to a waiter who said there were no good wines from Wisconsin; he had reached this conclusion after sampling a half-dozen of them. Monaghan’s take: “Would you say ‘The French don’t make any good wine. I know because I tasted a few wines from France, and they were not good.’ “

But the hardest parts to leave out were her takes on a couple of hostoric figures:

*Elmer Swenson, the Wisconisn native and U of M researcher who died in 2004: “This native genius, with an extraordinary mind able to teach himself grape breeding from a book at the age of 10, he really started the wine industry here.

“He’s certainly the most important figure to the people who are growing and making wine today, because he started the whole process of getting wine-worthy grapes into vineyards and growing from hardy stock.

“I never met him, but from talking to those who knew him, he sounds like he was just an extraordinary, humble guy who loved grapes and loved the methodical work of breeding grapes, which is mind-boggling sitting there with the tweezers and taking out the stamen for each one of those little flowers. It’s extraordinary precision and dedication to the craft.”

For more on Elmer, go here, here and here (with the usual Wiki-caveat).

*Andrew Volstead, the Minnesota congressman who sponsored the bill that spawned Prohibition: “I came into the research for that chapter thinking ‘here’s this nutcase from Granite Falls.’ Members of the family changed their names so as not to be tarred with this brush. But a lot of people there admired him tremendously.

“For good or ill, Volstead had a lot of impact. I was surprised to realize how much residue there is of Prohibition left. One of the most prominent things is the idea of alcohol-drinking as related to law-breaking and lawlessness as opposed to a glass of wine with your meal as the essence of the good life, that European image of wine and food, wine and celebration. We have so much more of an idea in America of wine as connected with bad behavior.

“Certainly this is not to discount that — hey, I’m Irish – alcohol can be problematic. But the overall perception of wine, it’s only changed over the last 20 years. So we have this patchwork of legislation, like you can’t transport wine from New York into Pennsylvania, plus all these blue laws, even though Prohibition itself was a very short period.”

For more on Volstead, go here and here.