Grapevine Hormones

Yes, plants have them too! I am reading (reading is not exactly the word, it's more like studying each paragraph by dissecting every word) a deceptively thin book written by Prof. Markus Keller called The Science of Grapevines Anatomy and Physiology. I am only on the first chapter which is about Botany and Anatomy. One thing that our online Viticulture class did not go over was about the various hormones that regulate the growth of plants and the grapevine in particular. Prof. Keller devotes about 27 pages on the morphology and anatomy of the grapevines beginning with the root, trunk and shoots, nodes and buds, leaves, tendrils and clusters and finally, flowers and grape berries. He also discusses the various hormones that are present in these plant structures.
Hormone: a definition
Hormones are defined as extracellular signaling molecules that act on target cells distant from their site of production.
Cytokinin and abscisic acid are the main root hormones.

• Cytokinin is the cell division hormone produced in the root tips.
• Absicisic acid is the dormancy hormone acts to keep the lateral root production in a dormant state under conditions of water stress or high nitrogen availability.

Auxin and gibberellin are the main shoot hormones.

• Auxin stimulates cell division and is delivered from the shoot tips via the phloem. Shoot derived auxin can initiate lateral root growth.
• Gibberellins promotes cell elongation and differentiation upon stimulation by auxin in tissues with rapidly expanding cells.

There is a lot to know and learn about the influence of hormones on vine growth which I will continue in other blog posts. But, I'll end this post with something to think about. Prof. Keller, mentions on page 38 that the herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid better known as 2,4-D is a synthetic, nontransportable auxin that stimulates cell division but inhitibits cell expansion and differentiation. 2,4-D has the following deceptively innocuous looking chemical structure:

I recalled reading about 2,4-D spray drift in a book written by Geoff Heinricks called A Fool and Forty Acres. In this book, Heinricks writes:
As I walked along the western hedgerow of our Pinot Noir plot one summer I checked for phylloxera galls on the wild vines a dozen yards away. The galls can be found every year, but what stood out this time was the number of them. I looked closer and noticed something strange: many of the wild-grape leaves were deformed. Some were growing extremely long teeth, almost like long strands of green hair. Others mimicked a gingko leaf shape, with veins arrayed like fans.
I knew it was herbicide damage. There must have been 2,4-D drift from fields on the other side of our hedgerow, for the deformations were clear symptoms of the herbicide hitting new grape tissue.
1. The structure was found on Wikipedia: 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid
2. All structures were drawn by the freely available drawing program from ACD Labs called ACD/ChemSketch Freeware.
The information contained in this blogpost was exerpted from:
The Science of Grapevines Anatomy and Physiology, Markus Keller, 2010, Academic Press, pg. 20-47.
To see a larger representation of the structure, simply click on the image. To get back to the blogpost, click on the upper right hand "close x".

Looking for Stainless Steel Tanks

A week ago, we met with an engineer who represents a custom stainless steel tank maker. We will be a very small winery and that presents it's own challenges. We've been to many wineries and have seen their facilities and they have all been much larger than what we plan to be.
We would like our winery to be as gravity driven as possible and our building plans will take that into consideration. Getting the proper tank is a part of right-sizing the building. Toward those ends, the representative that we saw (trying still to be impartial, no names will be mentioned until we make a decision), will provide us with a schematic on how the tanks should be placed. This will help us immensely when we go to the architect with our plans.
For the first year we will be planting only white grapes but plan on planting some red variety in the future so we will need to purchase tanks to accommodate both white and red winemaking.

Here is the computation:

• 1 ton of grapes = 160 gallons of must
• 160 gallons = approximately 800 bottles of wine
                        (160 gallons x Five 750 ml bottles)
• 800 bottles = approximately 66 cases of wine
                        (800 divided by 12 bottles in a case)

For grape vines after the third year of planting, we expect to get approximately 2-3 tons per acre. Since we will begin with only 4 acres of grape vines that would mean a harvest of between 8-12 tons. We will have three different varieties of white wine grapes (Chardonnay, Chenin blanc and Auxerrois) which means that we will need at least 3 different stainless steel tanks. We will be looking at tanks that may be on the order of 300 gallons. The engineer that we spoke to mentioned that wine stored in variable capacity tanks also called floating lid tanks would need more care so he recommended that we stick with the fixed volume tanks and also recommended 60 gallon stainless steel tanks for any overage and to use for topping off when necessary.
We also will be getting some neutral oak barrels for the Chardonnay so we will need to plan on space for the barrels. The typical barrel can hold approximately 60 gallons which means approximately 25 cases from 1 barrel. Since the wine will be in the barrel for at least 18 months, we will have to project how many barrels we will be using for at least a season and a half.
Many things to think about!

Authentic Wine Toward Natural and Sustainable Winemaking by Jamie Goode and Sam Harrop

In 2011, Jamie Goode followed up his Science of Wine published in 2005, with this book called Authentic Wine. I think that this book was written to answer the questions regarding the surge of interest in the Natural Wine Movement. Goode begins by defining the components of Authentic Wine and follows up with a chapter on terrior. Regardless whether you believe that such a thing as terrior exists, wines from various regions of the world reveals that there is a definite relationship between the flavor of the wine and where the wine was made. This is in marked contrast to the wines that Goode says results from the creeping homogenization that exists in the modern marketplace's desire to please the drinking public. A chapter on phylloxera asks the question, can any wine be truly authentic if it is a grafted vine. There is also a great chapter on biodynamics including case studies in which practitioners relate how biodynamic farming impacted their wine. Goode includes a chapter on yeast, again the question is asked, can wine be authentic if it is made from commercial yeasts. Also included is a chapter on wine flaws. This is a very readable book on a contemporary hot topic in the wine world that raises as many questions as it answers.

2003 Turley Petite Syrah

I have to admit that the first time I really fell in love with a wine was with a Turley that my husband brought home from Seattle, Washington in the early 80's. I was a bit upset that he paid $30.00 for a bottle of wine but, wow! Years have passed and to be honest, we don't drink that much Turley anymore, but we did have this one recently and paired it with our appetizer course of Stichelton cheese, an English blue cheese which is similar to Stilton. You know how difficult it can be to pair a blue cheese with a wine, but this went perfectly. I guess 15% alcohol can stand up to a rich blue cheese or maybe it is a rich blue cheese can stand up to 15% alcohol!

Video on How to Use a Pressure Chamber

It is really hot, so just imagine how your vines must be feeling, or better yet, get a handle on their real status! In my previous blog Ways to Measure Vineyard Water Status, I have a bullet about using a Pressure Chamber also known as a Pressure Bomb to measure the vine water status. In doing a bit more digging on the internet, I found a YouTube Video on how to use the Pressure Chamber. If you are like me and learn a lot from a visual versus a written explanation, this video is for you.
Many times, before I use a video or material that I reference, I do consult the author(s). In this case, I went to PMS Instrument Company and wrote to ask for permission to use the video. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a very positive response from Jeff Hamel. This is a very good video to learn how to use a Pressure Chamber.

To see more information about the Pressure Chamber, please go to this link: PMS Instrument Company

Ways to Measure Vineyard Water Status

The heat wave was broken on Sunday evening, but it was 15 days from rain event to rain event and I thought that I should be familiar with how to measure the vine water status in case irrigation becomes a necessity. The occurrence of drought-like conditions during the pre-veraison stage of grape development, may be beneficial to grape quality but if the drought continues, then knowing how to tell if the vine is stressed becomes important.
You can either measure the water status in the soil or in the grapevine itself:

Devices for Measuring Soil Moisture Status¹:
• Tensiometer
• Gypsum block
• Irrometer
• Soil dielectric measurements:
  • Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR)
  • Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)
  • Frequency Domain Reflectometry (FDR or capacitance)—most common
• Neutron Scatter

Device for Measuring Vine Water Status
• Pressure chamber (aka pressure bomb)

There are several excellent articles that can be accessed online regarding how to measure the vine water status. Chapter 10: Grapevine Water Relations and Vineyard Irrigation comes from North Carolina and from Practical Winery and Vineyard Journal is an article entitled Three most common methods---measuring vine water status. This article explains when and how to take a pressure chamber reading.
An excellent pictorial guide to using the pressure chamber can be found at this site: Measuring Leaf Water Potential in Wine Grapes
1. Summary of measurement methods taken from VID257 Viticulture for Winemakers, UC Davis online course.

2008 One Woman Estate Reserve Chardonnay

Last night, we had our friends over for an impromptu dinner of black sea bass with black bean sauce and Asian cole slaw. To complement the dinner, we had a bottle of 2008 One Woman Estate Reserve Chardonnay. The One Woman Wines and Vines story is worth reading about and we picked up this bottle of wine on our trip to Long Island in 2011 on the recommendation of our friend who was over for dinner, (she of the Domaine Leflaive, inclination, so needless to say, her taste is impeccable).
But, this is a cautionary tale. When we went to the tasting room, which is really a remarkably cute little transformed potting shed (?), we tasted her wines and especially the reserve Chardonnay that our friend of the impeccable taste highly recommended. We were puzzled, the wine seemed a little unbalanced and to be blunt, not good at all. We wondered what our friend saw in this wine, but based on her recommendation, purchased a bottle to take home with us. Recently, at her home, she had a dinner which featured the One Woman wine and my husband and I really liked it. So, we wondered, was what we had in the tasting room not indicative of the quality of this wine? In opening the bottle last night, the four of us at dinner agreed that it was a well made wine. So, the lesson to us is that we should also be tasting our wine to ensure that what we serve our customers is really what we feel is the wine we crafted.
Also, I need to apologize for the poor photo, but shining more light on the label or taking the photo with a flash resulted in the label coming out as "One Man" instead of "One Woman".

Manage Insects On Your Farm

Manage Insects On Your Farm, subtitled A Guide to Ecological Strategies is a book published by SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education), written by Miguel A. Altieri and Clara I. Nicholls with Marlene A. Fritz.
Somewhere between conventional farming, organic and biodynamic farming is the practice outlined in this book called Ecologically Based Pest Management (EBPM). It consists of a below ground and above ground practice that leads to great soil health which in turn leads to crop health. It is a terrific guide for utilizing beneficial insects to help manage crop pests. This book in its entirety can be found on line at: http://www.sare.org/publications/insect/insect.pdf.
The book discusses the use of the appropriate cover crops as a means of preventing erosion, improving soil, fixing nitrogen and attracting beneficial insects. It also provides examples of farmers who have instituted the practice of EBPM on their farm and how it has impacted their crops in a positive way. It explains how using biological control, natural enemies called beneficial insects can prevent or delay outbreaks of insects, nematodes, weeds and plant diseases. It also has a small section where Zach Berkowitz, a California vineyard consultant discusses the importance of cover crops in a vineyard.

On pages 50-53 (PDF pages 60-63) of the publication, there is a very nice gallery of photos of beneficial insects. Learning to recognize these good bugs as well as bad bugs is key to having healthy plants. This is a very good publication and since it is online, I highly recommend checking it out!

The Fox Grape

We heard our friend use the term "foxy" to describe the taste of one of the wines that he drank and wondered what that could be. We didn't ask him but did ask our friend, who happens to be a veterinarian and she went into a long discussion regarding the odors that a fox can produce. It couldn't be that we thought. Although, I suppose that is better than the odor of skunk. So we were left in the dark about exactly what "foxy" meant.
To me, it immediately conjured up the image of Aesop's Fable, "The Fox and the Grape" but it still didn't make any sense. Well, it turns out that the origin of the term "foxy" as it relates to American grapevines is quite a mystery. The most comprehensive list of hypotheses that I've come across is in the book written by Thomas Pinney and published in 1989 called A History of Wine in America From the Beginnings to Prohibition. In the Appendix 1 to his book, Pinney says that the term fox grape has been applied to more than one North American grape. At one time or another, labrusca, rotundifolia, riparia and cordifolia varieties were all called the fox grape. Recently, there is agreement that the fox grape refers to some variety of the species labrusca. Reference to the fox grape was made as early as 1622 by John Bonoeil when describing the native grapes of Virginia. Pinney goes through a list of possibilities for the origin of the term, including the fact that "fox" may originally have come from the French "faux". Regardless of how the term originated, there is now a consensus, due to it's use, that "fox" refers to an odor. That odor has been chemically determined to be that of methyl anthranilate. The flavor of methyl anthranilate is that of a Concord grape and dimethyl anthranilate is used to flavor grape Koolaid!

1. The structure was found on Wikipedia: Methyl anthranilate.
2. All structures were drawn by the freely available drawing program from ACD Labs called ACD/ChemSketch Freeware.

2009 Pearl Morissette Chardonnay

We had my exercise buddy over for dinner last evening and decided to open our one and only bottle of 2009 Pearl Morissette Chardonnay. My husband exclaimed, "Wow, if I could make a Chardonnay like that!" My friend said, "I LOVE this style of Chardonnay!". The Chardonnay was very pale straw in color and what a balance of flavors, fruit, minerality and a hint of vanilla! We all thought the lingering taste was one of vanilla. The aroma reminded me of bygone days in Japan when my Aunty used to make plum wine from plums grown in her garden. We paired the Chardonnay with a fresh caught east coast halibut and fresh from the garden snow peas. Simple food with a great wine!
We got to tell our friend the story of how we met François Morissette in Jordan, Ontario. As you can see from the label, only 185 cases of this wine was made. You may be able to taste François's wines at the Second Annual International Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration(I4C) to be held on July 20-22,2012 in Niagara's Wine Country, Ontario, Canada. We wish we could be there!

Precipitation in Connecticut

Hot, hot, hot! I was looking over my Viticulture notes and came upon a nice link to a PDF about Precipitation in Connecticut written by David R. Miller, Glenn S. Warner, Fred L. Ogden and Arthur T. DeGaetano. An analysis of rainfall for the last 100 years shows that the mean annual precipitation is about 44.84 inches. The document makes a distinction between hydrological drought and agricultural drought.

• Hydrological droughts occur in Connecticut after prolonged dry spells of three to six months or more.
• Agricultural droughts occur during the growing season and can take place with dry conditions as short as two weeks on some sandy soils.

So, technically, we are not in a drought period at all. Connecticut is divided into 4 precipitation regions and according to this demarcation, our vineyard is located in precipitation region 3:

The next figure shows the probability of occurrence of extreme weather in a 24 hour period based on a weekly distribution. It seems to be right on course since yesterday, we had an early morning thunderstorm followed by a glorious firework display courtesy of Mother Nature in the late evening on the 4th of July.

Ken Forrester Visit

I think it is fair to say that our foray into Chenin blanc can be attributed to a Petit Chenin that we tasted a while back. Who knew that Chenin blanc could taste so good! This chance tasting led us to consider Chenin blanc as one of the grapes that we planned to grow, especially when we learned that Paumanok Vineyards across the sound from us on Long Island was making a stellar Chenin blanc. All of a sudden, the thought of growing Chenin blanc and making wine became a definite possibility. Our education in Chenin blanc began in earnest as we explored the wines of the Loire Valley Vouvray.

Last week, my husband was reading The Day, our local newspaper and told me that Ken Forrester had visited our area and provided his wines for the Chenin Celebration at the Octagon restaurant in Groton! We were very disappointed to learn that we missed this dinner and our chance to meet Ken Forrester. But, may be he will come to our area again and this time we hope to be prepared and may be even have a bottle of our Chenin blanc for him to taste. One can dream.