2012 Charles & Charles Rosé

We weren't on a lookout for this wine but there it was on the shelf! I had just read about it in the July-August 2013 issue of Vineyard & Winery Management so we had to try it. If I recall correctly, it was under $10.00. We drank this wine recently and really enjoyed it's crisp and refreshing quality that was not at all cloying. The article that I read about the Charles & Charles Rosé mentioned that the Syrah grapes that are used to make this rosé are deliberately picked slightly underripe to get the grassy, minerally, savory notes. So, unlike other rosés that may be a byproduct of making red wine, i.e. using the saigneé method or by blending a red wine and a white wine, 2012 Charles & Charles Rosé is made the traditional way, the same way it is made in Provence. The Charles Smith and Charles Bieler partnership began in 2008 when they made 3,000 cases and have grown to 20,000 cases for the 2012 vintage. My surprise at seeing this wine was that the article stated that by early 2013, this rosé was sold out, so we were lucky indeed to have a taste.
The link to the article in Vineyard & Winery Management can be found here: Taking Rosé Seriously

Predicting Harvest Date

Although we don't have any grapes this year, having just planted our vines in May, I was very interested in an article in the May, 2013 issue of Practical Winery & Vineyard called Predicting harvest date using berry sugar accumulation.¹ From the U.C. Davis online course, I am aware that berry sampling should be done as part of the harvesting decision.² I found one of the most useful graphs on grape ripening in the July/August 2002 issue of Practical Winery and Vineyard Journal called Understanding Grape Berry Development.³

The May 2013 article explained a concept called "berry sugar loading" which occurs after véraison, the onset of fruit maturation. Berry sugar loading leads to berry softening as sucrose is being transported to the berry and hydrolyzed into it's components, glucose and fructose, allowing those sugars to be accumulated in the berry, creating a concentration gradient. The berry sugar loading reaches a plateau and the duration of this plateau can be used to determine the level of ripeness in red cultivars.

Linda Bisson wrote: One of the most important decisions made by the winemaker is the time of harvesting of the fruit. The chemical composition of the berry at harvest will largely dictate the chemical composition of the finished wine.² This statement corroborates the often repeated "The wine is made in the vineyard".
References:
1. Alain Deloire, Predicting harvest date using berry sugar accumulation, Practical Winery & Vineyard, May, 2013, pg. 58-61.
2. Linda Bisson, Lecture 3: Viticulture from the Winemaker’s Perspective, VEN124.
3. James Kennedy, Understanding Grape Berry Development, Practical Winery and Vineyard Journal, July-August, 2002, Illustration done by Jordan Koutroumanidis of Winetitles.

What Does America in 1959 Have to Do With "Red Obsession"

My husband, Mary and I went to see "Red Obsession" at Rosecliff in Newport, Rhode Island on Thursday, September 19th. It was one of the top 10 days of summer and we enjoyed the drive to Newport. When we arrived at Rosecliff, we were one of the first ones there so we quickly grabbed a glass of Jonathan Edwards Pinot gris and some appetizers and watched as people trickled in. The movie began with a look at Bordeaux from the eyes of chateau owners, winemakers and vineyardists. The sense of history is accentuated as the camera pans into a shot of the tree lined entry into Chateau Margaux or listens to Christian Moueix speak about his passion for wine. Then the camera cuts to the glittering world of China. There is a scene in the movie during an auction where Kelly Cheng raises her auction paddle and bids 1.5 million for a bottle of Chateau Lafite (I hope it was a large format bottle). Shocking! Never mind that it is Hong Kong dollars which is the equivalent of about $200,000 U.S. She did it because she was tired of the slow progress of the bidding.
This is a movie about the impact that wealthy Chinese are having in the world of luxury goods, including first growth Bordeaux wines. I found a quote:
The _______s had the money, and now they were interested in wine. It was a heady combination. Because they concentrated their interest on Chateau Lafite and other first growths, the wines that had previously been the favorites of the English, their effect on the Bordeaux market was dramatic.... Many in the British wine trade, used to purchasing those wines at much lower prices wondered what would hapen if something went wrong with the growing ______ market. The international market was now being built on these high prices, and if the _______s dropped out, it would surely crash. Who else but the _______s would pay so much money for wine?¹
In the blank, put in "American" and the year 1959 but in watching the movie, the "Chinese" would be a more correct fill-in-the-blank choice right now. I found this quote in The Emperor of Wine, The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste written by Elin McCoy.
After the movie, there was a discussion lead by Newport Mansions Wine & Food Festival Wine Director, Michael Greenlee. If you are into wine and interested about the impact of the Chinese on the wine market, I would recommend seeing "Red Obsession".
Here is the link to the trailer to whet your appetite: Red Obsession
Reference:
1. Elin McCoy, The Emperor of Wine, The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste, 2005, HarperCollins, New York, pg. 32.

Wayne Wilcox: GRAPES 101 Powdery Mildew: How Important is Overwintering Inoculum?

Sometimes, it is just really nice to come across an article that is so timely. We have been advised by our vineyard consultant, Fritz Westover that we should be spraying our vineyard to beat down the powdery and downy mildew inoculum that our grapevines unfortunately contracted during this growing season. The current issue of The Appellation Cornell Newsletter has an article written by Wayne Wilcox called GRAPES 101 Powdery Mildew: How Important is Overwintering Inoculum?¹
What we are trying to do currently is to eliminate the sexual spores called ascospores that overwinter in a fruiting bodies called cleistothecia. The studies conducted by Wayne Wilcox and his colleague David Gadoury show that when the spray regiment was continued until Labor Day, the disease severity the following year was 5-fold less.

If we do not take these steps now we risk the health of our vines next spring. This is because if ascospores in the cleistothecia survive the winter, they are released the following spring during rain events and dispersed by the wind. If the vine is at a stage between budbreak and bloom, each ascospore that lands on green tissue can cause an infection that can result in the production of thousands of asexual spores called conidia when temperatures are in the 60's and 70's Fahrenheit (longer at cooler temperatures). Powdery mildew fungus can produce a new generation in as few as five days, allowing for it to develop explosively once it gets started if control is less than perfect.¹
So we are spraying, hoping to avoid this horror show next spring.
References:
1. Tim Martinson and Wayne Wilcox, GRAPES 101 Powdery Mildew: How Important is Overwintering Inoculum?, Appellation Cornell Newsletter, Issue 15 September, 2013.
2. The illustration is from the Compendium of Grape Diseases, 1988, American Phytopathological Society, St. Paul, MN. USA, pg. 10.

Auxerrois in the News

We've planted two white varieties with very little name recognition among the wine drinking public, but we are hoping that our Chenin blanc, our grape equivalent of Rodney Dangerfield and our Auxerrois can change a few people's minds. Lately, however, Chenin blanc has been gaining some notoriety and we already know that Charles and Kareem Massoud at Paumanok, on Long Island make a delicious Chenin blanc that regularly sells out! But, Auxerrois?
So, it was with keen interest that I read the article in Decanter written by Andrew Jefford called Jefford on Monday: The Grape That Dare Not Speak Its Name. Jefford wrote that Auxerrois spends its life under a gagging order. In Alsace, where Auxerrois is grown, it is often blended with Pinot blanc, some wines may contain as much as 80% Auxerrois but it will be labeled as Pinot blanc.
The two varieties, Pinot blanc and Auxerrois actually come from different parentages. A DNA analysis done in 1999, by Carole Meredith and her team revealed that Auxerrois and Chardonnay have the same parentage. This year, I took photos of the new leaves of Auxerrois and Chardonnay as they were emerging and noted that the Auxerrois had bronze colored new leaves. As the plants grew, however, it was difficult to tell the difference, just by looking at the leaves.:

Getting back to the parentage issue, Auxerrois comes from Pinot noir and Guais blanc and Pinot blanc is a mutation of Pinot noir, therefore their flavor profiles are quite different. In this article, Jefford was making a case for Auxerrois having it's own identity as a wine.
There are Auxerrois wines out there and one of our favorites is Clos des Rochers, made in Luxembourg. It is a good wine to drink after a hard day's work in the vineyard and under $20.00! Could Auxerrois be the next new thing?

Jonathan Edwards Wine Tasting at The Wine Store

This is the third wine tasting that we have been to at The Wine Store in Westerly, Rhode Island. On this evening, James Morrison featured the wines from Jonathan Edwards Winery with the help of Susan Denice, in charge of Rhode Island sales. The evening began with Susan pouring us a taste of Gewurztraminer grown at Jonathan Edwards. She mentioned that the Gewurztraminer was being picked on Wednesday with a crew of about 40 volunteers. Susan had a library tasting in store for us with Connecticut Chardonnay and Napa Valley Zinfandel. The Chardonnay are all made in the same way, part fermented in oak barrels and part fermented in stainless steel and then blended. We tasted vintages 2011, 2009 and 2007. The Napa Valley Zinfandel is grown specifically for Jonathan Edwards and the west coast operation is managed by Jonathan's father, Robert Edwards. Robert is in charge of ensuring that the grapes are ready for harvest.
If you enjoy meeting people, tasting wine and learning about wine, come join the group at The Wine Store in Westerly. We always have a great time. Thank you James!

SARE: Managing Cover Crops Profitably

After going to the Soil and Cover Crops Workshop in Woodstock, CT. I began reading the book published by the Sustainable Agriculture and Research Education (SARE) called Managing Cover Crops Profitably. We have the printed version of the book which can be purchased online for $19.00, but the entire book is also accessible for free as an HTML file at Managing Cover Crops Profitably.
Since we are trying to farm our vineyard as organically as possible, we do intend to put in some cover crops and this book is a good resource for the types of cover crops that are available in our area. The benefits of using cover crops include the following:

• Cut fertilizer costs by contributing N to cash crops and by scavenging and mining soil nutrients
• Reduce the need for herbicides and other pesticides
• Improve yields by enhancing soil health
• Prevent soil erosion
• Conserve soil moisture
• Protect water quality
• Help safeguard personal health

This book is an excellent resource that explains the importance of soil, how to use cover crops to build healthy soils, and what kinds of cover crops can be used. Stay tuned for more specific information on cover crops.

The Vineyard Raptor

While working in the vineyard yesterday, my husband called me over to take a look at this thing that looked like styrofoam. My husband is great at identifying snakes, toads, frogs and other reptiles and amphibians, but this egg case was something he had never seen before. I knew that it was the egg case of a praying mantis from one of my childhood encounters.
One of the good things about the tall grasses that grew in our vine rows was that it provided a habitat for all kinds of insects, good and bad. My husband was seeing many praying mantids as he weed whacked the grass. I saw one too as I was leaf pulling. At first, I wondered what that florescent green leaf was and then I realized that it was a very well camouflaged praying mantis.

The praying mantis lays her egg case in the fall. Eggs are typically deposited in a frothy mass that is produced by glands located in the abdomen of the female mantis. This froth then hardens, creating a protective capsule. If this egg case survives our winter, the mantis nymphs will emerge in late spring or early summer. I also learned by reading Wikipedia that the state insect for Connecticut is the European mantis (Mantis religiosa)! Images of the Chinese mantis (Tenodera aridifolia sinensis) appear to be consistent with the photo on the right.¹ The praying mantis is an indiscriminate predator of other insects. They eat caterpillars, butterflies, flies, bees, wasps, and moths. Nonetheless, praying mantids are great for natural pest control. In fact, the egg cases are sold specifically for this purpose.²
References:
1. Wikipedia Entry for Praying Mantis.
2. Praying Mantid Information from the University of Arizona.

Red Obsession

Lately, our trade journals have been full of stories about wine and China. In the Winter 2013 Issue of Practical Winery & Vineyard Journal, Dr. Richard Smart weighed in with his views on China an emerging global producer? Many articles have been written about China being a great market for exported wines, but in this article, Dr. Smart wrote about China's growing wine industry. China is now the third largest grape producer in the world after Italy and the U.S. and China has the land and the water resources to greatly expand its wine production.
There are 4 major vineyard regions in China:

• Shandong Province on the coast
• Hebei Province west of Beijing
• Ningxia Province in central China
• Xinjiang in the far west

In the second half of the article, Dr. Smart wrote about his visit to Ningxia Province where there are approximately 25,000 hectares of vineyards. The Great Wall a Chinese wine company has planted 500 hectares here. Currently there are about 20 wineries in this region. There is a government program to expand this number to 100 wineries in 10 years.¹
The August 2013 issue of Wines & Vines, contained a 5-page article called Brands at Risk about the rise of counterfeit wines, refilled bottles, reworked logos using Photoshop, and other intellectual property (IP) issues in China. The counterfeiting is not necessarily limited to imported wines such as Chateau Lafite, but local brands such as The Great Wall are also targets. Bruno Paumard of Chateau Hansen, a winery in Inner Mongolia, now uses bottles with the winery’s logo embossed in glass, making it more expensive and difficult to copy.²
Given all this hype about China in the news, I thought it was very timely when my husband showed me the trailer for a movie called Red Obsession after reading about it on the Wine Beserkers Forum. The synopsis of this movie mentions that it is a film about the link between Bordeaux and China.
We were wondering if we would have a chance to see this movie. My husband occasionally checks into what is happening in Newport, Rhode Island and learned that the Newport Film will be showing the movie on September 19th. May be we'll see you there.
Refer ences:
1. Richard Smart, Practical Winery & Vineyard Journal, China an emerging global producer?, Winter 2013, pg. 92-93, 97.
2. Jim Boyce, Wines & Vines, Brands at Risk, August 2013, pg. 30-34.

2010 Niagara Bachelder Chardonnay

Drinking this wine with our friend brought back memories of spending Canadian Thanksgiving with Mary Delaney and her family. We were there last year to participate in a harvest (as interested onlookers) and Mary invited us over for dinner. What a feast it was, but her husband, Thomas was in Burgundy, making his wines. My husband carved the turkey and we sat down with Mary's two daughters, her sister, her sister's daughter, her nephew and his girlfriend.
This evening, we made fish and shrimp in parchment paper and paired it with the 2010 Niagara Bachelder Chardonnay.
I found a great article online Wines in Niagara that speaks to Thomas Bachelder's passion and commitment to excellence in making his wine. He wants to let the terroir of Burgundy, Niagara, and Oregon express itself through his winemaking. The 2010 Niagara Chardonnay was wonderful, that's really all that needs to be said!

Grapevine Resilience

We've been administering our soft chemical comprised of hydrogen dioxide and acetic acid to our vines and they are responding! Grapevines are amazingly resilient. We have also benefited from the rain events in September that helped the vines to push new leaves. Although we are thankful for the rain, we are cognizant that rain is not so good for established vineyards in our area whose grapes may already be near harvest. Rain events close to harvest may swell the grapes causing them to burst and attract wasps, bees, fruitflies and other insects that carry grape berry diseases that may cause the berries to rot.
In our case, the rains have helped our young vines to grow new leaves. Our hope is that they will have enough time to photosynthesize and create the carbohydrates necessary for the grapevine survival during the upcoming winter.

Erysiphe necator: Powdery Mildew

Sadly, we are learning at the school of hard knocks that we cannot keep our vineyard chemical free and in fact if we want to maintain a healthy vineyard we must judiciously choose and use some chemicals appropriately. To recap this growing season for us, the spring was cool with almost no rain, which is a little unusual for the Northeast. Our vineyard was planted in the third week in May and a deluge of rain followed in the month of June. To top this off, July was the hottest on record in the state of Connecticut. July was so hot and humid that our vines grew aerial roots. We heard from some of our Long Island friends that they needed to irrigate in July. So far we have had only two rain events in the month of August, on the 9th and on the 27th, which is to say, we haven't had much rain.

I mention the weather because, although we heard from other vineyardists that typically, the inoculum for powdery and downy mildew are not present in a newly planted vineyard, we found our plants infested with downy. We were well aware of our problem with downy mildew but we were unprepared to hear the next bit of news. We sent Fritz Westover the photo shown on the left and he identified for us that this photo shows a shoot infected with

powdery mildew (PM). Powdery mildew or Erysiphe necator is also known as Uncinula necator and is commonly called oidium.
I found an excellent article written by Michelle Moyer, Extension Specialist and Gary Grove, Plant Pathologist at Washington State University titled Grapevine Powdery Mildew illustrated with some photos that showed that our shoot (and much of our vineyard) does in fact have symptoms of PM as explained in the article.
Upper: Shoots infected by powdery mildew exhibit classic, grey web-like scarring.
Middle: Fall periderm formation and
Lower: Spring infections are noticeable as brown to red web-like discolorations on the cane.
                         Photos by Michelle Moyer.¹

Powdery mildew prefers mild temperatures between 68 and 85°F, relative humidity levels above 75%, and low levels of solar radiation. We had those conditions in spades in July. In the article from Washington State University, Moyer and Grove mention that the disease should be properly managed in the current year because that will influence how powdery mildew develops in the following year. If incompletely managed in Year 1, the fungus will mate and form overwintering structures called chasmothecia on infected fruit and foliage.
We are now faced with trying to beat down the inoculum before the onset of winter.
Reference:
1. Michelle Moyer, Viticulture Extension Specialist and Gary Grove, Plant Pathologist, WSU-IAREC, Grapevine Powdery Mildew.

2011 Abbazia di Novacella Kerner

My husband gave me a little tasting test one early evening after working on the land. He brought out two glasses of a white wine, one for him and one for me and asked me to guess what it was. I was surprised by it's fragrant, floral nose and honeydew flavor with crisp acidity. What was this? Virginia Viognier was my guess. My second guess was "Riesling", close but no cigar was the answer. In the end, I would never have guessed it because Kerner was a grape variety that I have never had before. In Jancis Robinson's book, Wine Grapes, the entry for Kerner mentions that it is a cross between Riesling and Schiava grossa, bred by August Herold at the Weinsberg research centre.¹ The Schiava grossa is also known as Vernatsch, Trollinger or Black Hamburg, yes, a red grape variety!
Kerner is grown in the northern most wine region in Italy called the Alto Adige also known as the Südtirol due to its bicultural Italian-Austrian heritage.² The Kerner buds late, giving it good frost resistance and ripens mid to late, making this grape a good candidate for cooler climates. Jancis Robinson also wrote that Kerner is grown in Hokkaido, the northernmost island in Japan. Now, that is cold tolerance!
Update: My husband found an online article from the San Francisco Chronicle on Alto Adige's white wines charm - in 2 languages. This article mentions that Abbazia di Novacella is a historic abbey in the Isarco Valley. The Kerner label is in two languages, Italian and German, so Abbazia di Novacella could also be called Kloster Neustift. That clarified for me, what Stiftskellerei Neustift stood for.
References:
1. J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, pg 502-503, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2.
2. Südtirol Wein Vini Alto Adige.
Additional Information:
Wikipedia Entry for Kerner Grape.

Eight Spotted Forester

In June, we found this beautiful caterpillar and identified it at that time. I was recently going through all the vineyard images that we took, reliving our first season. I came upon this photo and couldn't remember what it was. Finally, after about 20 minutes of searching on the Internet, I was able to locate a site that identified the caterpillar. I thought I would blog about it, belatedly, so that I don't forget, again!
This is the caterpillar of the Eight Spotted Forester, Alypia octomaculata. They range from Maine and southern Quebec to Florida and west to South Dakota and Texas. The caterpillar feeds on grapevines and Virginia creeper.¹ Ah, that explains it. It belongs to the Family Noctuidae, or the owlet moth. A relative of the Eight spotted forester that also attacks grapevines is called the Psychomorpha epimenis or the grapevine epimensis.

I found an image of the Eight Spotted Forester moth at A Prairie Haven.² The eight Spotted Forester moth looks like this:
A very appropriate descriptive name, wouldn't you say.
References:
1. Butterflies and Moths of North America.
2. A Prairie Haven