Happy Thanksgiving!

All the turkeys that have sought asylum in our vineyard sanctuary and we wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday: Anchor Sealing

Yesterday, we were up on the land anchor sealing some cut logs that we hope to have made into flooring. This is the green thing to do. The weather forecasts for this Thanksgiving week shows that today and tomorrow are the best days with rain coming in on Tuesday evening and 2-4 inches of rain expected on Wednesday. Yes, this is the northeast storm that is on national news. So, better to seal the logs now!

On the otherside, which is the sunny side of the log pile you'll find me on my hands and knees putting anchor sealing on the logs. My husband thought it was a good photo to take.

More Things to Do: Trellis Installation

The year is coming to a close very quickly and time will fly since the holidays are just around the corner. Not only that, it is definitely becoming very cold. This usually happens, it is New England, after all. Although we have had such a wonderful Indian summer that allowed us to work much longer into the fall, we still have things left to do. We received our trellis material in late June and it hasn't budged from where we left it:

My husband researched the kind of post pounder we would need to drive the line posts into the ground and we needed a trailer to hall the posts into the vineyard. We were able to locate a pretty hefty dump trailer and received it last week.

There is nothing holding us back now from completing the task at hand. I just want to add, though that it was bitterly cold with howling winds on Sunday so we hunkered down at home. But, today is another day.

Wall Street Journal Article on Ancient Wine

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal contained an article entitled Very Well Aged: Archaeologists Say Ancient Wine Cellar Found. I had to read it because I love all things wine and especially historical wines. There is also a video that you can watch that tells a little bit about the discovery. In a nutshell, the archaeologists found 40 one meters jars in what appeared to be a storage room during a dig in a Canaanite city in northern Israel, called Tel Kabri. The jars, dating back to 1700 B.C. were analyzed and found to contain the telltale signs of wine.
The article reminded me of what I previously blogged about in 2011, Celebrating Hajji Firuz Tepe---Evidence of Neolithic Wine! Hajji Firuz Tepe dates back to 5400-5000 B.C. and clay jars found in that dig contained traces of tartaric acid as well as calcium tartrate. This chemical sleuthing, extraction in boiling methanol, a battery of infrared, liquid chromatography and wet-chemical analysis was performed by Dr. Patrick McGovern and his team. More information on Dr. McGovern's work with ancient wines can be found online at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology: The Origins and Ancient History of Wine.
Dr. McGovern has also written a book called Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture.

2009 Paumanok Late Harvest Sauvignon blanc

Kudos to Charles and Kareem Massoud! We had this 2009 Late Harvest Sauvignon blanc last evening in celebration of our friend's birthday. It was a decadent ending for a meal that began with salad and seafood paella. We think that Paumanok in Aquebogue, Long Island is making some exceptional wines! This year is their 30th year in the business. The October 2013 online issue of The Wine Enthusiast has nominated Paumanok as one of the American Winery of the Year.
My husband was inspired by watching Laura Calder make her Olive Oil and Red Grape Cake on her show, French Cooking at Home so he made the accompanying dessert.

90+ Cellars Wine Tasting at The Wine Store

Last night was the monthly wine tasting at The Wine Store and James Morrison invited Frank Rego to pour and discuss the 90+ Cellars wines. We began with a Riesling from Mosel. I found it to be surprisingly delicious. Surprising because I had seen the 90+ label on our jaunts to wine purveyors but I probably would never have picked up a bottle if James didn't have this wine tasting. We also tasted a New Zealand Sauvignon blanc, Sonoma Pinot noir and Carneros Pinot noir, and an Italian Tuscan wine (80% Sangiovese, Cabernet sauvignon and Merlot blend).
It is as the 90+ Cellars website will tell you, a wine that has been rated at 90+ with the original brand remaining a secret. The website's story mentions that they began in 2009 when wines that were "...priced more than $20 a bottle took a hard fall, and inventories were piling up. Rather than discount their wine and erode the value of their brand, wineries were willing to part with it for less. We paid them promptly and promised complete anonymity, of course." The wineries bottle the exact same wine but switch the label to the 90+ Cellars label. Frank said that sometimes, the bottlers forget to switch the corks and you can tell where the wine came from. The color of the label is a clue to it's price: orange is entry level for white wine, black is entry level for red wine and then the white labels are for wines that are a bit more expensive. The website also will say what the price was for the sourced wine and what 90+ Cellars is selling the wine for. So, if you are in the market for a good quaffable wine do check out 90+ Cellars.

Our Cover Crops are Growing

This year's fall temperatures have been quite mild and our cover crop which we put in at the end of October is beginning to germinate!

The seeds that we selected for our cover crops were oats, rye, vetch, crimson clover and nitro radish. The rye and nitro radish are going gangbusters as are the crimson clover and nitro radish. The oats and hairy vetch are laggards.

A Grape is a Non-Climacteric Fruit

After reading Remi Cohen's article in the November/December 2013 issue of Vineyard & Winery Management and blogging about it in Abscisic Acid and Grapevine Dormancy, my curiosity was peaked regarding abscisic acid's role in grape ripening. One thing that I learned while digging into this topic is that grapes are a non-climacteric fruit. I had no idea! Grapes, along with citrus fruits and strawberries are non-climacteric fruits, meaning that they ripen without ethylene and respiration bursts. Fruits that are climacteric include apples, bananas, tomatoes, some melons and apricots.¹
So, the question is, what is the trigger for non-climacteric fruit ripening. The French call the onset of ripening in the grape, veraison, this is when the skins in red grape varieties begin to turn from green to red and the berries begin to soften. Still, this does not address the question of the trigger and chemistry of ripening in grapes. I found a freely available publication online called Fruit ripening in Vitis vinifera: spatiotemporal relationships among turgor, sugar accumulation, and anthocyanin biosynthesis researched and written by Simone D. Castellarin1, Greg A. Gambetta, Hiroshi Wada, Ken A. Shackel and Mark A. Matthews.
The onset of ripening results in²:

• Berry softening
• Sugar accumulation
• Increase in abscisic acid (ABA)

The increase in abscisic acid is accompanied by a decrease in cell turgor (P). Research into the ripening process has found that exogenous sugar and ABA is enough to result in berry softening and anthocyanin accumulation. But other hormones such as auxins, brassinosteroids, as well as ethylene also play a role in grape ripening. Auxin has been found to be a negative regulator in grape ripening and brassinosteroids are postive regulators.³
I'm still reading about the chemistry of grape ripening. Will report with more info later.
References:
1. Wikipedia: Climacteric_botany.
2. Simone D. Castellarin1, Greg A. Gambetta, Hiroshi Wada, Ken A. Shackel and Mark A. Matthews, Fruit ripening in Vitis vinifera: spatiotemporal relationships among turgor, sugar accumulation, and anthocyanin biosynthesis, J. Exp. Bot., (2011) 62 (12): 4345-4354.
3. Marzia Giribaldi, Laurence Gény, Serge Delrot and Andrea Schubert, Proteomic analysis of the effects of ABA treatments on ripening Vitis vinifera berries, J. Exp. Bot., (2010) 61 (9): 2447-2458.

2011 Vignoble Dampt Les Fourneaux Premier Cru

We had this 2011 Vignoble Dampt Premier Cru, which had the acidity typical of a Chablis, but with a touch of oak which gave it a hint of vanilla flavor and then went on a hunt to find more. My husband initially forgot where he purchased this bottle of wine so we looked on the Internet and located some information on Domaine Dampt Frères. The Vignoble Dampt was made by the Dampt family including father Bernard and his three sons, Eric, Emmanuel and Hervé. In our search, we got confused with another Chablis site called Domaine Dampt. It also appeared that the Internet had different images as well as prices for the 2011 Vignoble Dampt Les Fourneaux, so it was rather confusing. To add to this confusion, there is also a Domaine Vincent Dampt.
Just when we thought that the wine would be consigned to our memory my husband remembered that we bought the wine locally. The wine store did not have any more of the 2011 Vignoble Dampt but they were able to locate the 2012 Vignoble Dampt Les Fourneaux Premier Cru! I have to say that I am still partial to the 2011 Vignoble Dampt, but perhaps it is because it is now unattainable.

Abscisic Acid and Grapevine Dormancy

It's beginning to snow along the coast in Southeastern, CT where our vineyard is located. I'm wondering how our grapevines are tolerating the onset of colder weather and found some answers in the November/December 2013 issue of Vineyard & Winery Management written by Remi Cohen called Understanding Plant Hormones.¹ Last year, after reading Marcus Keller's book on The Science of Grapevines I blogged about Grapevine Hormones. Ms. Cohen's article provided much more information about abscisic acid (ABA) and it's role in grapevine dormancy. I found the chemical structure of abscisic acid on Wikipedia² and reproduced it using the ACDLabs freeware:³

Abscisic acid:

• Initiates bud dormancy and stimulates the alteration of the last set of leaves into bud covers
• Prevents bud growth during winter dormancy

Abscisic acid also:

• Slows cellular and meristematic growth once shoots have begun to produce mature leaves
• Regulates potassium and sodium uptake in the guard cells resulting in the closure of stomates in response to water stress, thereby preventing water loss in the vine
• Regulates seed maturation and germination

In addition, ABA may be a crucial mediator of the ripening process in grapes. Okay, more reading for me to do on this snowy day.
References:
1. Cohen, Remi, Understanding Plant Hormones, Vineyard & Winery Management, November/December 2013, ppg. 33-36.
2. Wikipedia: abscisic acid.
3. All structures were drawn by the freely available drawing program from ACD Labs called ACD/ChemSketch Freeware.

Cork and Other Closures

Recently, I opened my mouth to defend the use of cork in a small gathering where the virtues of screwcaps were being touted. It's not that I don't like or appreciate screwcaps, I do, and it's not like I haven't read up on the controversy, I have (To Cork or Not to Cork by George Taber, but I didn't have the specific information about the use of corks and screwcaps in the United States.
Cork began getting a bad name for itself when bottles of wine were smelling like wet cardboard when they were opened, according to George Taber. The wet cardboard odor was then identified by Hans Tanner and his colleague Carla Zanier, in the 1980s as 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) and related compounds. The problem was then traced to how cork manufacturers prepared the cork using chlorine products. The use of chlorine turned phenol, a naturally occurring compound in cork bark into 2,4,6-trichlorophenol and then the final insult was delivered microbially when the phenolic oxygen was methylated to produce 2,4,6-tricholoroanisole. This put cork manufacturers on notice that they needed to correct the problem of cork taint. Chlorine is no longer being used as the sanitizing agent and various tests are conducted to ensure that TCA is not a factor in the manufacturing of corks.
In the meantime, the use of screwcaps was on the increase. However, while they are not prone to TCA, screwcaps are not without their own problems that include the production of post bottling sulfides. That is the whiff of rotten eggs that you may smell when opening a screwcapped bottle.
In the November 2013 issue of Wines & Vines, there it was! Given these choices for closures, it was of interest to read that while the use of screwcaps is on the rise in North America with 38% of wineries using at least some screwcaps as compared to 5% in 2004, 84% of wineries still continue to use cork.

Skin Contact for White Wines

The article, The Skinny on Skin Contact for Whites, written by Tim Patterson in the October 2013 issue of Wines & Vines caught my attention. We have planted only white varieties in our north field that include Auxerrois, Chenin blanc and Chardonnay. From my U.C. Davis course, I was under the impression that skin contact is a no-no for white varieties, so I was very interested in what Tim Patterson had to say. When skin contact works, the resultant wine can have intensified aromatics, fuller body and possibly more aging potential. So far so good. I read on. Patterson says that the current "best practice" in white wine making include:

• No skin contact
• Commercial yeast inoculation
• Cool fermentation temperatures
• Reductive strategies
• Squeaky clean sanitation
• Heat and cold stabilization
• Sterile filtration

But, some skin contact is inevitable, even under the most gentle conditions of harvesting and whole cluster pressing. Skin contact or maceration is practiced for certain aromatic varieties like Muscat, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, and Sauvignon blanc. Patterson reports that some winemakers blend a portion of white wine that has seen skin contact with a portion of wine that has not seen skin contact to make their wine. Overall, I thought it was an interesting article, but I'll need to locate more information on this practice.

2009 Barbera d'Alba Marziano Abbona Rinaldi and 2009 Gagliasso Barbera d'Alba Vigna Ciabot Russ

We're still working through our case of Barberas that we purchased in order to convince ourselves that we want to grow Barbera as one of our red varieties. We recently had two 2009 Barbera d'Albas, one was the Marziano Abbona Rinaldi and the other was Gagliasso Barbera d'Alba Vigna Ciabot Russ 2009.

How the wine is made:
For the Marziano Abbona Rinaldi the fermentation goes on for 5-6 days in macerators at the temperature of 28-30°C in steel tanks. The wine is then aged for 4 months in the steel tanks, 8 months in 500L tonneaux and 6 months of bottle aging.
For the Gagliasso Barbera d'Alba Vigna Ciabot Russ, the fermentation took place in temperature controlled stainless steel vats with temperatures around 28°C, 6-8 days of maceration with malolactic fermentation occurring spontaneously in the stainless steel vats. The wine is aged for 6 month in stainless steel vats, then the wine is bottled and aged for 6 months.
We had both with some kind of dish consisting of tomato sauce (pizza and spaghetti) and it paired very well. The Barberas that we have been tasting this fall have been consistently delicious, but for our palates, one that has risen above this crowd is the 2009 G.D. Vajra Barbera d'Alba.

Methods of Seeding a Cover Crop

This fall has been a busy time for us even though we had no grapes to harvest. We spent much of October cultivating our vineyard alleys to get rid of the weeds in preparation for seeding our cover crop. The spacing between rows is 7 feet but the alleys are narrower so my husband used a cultivator shown on the right. There are many configurations for the attachments and he tried them all! We were warned about this by our friend Dave. He said that the only thing that we would be doing each time we made a pass was to bring up more rocks and he was right. Not only did we bring up rocks but we also brought up the crab grass which died and left unslightly clumps in the alleys.

We moved the rocks into the vineyard rows and removed as much of the crab grass as we could. In preparation for seeding, my husband used a roller that was loaned to us by Tim Marvin, our John Deere dealer. Tim said that we could keep the roller as long as we needed it. How great is that! In mid October, after receiving our soil test results, we limed certain parts of the vineyard to raise the pH. Then we did more cultivating, more rock picking and more angsting over dead crab grass in the vineyard.

But it was time! We had to seed. The weather was becoming increasingly cooler (see Frost Friday and Sowing Oats), so we couldn't delay any longer. There are various methods of seeding a cover crop and this is one of them, shown here on the right. However, we did have expert advice from Rick and Russell Holmberg from Holmberg Orchards who said to just fling the seeds in the alleys. So, that is what we ended up doing for the cover crop. That left the perimeter of the vineyard that still needed to be seeded. Since the perimeter was not encumbered by vines, we rented a seeder from Tim and Dennis Marvin and that went a lot faster!

We finished seeding the perimeter in no time at all and it was a good thing that we did because the rains came on Halloween evening.