Food and Wine Pairings

These days finds us trying to figure out what do make and what wines to pair with our New Year's Eve dinner with friends. So far, we know we will have champagne and since my husband recently figured out how to shuck oysters, part of our appetizer will be champagne with oysters.

But for those who don't like oysters with champagne, we have been pouring over our food and wine books to come up with the proper pairing. Stay tuned! I'll update. I've also been thinking of creating a new tab called "Food and Wine Pairings".

2012 La Battistina Gavi

After decades of trying to dine at Al Forno in Providence, we finally got in by making a reservation in October. Lucky for us, Al Forno will make reservations for a party of 6 or more, which we were. We decided to drink Italian wines for the perfect compliment to the Italian meal. We started our appetizers with this bottle of Gavi. We learned about the Cortese grape that finds it's best expression in Gavi and were anxious to try it. The bouquet was very floral almost reminiscent of Sauvignon blanc, but without the cat pee or grassy flavor. It went perfectly with the stuffed clams, Margarita flat bread and antipasto.
This Gavi is bottled by Araldica Vini. Araldica is a cooperative with 200 members who tend to around 900 hectares of vines. They grow native varietals such as Barbera, Dolcetto, Nebbiolo, Cortese, Arneis and Moscato as well as the less common Brachetto and Freisa. La Battistina is one of their more recently acquired vineyards. The chalky, mineral soil provides excellent drainage and the old vines, averaging 35 years adds complexity and weight to the wines. The wine proved to be an excellent start (we vowed to go on a wine hunt for Gavi) for the rest of the evening's repast which we paired with a Barbera and a Gattinara.

This culinary experience transported some in our group back to Rome, where they had been a few weeks ago. Not too shabby for an evening in Providence, Rhode Island.

Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC)

I thought I'd provide a blog with a slight public service announcement bent during this holiday season while everyone is merrily drinking. In digging through my notes from the U.C. Davis Introduction to Winemaking, I located the lecture on The Health Effects of Wine. In this lecture, we learned about blood alcohol levels and their physiological effects on the body:

More importantly, we learned how to calculate our own intoxication level based on our weight and the number of glasses of alcohol we consumed.

For example, for a hypothetical person who weighs 150 pounds and consumes 3 standard glasses of wine, the BAC will be (4 x 3)/150 = 0.08% or the criteria for being "under the influence". However, alcohol is being absorbed as well as metabolized and factors that affect the BAC include:

• food consumption reduces absorption rate
• higher alcohol concentration increases BAC
• sparkling wines increases BAC
• gender affects metabolism; women have lower gastric alcohol dehydrogenase levels which reduces metabolism

Alcohol is typically metabolized at a rate of 0.1 gram per kilogram of body weight per hour. Converting grams into ounces and pounds, a ball park figure for how much alcohol is being metabolized can be calculated from the following equation.

Therefore, our hypothetical 150 pound person will be able to metabolize 150/250 = 0.6 standard drink per hour.
Here is a link to an online BLOOD ALCOHOL CALCULCATOR
Have a safe and happy holiday!

Tasting Pleasure Confessions of a Wine Lover by Jancis Robinson

We picked up this book last week on a little jaunt to one of our favorite old bookstores. I immediately set about to read it. I found out that Jancis and I are chronological contemporaries her philosophy in life is similar to mine. At one point in her book she states that she never set out to be a wine writer, being reactive rather than proactive and things just turned out for her this way. (I never set out to be a farmer, things just turned out this way.) Her life's trajectories are captured in this book, arranged in decades beginning roughly in the 1970's and culminating in the late 1990's. She began her working life as a chambermaid in Italy in 1968, went to school at Oxford and then after graduating took a job with Thomson Holidays arranging packaged tours. Her first job in the industry was with Wine & Spirit in the mid 1970's and presciently began keeping a diary of her wine tastings. Imagine (I can only imagine) tasting 1966, 1971, and 1973 vintages of Grands Échezeaux, Richebourg, La Táche and Romanée-Conti as a young wine writer. That was Jancis's lot in life, that and becoming tasting buddies with the likes of Hugh Johnson, Michael Broadbent, Clive Coates in the home of Edmund Penning-Roswell. She also wrote about a tasting in 1986 organized by Hardy Rodenstock (The Billionaire's Vinegar) In the 80's Jancis balanced having 3 children, taking the Master of Wine exam and becoming one, buying a place in Languedoc, and (forgive me) etc. She was busy! A major mystery was solved for me when I learned that her name, "Jancis" is a character, beloved by her mother, from the book called Precious Bane written by Mary Webb.

1976 Auslese

Not too long ago, our friends shared with us this 1976 Auslese. Being 37 years old, the label had seen better days, but the wine inside was still alive and drinking well. The dessert of homemade apple pie paired admirably with the Auslese. Drinking the Auslese prompted a lively discussion regarding the classification system of wine in Germany. In thumbing through Kevin Zraly's Windows on the World Complete Wine Course, I came upon an excellent explanation of the various categories of German wines.¹

According to the German Law which went into effect in 1971, German wines can fall into two main categories:

• Tafelwein or table wine
• Qualitätswein or quality wine of which there are two kinds:
(1) Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebite (QbA): QbA is a wine that comes from one of the 13 specified regions
(2) Qualitätswein mit Prädikat (QmP): QmP is a quality wine with distinction. It cannot be chaptalized. There are 5 levels of QmP wines and one way to visualize the increase in quality of the QmP wines is to depict it in a pyramid.

The above pyramid represents the increase in quality as you get toward the top. Because the QmP wines cannot be chaptalized (addition of sugar), the grapes in various categories are a reflection of the increase in sugar content.

• Spätlese is a wine made from late harvested grapes
• Auslese is made from grapes that are selectively picked from ripe bunches
• Beerenauslese is made from individually selected grapes from ripe bunches
• Trochenbeerenauslese is made from trochen or dried grapes and is likely to taste raisinated

Beerenaulese and Trochenbeerenauslese usually come from the Rhein or the Mosel and the best are made from the Riesling grape.
References:
1. Kevin Zraly, Windows on the World Complete Wine Course, 2009 Edition, Sterling Publishing, pg. 87-89.
2. UC Davis Online Course, Introduction to Winemaking, 092VID251.

Bubbles and Brie At The Wine Store

James Morrison hosted another tasting event at The Wine Store, this one was most appropriate for the season. It was a Champagne and sparkling wine tasting accompanied by brie and bread.

We tasted a Moet & Chandon Rosé Imperial, a Veuve Clicquot, a Chandon and a Cava from Portugal. Earlier, I blogged about Champagne: The Fine Print. My husband got into a conversation about négociant-manipulant (NM) and récoltant-manipulant (RM) with James and that prompted James to pull out a Louis De Sacy, which my husband thought was an RM but is really an NM, so we were able to taste that, too. We did end up purchasing 3 sparklers for the upcoming holiday festivities.

1997 Palmer Reserve Merlot

We had this 1997 Palmer Reserve Merlot last evening with our friends. My husband made a wild game cassoulet that paired excellently with this 16 year old wine. The color was tawny around the edges and some sediment had collected on the sides of the bottle indicative of it's age and the fact that it may not have been fined, which is fine with us. The fruit and acid was still going strong. The nose was of red berries and cherries with a hint of leather and had a long finish.
I wanted to know how the year stacked up so went looking on the Internet and found a vintage chart from Wine Enthusiast that gave ratings for vintages in the United States from 1990 to 2010. For a 1997 red from Long Island, the Wine Enthusiast gave that vintage 89 points. The sidebar also had color coded that the wine might be in it's decline and may be undrinkable. In the case of this 1997 Palmer Reserve Merlot, I would have to disagree. We procured about 8 bottles at possibly fire sale prices, which worked for us. We also looked again on the Internet and found that the winemaker was Tom Drozd who, as of 2006 is winemaker at Pelligrini.

Methoxypyrazine Biosynthesis in Cabernet Sauvignon

This morning, I am reading the article Determining the Methoxypyrazine Biosynthesis Variables Affected by Light Exposure and Crop Level in Cabernet Sauvignon in this month's issue of The American Journal of Enology and Viticulture.¹ Somewhere along the line, I learned that methoxypyrazines are responsible for the herbaceous, green notes that can plague the flavor of Cabernet sauvignon and Cabernet franc, as well as Sauvignon blanc. 3-Isobutyl-2-methoxypyrazine or IBMP is the chemical culprit responsible for this herbaceous character and studies have shown that the concentration of IBMP in grapes is influenced by many variables:

• Maturity
• Sunlight exposure
• Temperature
• Water Status
• Vine vigor
• Yield

The last step in IBMP production is known to involve the methylation of 3-isobutyl-2-hydroxypyrazine, IBHP. A methyltransferase gene (VvOMT3) was recently shown to be responsible for most of the differences in methoxypyrazine production among grapevine varieties. The chemical structures of IBHP and IBMP are shown below:

Two variables, sunlight exposure and grape yield, have a direct influence on IBMP concentration in grape berries. Both sunlight exposure and yield are easily and commonly manipulated in the vineyard by practices such as winter pruning, leaf plucking, and bunch thinning. The authors of this research conducted experiments with sunlight exposure and crop level to determine which variable had a more pronounced impact on IBMP production.
The primary aim of the sunlight exclusion experiment was to determine:
(1) if the treatments caused changes in IBMP concentrations
(2) if these changes were due to the alteration of either VvOMT3 expression or IBHP concentration. The authors found that light reduced the expression of VvOMT3 and the concentration of IBHP, suggesting that a combination of these factors reduces IBMP concentration when fruit has greater light exposure. Berry shading has a greater influence on IBMP concentrations in preveraison berries, when methoxypyrazines accumulate.
Cabernet Sauvignon vines with low crop level produced grapes with higher IBMP concentrations than vines with high crop level, however, the effect of crop level manipulation on IBMP concentration was not as great as the effect observed by the elimination of light exposure on bunches.
In order to minimize the impact of IBMP accumulation in Carbernet sauvignon, the authors suggest that canopy management regimes that result in exposed bunches very early in fruit development should be implemented. Altering canopy management after veraison will have less of an effect on IBMP concentrations.
References:
1. Jake D. Dunlevy, Kathleen L. Soole, Michael V. Perkins, Emily L. Nicholson, Suzanne M. Maffei and Paul K. Boss, Determining the Methoxypyrazine Biosynthesis Variables Affected by Light Exposure and Crop Level in Cabernet Sauvignon, Am. J. Enol. Vitic., December 2013, vol. 64 no. 4 450-458.
2. The structure of IBMP was found here: Chemical Book 3-Isobutyl-2-methoxypyrazine(24683-00-9)
3. All structures were drawn by the freely available drawing program from ACD Labs called ACD/ChemSketch Freeware.

Champagne: The Fine Print

My husband and I have been vetting a gift of DVDs about wine that we have purchased in order to determine if the contents are suitable for gifting or not. We have learned a few things in today's lesson. For example, Champagne (and tis the season for this libation!) can have on it's label, NM or RM. NM stands for négociant-manipulant, they constitute the large champagne houses such as Moët, Veuve, and Bollinger.

The NM on these labels may be very tiny. I had to prove it to myself by looking at a label of one of the champagnes that we already drank and have on our wall of fame. It was not visible to my naked eye. I took my camera with my macro lens and was able to finally make out the NM on this label.
RM, on the other hand, stands for récoltant-manipulant, a grower who makes champagne from his own grapes.¹ After today's lesson was over, I saw my husband go to our wine cabinet and check one of the champagnes that we have. It was an RM.

In doing some reading on the Internet, there is a small debate taking place regarding NM and RM Champagnes. In this day and age where a lot of stock is placed in handmade, artisanal anything, the RM Champagnes are getting some traction. You can read an article written by Bill Ward in the Star Tribune called Champagne: Tiny bubbles from tiny operations, he gives an even handed treatment of NM and RM Champagnes and suggests many RM Champagnes worth a try!
References:
1. Jancis Robinson, RM champagne no shortcut to quality.
2. The Beast, Champagne: Houses vs Growers.

Alicante Bouschet Parentage

Earlier, I blogged about Teinturier Grape Varieties as being a type of grape that has red colored flesh. Alicante bouschet is a Vitis vinifera and as such, is one of the grape varieties sanctioned by the French authorities for the production of wine. Today, I'm chasing down the genetic parentage of Alicante bouschet because I think it is quite interesting that there are so many red skinned grapes with white flesh i.e. Cabernet sauvignon, Cabernet franc, Pinot noir, Merlot, etc. so where did the red flesh in Alicante bouschet come from?
I found an article in the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture called Garnacha and Garnacha Tintorera: Genetic Relationships and the Origin of Teinturier Varieties Cultivated in Spain. The researchers, lead by José Miguel Martínez-Zapater traced the parentage of the teinturier varieties using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and microsatellite markers on 65 samples. The researchers discovered the relationship between the 65 samples and provided this graphic representation:¹

Many of the teinturier varieties can be traced back to the crosses performed in the nineteenth century by Louis and Henri Bouschet. Louis Bouschet used Teinturier as one of the parents, a red-fleshed French variety possibly originating from the region of Orléans in northern France as well as Aramon noir to produce Petit Bouschet. Louis' son, Henri crossed Grenache with Petit Bouschet to create one of the many versions of Alicante Henri Bouschet or Alicante Bouschet no. 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 12, and 13.² In their book, Wine Grapes, Robinson, Harding and Vouillamoz mention that there is a relationship between Teinturier and Savagnin, but both are derived from wild grapevines.
References:
1. José Antonio Cabezas, María Teresa Cervera, Rosa Arroyo-García, Javier Ibáñez, Inmaculada Rodríguez-Torres, Joaquín Borrego, Félix Cabello, and José Miguel Martínez-Zapater Garnacha and Garnacha Tintorera: Genetic Relationships and the Origin of Teinturier Varieties Cultivated in Spain, Am. J. Enol. Vitic., 2003, 54:237-245.
2. J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, pg 32-34 and 1040-1041, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2.

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.

Argentinian Wine Tasting at The Wine Store

James Morrison convened another tasting at the Wine Store in Westerly. This time it was wines from Argentina. There were 4 wines being showcased including Crios Torrontes, La Posta Tinto, Tikal Patriota and Luca. Vic Zelinsky was there to transport us to Mendoza, Argentina, a place he described as being like a New World Babylon Garden.

The first wine served was the Crios Torrontes, a white wine. The nose was powerfully aromatic and the wine was crisp and delicious. I wanted to know more about the Torrontes grape so I turned to the 3 J's (I read it on some one's blog, Jancis, Julia and José) new book, Wines Grapes. I learned that there are three Torrontes grapes in Argentina. Torrontes Riojano is the most important, followed by the two lesser known Torrontes Mendocino and Torrontes Sanjuanino. Through DNA analysis, it has been shown that Torrontes Riojano and Torrontes Sanjuanino is a cross between Muscat of Alexandria and Listan Prieto and that Torrontes Mendocino is descended from Muscat of Alexandria and an unidentified variety. All three grapes belong to the Criolla group.
The second wine that was poured was the 2010 La Posta Cocina Tinto, a blend of 60% Malbec, 20% Syrah and 20% Bonarda. Vic explained that the wine was made from grapes from various vineyards and that label refers to the fact that the growers met at a tavern (La Posta) to discuss all things wine. We next tried the Tikal Patriota 2011, a blend of malbec and bonarda. I knew that malbec is the red wine of Argentina but I had no idea what bonarda was. Vic mentioned that it came from the Piedmont region of Italy. I thought that it had the deep inkiness of a Barbera (too much Barbera on the mind!) I looked up bonarda in Wines Grapes and found the following information: Bornarda Piemontese is often confused with Douce Noire, known as Bonarda in Argentina. In the U.S., Bonarda is also known as Charbono! DNA analysis showed that the origin of the Argentinian Bonarda is most likely Savoie, located in eastern France. The last wine that we tasted was a Luca made from 100% Malbec. We always enjoy going to James' wine tastings, it's a nice way to taste different wines and meet like minded people.
References:
1. J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours.

Frost Friday and Sowing Oats

Our first frost event happened on Friday morning. We are still sowing cover crop seeds so we headed off to the land first thing Saturday morning. We finished sowing 17 rows of oats, nitro radish and hairy vetch by 1 p.m. This was a good thing because the winds really began to kick up and by mid-afternoon, it was howling! The good news is that all of our cover crop seeds have been sown and even better, we had a rain event early Sunday morning. Hopefully the rain will aid in the germination of the seeds. We are alternating our 35 row vineyard with 2 mixtures of seeds: (1) winter oats bob, crimson clover and nitro radish and (2) winter rye, hairy vetch and nitro radish.
The following drawings and information comes from the online publication Managing Cover Crops Profitably from the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) site:

	Oats or Avena sativa is a cool season annual cereal that is used for suppressing weeds, preventing erosion, scavenging excess nutrients, and adding biomass.
	Crimson clover or Trifolium incarnatum is a winter annual or summer annual legume that is used for providing a N source, building soils, preventing erosion, and reseeding inter-row ground cover.
	Winter (cereal) rye or Secale cereale is a cool season annual cereal grain that is used for scavenging excess N, preventing erosion, adding organic matter, and suppressing weeds.
	Hairy vetch or Vicia villosa is a winter annual or summer annual legume that is used for providing a N source, suppressing weeds, conditioning the topsoil, and reducing erosion.

The other seed that is in both mixtures is called nitro radish. Nitro radish is also known as Raphanus sativus, but we Japanese also know it as daikon. We incorporated nitro radish in our cover crop mixture because it is important as a bio-driller, biofumigant, and is also used in erosion control and nematode control, and is effective in nutrient scavenging.

Dinner and Wine Fest at Ella's in Westerly

Last night, we joined our friends for a treat at Ella's Fine Food and Drink in Westerly, Rhode Island. I think this event was the brain child of James Morrison from The Wine Store, also in Westerly, whose wine selections were the basis of the 6 course meal extravaganza created by chef-owner Jeanie Roland. James Roland (husband and owner of Ella's) and James Morrison were there to welcome the guests who packed the dining room.

The preview of the red wines that were to be served at the dinner was laid out on the table as guests filed in. The meal began with appetizers and champagne. I have to confess, I left my menu at the restaurant so I'll go from what I remember---may get more vague as I progress. The first course was a seared tuna served with Hugel Gewurztraminer, second course seared scallop with Louis Latour Puligny-Montrachet, third course, duck with Ondines Vacqueyras, fourth course braised short ribs with Clos Siguier Cahors and lastly dessert was a chocolate mousse with a 1997 Offley Port.

It was quite the evening! Great job Jeanie, James and James!

Turkeys vs. Tractor

Not all the time that we spend in the vineyard can be classified as work. Sometimes, we are amazed at what will appear. Yesterday, while my husband was on his tractor and I was picking rocks, he let me know that I needed to look in his direction. There they were and one was actually taunting him: "Hey, farmer, wanna race?"

It took me a while to whip out my camera to catch this amazing (to us) flock of turkeys walking from the south side of our vineyard.

That's what draws us to our vineyard---you never know what the day will bring while tending the vines!

Soil pH Adjustment with Lime

I'm trying (still) to understand the meaning of our soil report we recently received, specifically as it relates to the values that we obtained for our cation exchange capacity (CEC), base saturation, nutrient anions and organic matter. In today's blog, I'm going to delve a little into pH adjustment. Last December, we limed our soil to bring the pH from a starting value of 5.3 to a more neutral pH (closer to 7). The proper soil pH is important to ensure the availability of certain plant nutrients as shown in the following graph:¹

An article I found online called Liming of Vineyard Soils, mentions that the amount of pH change desired and the type of clay mineral present also affects the amount of lime needed to change the pH. In addition, there is a relationship between soil texture, cation exchange capacity (CEC), and buffering capacity (resistance to a change in ion concentration) that affect the amount of lime needed to change the pH.²
There are also different types of lime that can be used. But in all cases, the purpose of the liming material containing either OH^- or HCO₃^-, is to neutralize the H⁺ ion in the soil solution. Pure calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) is used to define the acid-neutralizing capacity of the liming material and it is expressed as a weight percentage of CaCO₃. The calcium carbonate equivalent (CCE) is the standard against which other liming materials are measured, and its neutralizing value is considered to be 100%. The reaction that occurs in the soil is the following:

From our soil analysis, we knew that we had enough magnesium in our soil, so our choice was to get lime that contained more calcium. We chose a pelletized calcite that contained 95.8% CCE made up of 87.5% calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) and 49% calcium oxide (CaO).
References:
1. Mark Chien, Grapevine Nutrition, Penn State, College of Agricultural Sciences.
2. Thomas J. Rice, PhD, Liming of Vineyard Soils, Practical Winery & Vineyard Journal, July-August, 1999.

Results of Our Fall Soil Tests

We took more soil samples a few weeks ago to see if the liming that we did in December 2012 had an impact on raising our soil pH which was about 5.3. We took soil samples based on how we thought our vines were performing and divided the field into octants, roughly based on our grape variety. Interestingly, the pH of our soil where our Chardonnay, clone 96 is planted on the extreme east side of our field, was at a lower pH (5.5) than the rest of the field, with the exception of one block of Chenin blanc on the south side of our field, (I don't quite understand why this is the case). We made an Excel spreadsheet of the results from the beginning of our soil sampling to see if we could see any other trends, especially for potassium, zinc, sulfur and boron, which was also incorporated in the soil at the same time that we did the liming.
Mark Chien has a great presentation called Grapevine Nutrition¹ where he advises how much of the macro- and micronutrients should constitute an appropriate level or range so we added that information to the spreadsheet so that it would be easy to decipher if we had the appropriate levels:

My husband, being an analytical chemist by training was way ahead of me in deciphering the soil analysis report. He determined what kind of lime we needed based on the soil report. In order to provide informed data for this blog, I pulled out our copy of Wine Grape Production Guide for Eastern North America and turned to the chapter on Nutrient Management. There I found a good explanation for cation exchange capacity (CEC), base saturation, nutrient anions and organic matter, which are additional information included in the soil analysis. It was very complicated. I'll write more about the interactions between pH, CEC, base saturation and organic matter soon.

References:
1. Mark Chien, Grapevine Nutrition, Penn State, College of Agricultural Sciences.
2. Wine Grape Production Guide for Eastern North America, Tony Wolf (Editor), published 2008.

Vineyard Work in the Fall

I was talking with the morning group that goes to the Y to exercise and mentioned how the vineyard did this year. Due to a certain amount of naivety, we were caught off guard when summer came and July was hot and humid and promoted weed and mildew growth but not vine growth. We quickly followed up with a soft spray regime recommended by Fritz Westover, our vineyard consultant, to beat down the mildews. That's when I learned that one gallon of water weighs 8.35 pounds. My husband bought us a portable sprayer that straps on to our backs and can carry approximately 4 gallons of liquid and is relatively on the light side at 11.5 pounds. So, a completely full back sprayer would weigh approximately 45 pounds! I was going to write a blog about it and call it "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Birchmeier" or "The Unbelievable Heaviness of Water" but I held back. When I mentioned this to the morning Y-goers, one person said, "making wine is not all that romantic is it?" I couldn't think of a response at that moment, but upon some reflection, I'd have to say although there may not be romance in the vineyard, there is certainly a lot of passion.
This fall finds us taking soil samples and determining what we need for soil remediation. We're still working the vineyard alleys to remove the crab grass that grew in order to spread our cover crop seeds. Fortunately for us, Nature has bestowed this fall with a glorious Indian summer.

2009 G.D. Vajra Barbera d'Alba

We followed up the 2009 Castello di Neive Barbera d'Alba with the 2009 G.D. Vajra Barbera d'Alba. The color was intensely purple with a generous amount of fruit and well balanced acids which went seamlessly with the Mediterranean style fish (black olives, roasted red peppers, and artichokes) that my husband made. He claims that it was his own creation. It (wine and dinner) was delicious! I found some information on G.D. Vajra at Martin-Scott Wines. G. D. Vajra was founded in 1972 by husband and wife Aldo and Milena Vaira and named in honor of Aldo's father, Giuseppe Domenico. What resonanted with me was the following, "The wines are made from 100% estate fruit that is triple sorted by hand." The hand-picked fruit was fermented and macerated in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks for 20 days with manual punch down and aged for 20-24 months in Slavonian oak casks. No wonder it was so lusciously delicious.

2009 Castello di Neive Barbera d'Alba

We're still trying to decide what kind of red grape varieties to plant, so we are at "it" again, "it" being doing research and research in this case consists of ordering a case of various Italian Barberas and tasting through them. I know, it's difficult research but someone has to do it. In 2012, we went to the Sierra Foothills and spoke with Ann Kraemer and Dick Cooper about growing Barbera. The lesson we learned there is that Barbera is a grape variety that has a surfeit of acid and getting the proper balance between sugar and acid is important if we want to make quality wine.
We followed up the trip to the Sierra Foothills with a tasting of various Italian Barberas, but we remained unconvinced. This new tasting is changing our minds. We began with the 2009 Castello di Neive Barbera d'Alba from the Santo Stefano vineyard. When we first opened the bottle, I thought the wine was a little rustic, not a refined wine like say, a Nebbiolo. Two days later, we had this wine with garlic infused olive oil on semolina batard with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella and Italian blend cheese which my husband broiled. This combination worked. The wine was a perfect pairing with the simple food. The technical sheet for the 2009 Castello di Neive Barbera d'Alba mentions that the wine is made from grapes from the 3.7 acre Santo Stefano vineyard and produced 13,000 bottles.

Strategies to Manage Dissolved Oxygen

My previous two blogs, How to Prevent Premox in White Wines and Chemical Marker Sotolon Found in Premox Wines gave oxygen a bad name, but at certain points in the transition of must to wine, oxygen is necessary. I found a helpful article in Wines & Vines written by T.E. Steiner called Strategies to Manage Dissolved Oxygen.
Concentrations of oxygen in the initial must are in the range of 4-6 mg/L. This amount of oxygen is essential in the early stages of fermentation when the yeast is in the growth phase. In fact, yeast consume the majority of oxygen which, happily for winemakers, results in the fermentation of sugar to ethanol. The problem comes when there is no sulfur dioxide (SO₂) at this point because the following potential negative effects can also occur:

• Enzymatic oxidation
• Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) oxidizes certain phenolic molecules in juice and must, but not wine, to produce quinones
• Laccase from Botrytis cinera or bunch rot, is an enzyme that has a wide range of oxidative substrates and is more resistant to SO₂
• Chemical oxidation
• The reaction of oxygen with certain phenols form quinones and hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), a stronger oxidizing agent that PPO.
• H₂O₂ also converts ethanol to acetaldehyde, resulting in a sherry-like aroma
The products that result from enzymatic and chemical oxidation reactions are summarized below:¹

• Microbial oxidation
• Acetic acid bacteria (AAB), Candida and Brettanomyces are dependent upon oxygen. In the presence of oxygen, AAB can produce acetic acid from ethanol as well as acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate.
• Certain "wild" yeasts belonging to the group Kloeckera and Hanseniaspora can be abundant in the must during the beginning states of fermentation and can produce high levels of acetic acid and ethyl acetate.²

The bottom line appears to be that if initial fermentation proceeds without sulfur dioxide, as many winemakers are inclined to do, then care must be taken so that the competing processes that can occur such as (1) enzymatic, (2) chemical and (3) microbial oxidation are kept in check.
References:
1. Jackson, Ronald S., Wine Science: Principles and Applications, Third Edition, Elsevier, Academic Press, 2008, pg. 298.
2. T.E. Steiner, Strategies to Manage Dissolved Oxygen, Wines & Vines, August, 2013.

Turkeys in the Vineyard

Yesterday, we drove up to our land at mid-day and saw our vineyard turkeys at the entryway. We have seen these birds grow from little poults and now they are just ready for eating! (Just joking, although wild turkey is delicious!) They regularly come into our vineyard and do bug patrol for us. We've seen them mainly at dusk on the north portion of the vineyard. It is okay for now since we don't have any grapes.
One day, they formed a line and were meticulously eating what they found in the soil beginning from the northeast corner and were working their way down to the southeast corner. They were spooked when my husband got on his tractor and started cultivating the west headlands.

Chemical Marker Sotolon Found in Premox Wines

Following up on the previous blog about How to Prevent Premox in Wines, there appeared another article published by Professor Denis Dubourdieu and Dr. Valérie Lavigne, which can be found in it's entirety at The New Bordeaux entitled The premature oxidative ageing of wine. The article is very accessible and entertaining in parts but also addresses the profound question of premature oxidative (premox) aging in white wines.
Beginning in 2000, Professor Denis Dubourdieu and Dr. Valérie Lavigne, using gas chromatography, conducted research into the aroma compounds that constitute a wine suffering from premox. Three compounds methional, phenylacetaldehyde and o-aminoacetophenone had already been identified in prematurely aged dry white wines but not all premoxed wines contain these compounds. One compound, sotolon was identified by Dubourdieu and Lavigne to contibute to the aroma of all premoxed wines. Sotolon is a volatile heterocyclic compound with an intense curry aroma with a detection threshold in dry white wines on the order of 7 μg/L (7 ppb). The sotolon molecule has an asymmetrical or chiral carbon atom as shown in the depiction below.

The chiral carbon in sotolon means that it has two enantiomeric forms, R and S. The R and S forms of sotolon confer different attributes to the molecule. (S)-sotolon is much more readily detected and the odor is reminiscent of curry and walnuts, while(R)-sotolon smells only of rancid walnuts.
The authors go on to write that since sotolon is formed by a reaction between α-ketobutyric acid, present in all wines, and acetaldehyde, whose concentration is increased by oxidation, it is absolutely essential for winemakers to avoid acetaldehyde production at all stages of white wine production.
References:
1. Denis Dubourdieu and Valérie Lavigne, The premature oxidative ageing of wine, The New Bordeaux.
2. Chemical structure and IUPAC nomenclature of sotolon retrieved from Chemicalize.org. All structures were drawn by the freely available drawing program from ACD Labs called ACD/ChemSketch Freeware.