Chenin Blanc Parentage Revealed

We wanted to go to the First International Chenin Blanc Congress held in Angers from July 1-3, 2019. July is really a bad time for wine growers. We couldn't really leave the vineyard at that time. Moreover, our offspring were gathering at the old homestead in mid-July, so it was truly out of the question. The next best thing is to read all about it. My husband recently sent me the links to the information attendees at the first Congress were privy to. I was keenly interested in the revelation of the parents of Chenin Blanc as written in this article 1er Congrès International du Chenin Blanc + La Paulée d’Anjou (30th June 2019) – tasting.¹
The Congress opened with the keynote address given by Jean-Michel Boursiquot announcing that Chenin Blanc’s missing parent had been identified. The following slide was in this article showing the relationship of Chenin Blanc with other grapes:

The slide was a little blurry to me so here is my attempt to reproduce it:

So, the news is out! The parents of Chenin Blanc are Savagnin and Sauvignonasse. I wanted to learn more about Savagnin and Sauvignonasse, so I went to the Grape Bible, written by J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz.²
Savagnin

Savagnin blanc is an early budding and ripening variety. It produces small, sometimes very small bunches and berries. The grape can achieve high sugar concentration while maintaining good levels of acidity. Savagnin Blanc makes a full bodied, firm, ageworthy wine that is sometimes called Traminer.

Sauvignonasse

Sauvignonasse is a fertile, vigorous and productive variety. Sauvignonasse is a lightly aromatic variety also called Friulano in Italy.
Whatever their parentage, the offspring, Chenin Blanc is one wine that we really love! Almost half of our vineyard is planted in Chenin Blanc!
References:
1. 1er Congrès International du Chenin Blanc + La Paulée d’Anjou (30th June 2019) – tasting.
2. J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, ppg 958- 960 and 962-964, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2.
3. Savagnin illustration from Pl@ntGrape: Catalogue of vines grown in France; Savagnin Blanc.

Goodbye to New Oak

We were never fans of overly oaked wines. When used in a white wine, I sometimes have thought that sipping this style of wine was like drinking splinters. For red wines, oak is the choice for fermentation and especially for aging, so I read with interest this article regarding: Winemakers Wave Goodbye to New Oak.
I probably wouldn't have blogged about it until I read this:
"The cask historically was simply used to transport wine – it was never intended as an enological tool. Oak should remain a secondary feature of wine production, used to stabilize wine, rather than used to impart aromas or flavors that trample over the fruit and terroir character."
That quote was from Maria José Lopez de Herredia. We absolutely love Lopez de Herredia and have had their Viña Tondonia and Viña Bosconia, so an article quoting Maria José gave it gravitas in my mind.
How did this change from new oak usage to reused old oak come about? The answer is that sommeliers have been proselytizing the consumer movement towards the subtle and fresh for some time now and the message is being received by many different regions and price brackets who eschew the fashionable and the sellable, read trendy.
I think that the message that came through in this article for me is that you need to make the wine that speaks to your own style regardless what the current trend is. For more details, please read the article: Winemakers Wave Goodbye to New Oak.

Regrettable

The weekend, July 20 and 21 were extremely hot days, but being farmers, we can't really take a break. On Saturday, Bella helped to leaf pull our older Chardonnay vines. We were able to do 12 lineposts worth of leaf pulling when we called it quits at 11 a.m. because the feel-like temperatures with the humidity was 99 degrees!
On Sunday, my husband and I went to the vineyard at 6:30 a.m. On the way there, we noticed that our other farmer friends were already out in numbers tending to their fields. We are opening up the canopy by cutting any secondaries, but mostly large summer laterals.
I came upon one shoot that had a beautiful bunch of grapes and determined that there was a huge summer lateral that I could remove to open up the canopy. Much to my regret, the huge bunch of grapes was growing on the summer lateral! I actually downed two shoots with grapes as shown in the picture below on the left hand side. On the right hand side is a comparison of the large bunch I regrettably cut next to the dastardly instrument that did the deed.

Vintage 2019: Summer Heat Wave

Yesterday, July 18th, we had a break from vineyard work because the remnants of tropical storm Barry came our way. It rained the entire day and when all was said and done, we had approximately 2-1/4 inches of rain!
It was very nice to have a day off because we have been in a race with the vines to shoot position, leaf pull and hedge. This is a row of Auxerrois. The photo was taken on Tuesday, July 16. While it is so satisfying to see the row looking like this, it is only a matter of time when things can get out of hand. This is the story of approximately 2/3rds of our vineyard.
There is a heat wave coming this weekend that will curtail our activities. Temperatures will be in the 90's but with high humidity, the feel like temperatures may be close to 100 degrees!
We do hope to get in more shoot positioning, leaf pulling and hedging in the morning. I guess we should be doubly thankful that Barry gave us 2-1/4 inches of rain because the vines will really need it with the weekend heat wave coming our way.

Greek Lamb Dinner with Family

We had our far flung family over at our place for the first meeting between their children, our grandchildren. To celebrate that occasion, our daughter and her husband made what they called a deconstructed shrimp po'boy without the hoagie and on bibb lettuce. This was the first course. We had already preceeded our meal by drinking an ouzo aperitif. Ouzo on a hot day just really reminds me of being in Greece.
The shrimp was delicious and that was followed by grilled lamb, roasted potatoes that our son-in-law made to perfection and a simple salad.

To pair with the lamb meal, our daughter-in-law went to our local package store and came back with a couple of winners. One is a 2016 Max Carmenere from Chile and the is a 2016 Browne Family Heritage Cabernet Sauvignon. Both wines paired very well with the lamb.

Auxerrois Grapes Advancing Growth Stage

I blogged about Berryset in the Vineyard on July 8th. A few days later when my husband and I were working in the vineyard, we noticed that some of the Auxerrois had advanced from stage 71 to stage 73. According to the online reference Grapevine Structure and Function written by Ed Hellman, stage 73 is described as "berries swelling, clusters beginning to hang."
This occurred in just 4 days time. On July 11, we had a rain event that brought 1-inch of rain to the vineyard. This is a good thing because the last time we had a rain event was on June 25th, when we had 2-inches of rain. The rain on July 11 coupled with beautiful weather with temperatures in the high eighties caused the Auxerrois to swell and begin to hang.

We haven't been to the vineyard in what seems like a long time. We need to check out how our other varieties are doing, pronto! References:
1. Ed Hellman, Grapevine Structure and Function.

Cool Vineyard Sighting

This is not exactly a vineyard sighting, but a sighting on our vineyard cuttings. I knew this was a harvestman, a good guy in the vineyard. I always thought it was a spider, but looking on the Internet, I learned that although the harvestman is in the Arachnid class, and related to the spiders, it is not a spider. I was intrigued by the orange things that the harvestman had on it's legs and took a picture of it. I thought that it might be eggs. Wrong again. The orange egg looking like structures on the legs of the harvestman are parasitizing mites!
Here is the scoop of the harvestman. It is a member of the order Opiliones which includes five suborders Cyphophthalmi, Eupnoi, Dyspnoi, Laniatores, and Tetrophthalmi.¹ The North American harvestmen, also called daddy longlegs belongs to the suborder Eupnoi. The harvestmen have no silk glands and therefore do not build webs. Their bodies are round or oval in shape and appear to consist of just one segment or section because the connection between the cephalothorax and abdomen is broad.
Harvestmen in the vineyard are good because they are predators as well as scavengers. They are generally carnivorous, feeding on live invertebrate prey including aphids, beetles, caterpillars, earthworms, flies, mites, small slugs, snails and spiders.²
Reference:
1. Wikipedia, Opiliones.
2. Aggie Horticulture TAMU, Beneficials in the Garden.

Berryset in the Vineyard

Our vineyard was in anthesis or bloom beginning around June 21 for the Chardonnay and then followed quickly by the rest of the vineyard when we had a heat wave from June 26-28, when even the Cabernet Sauvignon was in bloom. Between the time when we first noticed bloom in the vineyard, we had a rain event on June 25th that brought 2-inches of rain.
Our vineyard is now in fruit/berry set and this is what it looks like:

Variety	Stage of Berry set on July 7, 2019
Auxerrois
Chenin Blanc
Chardonnay
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Franc

Our Chardonnay is clearly ahead of the pack with respect to berry set and the Cabernet Sauvignon is the laggard, but the Auxerrois, Chenin Blanc and the Cabernet Franc are berry-to-berry!

Scouting for Grape Berry Moth

This year, we are following NEWA (Network for Environment and Weather Applications) forecasts that will help us to be on the look out for grape berry moth. My husband has been doing all this scholarship and this morning he pointed me to the NEWA site. Once you get to the NEWA site, the page should look something like this:

At the moment, what we are doing is putting out a pheromone trap to see how much grape berry moth pressure our vineyard is experiencing.

So far, we seem to be devoid of the dastardly moths. We will keep being vigilant.

Vineyard Jewels

I've been writing about all of the rain that we have been having, most recently on June 26th when we had 2-inches of rain. But, following that day, we had a mini-heat wave where for 3 days the temperatures exceeded 90 degrees. On the first day of the heat wave, June 26th, the fog also had rolled in so when we went to the vineyard in the early morning, I captured this photo of a spider web.
The mini-heat wave caused all of the grape flowers to bloom so at the end of the heat wave, the entire vineyard, including our late blooming Cabernet Sauvignon was in bloom.

The mini-heat wave temperatures were ideal for flowering or anthesis. Flowering proceeds rapidly when temperatures range between 85° and 95°F. The calyptra, the grapevine flower petals, detaches from the pedicel exposing the stamen and stigma.
Since our work brings us close to each grape shoot, I found this leaf which was the perfect receptacle for the detached calyptras for the adjacent grape flower. I thought it was pretty cool. Once I took the photo, I cleaned the leaf off the detached calyptras and continued working.

Vintage 2019: Summer

The summer solstice, the longest day of the year was on June 21st and brought with it 3/4 inches of rain. At that time, we were still waiting for our grape vine flowers to bloom. It seems a bit late to me. Needless to say, at this time of the year, waiting for bloom, rain is not a welcomed event. On June 22nd, we notice that some of our Chardonnay were beginning to bloom. In our vineyard, Chardonnay seems to be the first to bloom. Then on June 25th we were hit with 2 inches of rain!
In 2017, we had rain during flowering and these photos tell the story of the damage that rain can do.

Understanding the parts of a grape flower is important in understanding what happens during flowering.

Vitis vinifera grape varieties have hermaphroditic (perfect) flowers, containing both male and female organs.
Why is rain during flower so detrimental?

• Rain can dilute the stigmatic fluid and interfere with germination of the pollen grains
• Cold temperatures, rainfall or high humidity are often associated with incomplete detachment of the calyptras leading to reduced fruitset
In addition:

• Temperature is an important factor in germination and growth of the pollen tube. Fruitset is greatly reduced when temperatures fall below 65^oF or exceed 100^oF

So far, we are not seeing the kind of rain damage that we saw in 2017, but we will have to wait and see what berry set brings.
References:
1. Nick K. Dokoozlian, Grape Berry Growth and Development.