Ironweed Around Our Vineyard

During the late summer, my husband always points out this tall purple flower that grows in our south field that we have earmarked for growing more Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. While he is brush hogging the fields he gets really close to the "weed". We haven't been curious enough to find out what this weed is until this year when my husband, brush hogging another area of the field found another stand of this very tall purple flowered weed.
On this day, my husband said, you need to come and see this and bring your camera. I was intrigued. I didn't know what he was going to show me. Then he pointed out the tall weed and the Great Spangled Fritillary that was obviously enjoying the weed. In a previous blogpost, I wrote about Great Spangled Fritillary, such a very pretty butterfly.

When we went home, we did a Google search on tall purple flowered weed and learned that it was an ironweed, (Veronia).

We told our friend about the ironweed growing in our field and she concurred that it was a beautiful weed and she is always looking to get seeds. I found a website on how to grow ironweed:¹
Growing ironweed
Plant ironweed during the early weeks of spring if you’re cultivating it from seed. Ironweed seeds can winter over in the ground when planted in the fall, but you need to start them indoors and transplant in spring.
1. Plant ironweed seeds in well-draining, moist soil full of humus.
2. When starting a tall ironweed plant from a cutting, start it in full sun after the final threat of a frost has passed in the spring.
3. Keep seeds damp during germination.
4. When sowing tall ironweed seeds outdoors in spring, plant them between one to two feet apart. Wait until the seeds develop a plant two inches tall before transplanting outdoors.
5. Plant white fluffy seeds one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch in the ground. Note that ironweed seeds spread naturally as a slight wind blows once they’re ready for harvesting.
6. Keep perennial ironweed plants healthy by dividing them every three to four years. Dig up the root of the plants and cut away any dead portions of the root and crown, which often show signs of decay near the center of the root. Cut up the root in chunks, then replant in fresh soil.
Any plant, weed or otherwise that butterflies love to come to is a friend of ours. We hope to have stands of ironweed on the northeast side of our vineyard as a buffer between the vineyard and our forest.
References:
1. Zoey Skye, Natural News, How to identify and grow ironweed, a medicinal plant, July 14, 2020.

Vintage 2021: August Aftermath of Hurricane Henri

We were just saying good bye to our family who were visiting us from the West Coast on Thursday, August 19 and waiting for the rains from tropical storm Fred to passby when another Atlantic storm, Henri came up on our radar. By Friday, we were getting notifications that Henri could make a direct hit on southern New England but the models were really ambiguous as to where Henri would make landfall.
On Saturday, we had some friends come very early in the morning to help us secure the netting on the Auxerrois. Other than that, there was nothing else we could do in the vineyard to protect our ripening grapes.
We did have a bit more work to do because before 2019, all of the wines that we made were being stored in our basement. Lucky for us, we just rented space in an industrial park so all of Friday afternoon, we were moving our wine from the basement to the rental space. We had been planning to do that anyway, so there is nothing like an impending hurricane to expedite the move.
By the time Saturday evening rolled around, the newscast was full of warnings of 3-5 foot wave surges, coupled with a full moon and high tide, all of which sounded very ominous. The weather models now were showing that landfall could be in New Haven, CT or somewhere in eastern CT.
Our home is very close to the Atlantic Ocean so our friend reached out to us and offered her home for us to stay at. We took her up on her offer and spent Sunday morning to early afternoon at her place until at 1:30 the sun came out and we dared to see what was happening. We had power in our home and felt that we dodged a big storm. What happened was that Henri made landfall in the town due east of us in Westerly, Rhode Island, so all of the winds were on the east side of the hurricane and all of the rains were on the west side of the hurricane, where we were.

We didn't get a chance to go to the vineyard until yesterday and we were very relieved that our vines were fine:

As we made our inspection we found that the red varieties are slowly entering veraison:

There are many things to do in this upcoming week which will once again bring temperatures in the 90s with high dewpoints. Translation: it will be hot and humid, these are the dog days of summer.

2019 Louis Latour Bourgogne Gamay

Our son, his wife, and our two grandchildren are visiting all the way from Seattle. He bought this wine as their contribution to a barbecue party we were going to but at the last moment, the days' activities caught up with them so the wine stayed at our home.
We did get to enjoy the Gamay while my husband was shucking oysters and it is a very easy drinking red wine. It is made of 85% Gamay with 15% Pinot Noir to give it backbone, said the label on the back of the bottle.
Our son said that he purchased this wine for around $18.00! This wine is a good value for the money and will go under the Tab Wines Under $20.

Vintage 2021: August Heat Wave

Mid-August finds us in the middle of a heat wave that began on August 11 and continued until August 14. Anytime the weather map looks like this is a good time to head for the cool indoors.

The heat wave may be compensating for what we thought would be véraison that would be a little later this year. We know that the Auxerrois is the first to ripen so we were busy netting our grapes. We had help during the heat wave on Saturday and now all five rows of Auxerrois have been netted!
This will be the first time that we have netted the Auxerois before the birds begin pecking at the sweet grapes. We do this so that the bird pecking which lures fruit flies and other insects won't have the opportunity to turn a beautiful bunch of grapes into a rotten mess!
You can use your senses to tell if the grapes are approaching véraison. The grapes will begin to soften and will feel different when you touch it from grapes that are still in the first growth and lag phase. You can also taste the grapes to see if they are sweet.

On August 12, I brought our hand held refractometer to the vineyard to check on the Brix of the Auxerrois. It was at 11 ^oBrix. I tasted one of the Auxerrois grapes and it was still very acidic, so not yet a tasty treat for birds.

Véraison: How the Grape Berry Gets Sweet

Véraison, is the onset of ripening in the grape berry. This is where the grapes enter the second rapid growth phase and is marked by the rapid increase in both the berry volume, soluble sugar accumulation and a rapid decrease of the organic acid contents. In other words, the grape is beginning to get sweeter, tastier and less acidic.
The transition from the lag phase to véraison is a critical development checkpoint in the grape berry and can last for 1 to 2 days.¹
At véraison, water import into the grape berry shifts from the xylem to the phloem. (Please checkout my blogpost: Grape Berry Circulatory System). Before véraison, the xylem is the main pipeline that delivers water, mineral nutrients, and growth regulators from the root system to the rest of the vine, including the developing grape berry. Water can move in and out of the berry through the xylem.
The phloem, is the vascular pathway that brings the photosynthates or the sugary solution made from photosynthesis by the leaf (the source), into the berry (the sink). The phloem can transport the photosynthates only one way, from the leaves to the berries.
This sugar concentration delivered by the phloem is mainly determined by the grape genotype but the environment, temperature and cultural management such as irrigation can have an impact on the final sugar concentration.
The phloem delivers sugar in the form of the dissacharide sucrose which is comprised of one molecule of glucose and one molecule of frustose. (Please checkout my blogpost: Sugar in Grape Berry and Wine---Sugar Transport and Accumulation in Berry). The uptake of sugar in the grape berry can be affected by various parameters including:²

• light
• water
• ion status
• wounding
• fungal and bacterial attacks
• hormones

Massive accumulation of glucose and fructose in the vacuoles of mesocarp cells in the grape berry occurs after véraison. This is accomplished through the action of an enzyme called an invertase that converts the dissacharide sucrose via hydrolysis, into it's components, glucose and fructose. Different invertase isoforms are localized in the cell wall, cytoplasm and vacuole.
Before ripening, the level of total soluble sugars in the phloem of the pedicel of grape berry is lower than 50 mM, whereas it reaches more than 500 mM at the beginning of ripening and 1,000 mM at the late ripening stage!
References:
1. Xiao-Yan Zhang, Xiu-Ling Wang, Xiao-Fang Wang, Guo-Hai Xia, Qiu-Hong Pan, Ren-Chun Fan, Fu-Qing Wu, Xiang-Chun Yu, and Da-Peng Zhang, "A Shift of Phloem Unloading from Symplasmic to Apoplasmic Pathway Is Involved in Developmental Onset of Ripening in Grape Berry", Plant Physiology, September 2006, Vol. 142, pp. 220–232.
2. António Manuel Jordão, F. Cosme, and Alice Vilela, From Sugar of Grape to Alcohol of Wine: Sensorial Impact of Alcohol in Wine, Beverages, 2015, 1, 292-310.

The Fate of Our Very Late Harvest Chenin Blanc

I blogged about this very late harvest Chenin Blanc here: The Most Expensive Wine, facetiously equating our wine with a Tokaji Essencia that sells for $40,000 a bottle.
As a recap, we harvested this very late harvest Chenin Blanc on December 11, 2020. The grapes were in wedding bags, which probably saved them from being eaten and attacked by any number of varmints.

After squeezing the raisins, we were able to get out approximately 300 mL of liquid. When we measured the Brix of the juice it was at 38 ^oBrix! We added a pinch of our yeast, QA23 and crossed our fingers.
The juice just sat there in the bottle for a number of days, but on December 15, we saw evidence of a few bubbles rising to the surface of the juice. We knew that there was some fermentation going on!

We took the Brix of the wine and it was at 26 ^oBrix, so clearly some fermentation had occurred. After fermentation, the resultant wine was put into our refrigerator in our effort at clarification and there it sat, forlorn and forgotten. Ocassionally, when we "found" the wine, we did the next steps such as filtering the wine through a coffee filter and putting it into a bottle that would accomodate the juice with very little headspace. A few nights ago, this bottle of wine was discovered on the top shelf of our refrigerator and we decided to give it a try.
At 26 ^oBrix, the wine was very viscous. There was a note of sherry on the nose but I asked my husband what he thought of the wine. Quoting my husband, "Ohhh, it was like liquid gold." What was notable to me was that it wasn't cloyingly sweet because it had a good acid backbone.

If we dispense it like a Tokaji Essencia in a crystal spoon, we have a few servings left!

1999 Clos de Tart

Last night we opened this 1999 Clos de Tart to drink with the duck that my husband made the sauce for using the 2018 La Pépie Cabernet Franc. We drank this wine to celebrate making a new friend who came to help us do some leaf pulling in the Chardonnay. Yes, we are behind in the leaf pulling, but there were priorities that superseded leaf pulling. The three of us got two rows of leaf pulling done and that is a big deal.
After working in the vineyard, we came home and began the evening with an appetizer of Noank oysters and our 2019 Chenin Blanc. Chenin Blanc is the perfect foil for seafood, especially oysters and we enjoyed this small repast. We took a break to freshen up and then came back to the dinner table while my husband prepared his seared duck with berry sauce.
The first thing we noted when my husband opened up this 1999 Clos de Tart was that the cork was perfectly intact.

The fact that the cork came out with ease was a good sign of the contents of this Burgundy. The first sniff from the glass revealed a wine with great berry aromas, so fruity and lovely. We tasted the wine and it was youthful and vibrant and the perfect blend of bright fruit and acidity. Wow! The wine went very well with the duck and it opened up as we slowly ate our dinner accompanied by lively conversation where we learned that we had so many things in common!
We had a delightful evening with our new friend!

2018 La Pépie Cabernet Franc

My husband was making his berry sauce for the duck we will be having tonight and he needed a red wine for the sauce. He chose this 2018 La Pépie Cabernet Franc. This is one of the wines that is a really good deal. It is a Loire Cabernet Franc and a part of the Louis Dressner Selections. Anytime you see the Louis Dressner on the label in the back of the bottle, you can be sure that you will be drinking a good wine. So, not only did this wine go into the berry sauce, we had it with a great pizza from Woodfellas Pizza for dinner last night. Oh, and the best part of this is that the wine cost $15.00!

Grape Berry Development - Heading into Véraison

Right around this time of the year is a good time to review a very relevant article called Understanding berry development by James Kennedy.
August is typically the month that our grapes enter véraison or the onset of ripening. The grapes have been in the first growth stage and are now in the lag phase. This stage lasts approximately 60 days after bloom. In our case, since our bloom occurred during mid-June, we would expect véraison to begin around mid-August.¹

Another way to look at the same information is:²

A grape berry only starts to accumulate significant sugars from the time of véraison indicated by:

• berry softening
• skin colour changing
• recommencing of rapid growth

This dramatic increase in sugar accumulation at véraison is accompanied by profound physiological variations:³

• sugar phloem loading shifts from symplasmic to apoplasmic pathway
• transcription of some genes encoding sugar transporters is enhanced
• activity and expression of key sugar metabolism enzymes are increased
• water influx pathway changes from predominantly xylem to phloem

Here is yet another way to look at the grape berry development path:⁴

References:
1. Illustration of the double sigmoid curve from: Moschou, Panagiotis & Aziz, Aziz & Roubelakis-Angelakis, Kalliopi, Chapter 7, Polyamines and grape berry development, The Biochemistry of the Grape Berry, (2012), 137-159.
2. Kennedy, James, Understanding berry development, Practical Winery and Vineyard, 2002, 24.
3. Zhan Wu Dai, Philippe Vivin, Thierry Robert, Sylvie Milin, Shao Hua Li and Michel Génard, "Model-based analysis of sugar accumulation in response to source–sink ratio and water supply in grape (Vitis vinifera) berries", Functional Plant Biology, 2009, 36, 527–540.
4. Rogiers Suzy Y., Coetzee Zelmari A., Walker Rob R., Deloire Alain, Tyerman Stephen D., "Potassium in the Grape (Vitis vinifera L.) Berry: Transport and Function", Frontiers in Plant Science, Volume 8, 2017, pg. 1629.
5. Xiao-Yan Zhang, Xiu-Ling Wang, Xiao-Fang Wang, Guo-Hai Xia, Qiu-Hong Pan, Ren-Chun Fan, Fu-Qing Wu, Xiang-Chun Yu, and Da-Peng Zhang, "A Shift of Phloem Unloading from Symplasmic to Apoplasmic Pathway Is Involved in Developmental Onset of Ripening in Grape Berry", Plant Physiology, September 2006, Vol. 142, pp. 220–232.

Vintage 2021: August

It is August! I just heard on the news that July 2021 was the third wettest July in Connecticut. We had 19 days of rain out of 31 days. That kind of explains why we find ourselves a little behind the work that we need to do. We had great help over the weekend and lowered the nets on the first variety we know will enter véraison, the Auxerrois. The Auxerrois grapes are not yet into véraison, being still hard and green, so we are ahead of the game!
However, we have 31 more rows of nets to lower before the onset of véraison. Easy to say, not so easy to execute. Encouraged by the 19 days of rain, the grape vines grew and grew and grew! We spent the better part of July hedging our vineyard.
Shoots that were once tucked into the catchwires found a way to grow around the netting so we have to cut the tendrils off the netting and tuck the shoots back into the catchwires before any more nets can be lowered. We are almost done with Chardonnay, the next variety that will enter véraison.
The rest of August will find us shoot tucking and lowering the netting.