Vintage 2021: New Year's Eve

I can't believe that it is the last day of 2021. For this last blogpost of the year, I held back a gift from our friend and artist, Ginger Baker. It is a water color of our vineyard in the fall.

Ginger does water colors of our seaside village, Stonington, CT in which she captures the unique charms of where we live. You can find more of her artwork here: Coastal Art Studio
We wish everyone a safe and happy New Year!

Time Capsule Find in Our Home

I don't know why but at the end of the year I feel a great need to clean our home. (Japanese tradition) My husband calls my cleaning shuffling. For the past week, I've been reorganizing the many books that we have in our home by category and my efforts resulted in the discovery of this rare find:

I took a closer look at the cover of The Underground Wine Journal (Incorporating Rarities), Volume XIX, No. 3, 2000, and recognized the people in the picture! It was our friend, Charles Massoud and his two sons wearing orange t-shirts in their vineyard!
I emailed Charles the picture of the cover and he said he had no recollection of this journal. We had no recollection of where and when we bought this journal but inside the journal was a treasure trove of articles from 21 years ago!
I took a pause in my cleaning so that I could read the journal. Now to put this journal in a safe place to keep for another two decades or so.
References:
1.The Underground Wine Journal (Incorporating Rarities), Volume XIX, No. 3, 2000.

Oysters and 2017 Chardonnay Pétillant Naturel

Last night, my husband prepared oysters that our hunter had given us in two different ways. We had the oysters with a 2017 Chardonnay Pétillant Naturel that we made!

We were surprised at the bubbles coming from our pét nat! It went very well with the oysters!

Vintage 2021: Annual Cycle of Growth

Each year, we fill out a spread sheet with information regarding the Annual Cycle of Growth. We have been doing this since 2015 when the only thing that we had in the vineyard were a few hundred Chenin Blanc which was giving us fruit. Here is the complication since 2015:

I think that it is good to look at the cumulative annual cycle of growth to see what kind of trends can be observed. This helps in the planning of work in the vineyard. I might consider adding another column called "berry set".

Blind Wine Tasting

We planned this wine tasting way back in November. There were going to be 6 of us and we were going to taste a few red wines, blinded. No, we don't close our eyes, but we do disguise the wines that we will be tasting.
When the day came, one of the couples couldn't make it but we still had the blind tasting. Our friends brought the first wine we blind tasted along with some finnochio, which is fennel sausage and a local cheese from Mystic Cheese Company called Melinda Mae.
The style was easy to guess because the bottle shape gave it away. It was a Champagne. Our friends showed us the top of the cork cage and it read "Gruet". We've had our share of Gruet over the years, check out these blogposts: Gruet A Méthode Champenoise from New Mexico and Gruet and Billiot Champagne Tastings, but those tasting were in 2017 and 2014, respectively.
When the "sparkling wine" was poured, it was blush in color so we knew that we were tasting a rosé. I liked the "sparkling wine" very much, it had just the right amount of dryness for my palate. My husband didn't think that it tasted like a Gruet. We all enjoyed it. When the last of the bottle was emptied into our glasses. Our friends asked us how much would we pay for that Gruet. I thought it was a very high end Gruet so I guessed that it was $45.00. My husband concurred. The reveal:

Oh we were so wrong! But is it right to mislead your friends with a fake Gruet top? We are fortunate that our friends are on the Cruse mailing list and have allotments of Ultramarine to taste!
We moved on to the main course which was brisket, baked beans and salad. To pair with the beef, we had had in mind two other red wines but at the last minute substituted another wine. Our friends brought another red wine so we had 2 blind red wines to savor and guess what the wines were made from and where they came from. I knew one of the wines so my focus was on the other. It tasted young to my palate and the aroma and flavor reminded me of Cabernet Sauvignon. My husband guessed that it was a New World wine. In any case, we enjoyed both the wines with the food. When the reveal came we were drinking:

The 2014 Pask was from our friends. Only 375 cases of this 2014 Gimblett Gravels Trilliant was made! It is a Merlot-based blend, with smaller amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec, matured for 20 months in French and American oak casks (55 per cent new).¹ The Dunn was my husband's contribution. There was nothing to fault in either of the wines and we enjoyed them both.
All in all, we had a grand time and look forward to another evening of blind wine tasting!
Reference:
1. Michael Cooper's Buyer's Guide, Pask Small Batch Gimblett Gravels Trilliant (2014), New Zealand Wines.

Last Harvest of 2021

On November 24, I wrote a blogpost about The Story of Our Wedding Bag Grapes. We have been patiently waiting and checking on the wedding bags for the right moment to harvest the crop. We havested the approximately 500 wedding bags on December 15. The entire harvest fit into three lugs! After we came home, the grapes in the wedding bags were consolidated. From 500 bags, we ended up with 24 bags of botrytis infected grapes.

In order to approximate the weight of the harvest, we took the weight of 4 consolidated wedding bags and averaged the weight. We had approximately 20 pounds of grapes. Our next task was to set up the micro-basket press that my husband purchased specifically for this harvest. Yes, it is as tiny as it looks in the picture!

We put in a few wedding bags at a time and squeezed the juice. It is really like getting liquid from a rock! It didn't take more than hour to press the wedding bags. In the end, all 24 bags fit into the micro-press. We got aapproximately a gallon of juice out of the pressing.

The beginning parameters for this botrytized Chenin are:

Variety	Weight	Volume of Juice	Brix	pH	TA
Botrytized Chenin Blanc	20 pounds	1 gallon	31.5	3.52	14.2 g/L

On December 18, we rehydrated our yeast of choice, QA23. We weighed out 1 gram of yeast, rehydrated it in 10 mL of spring water at 96 ^oF for 10 minutes. After the yeast was rehydrated, we tempered the yeast with 10 mL of the juice, added in 3 mL aliquots. We inoculated the juice at 11 a.m.

Now its a matter of waiting!

2021 Harvest Party

Recently, we held a luncheon for the people that came to help us with our harvest. We began this tradition in 2019 but were unable to have it in 2020. We were happy that we could hold it again this year!
In addition to the luncheon, we thought that we would make a gift basket that would go to the lucky person whose name was selected in a drawing.
We did have quite a number of people who came and we were delighted at the turn out. We made all of the dishes that were served and were happy to do so.
The harvest luncheon began at 11 a.m. and the drawing for the gift basket occurred at 12:30. My husband held the container of names and I pulled out the winner. My only regret was that we couldn't give everyone who came a gift. Maybe next year. Most people stayed until 2. Here is our menu that we had on that day:

In addition to the above small bites, we also provided cornbread to go with a cassoulet that my husband made as well as a vegetarian chili.
We would like to thank everyone who helped to make our harvest a success!

Vintage 2021: End of the Year

We've come almost to the close of 2021. It's time to review what this vintage was like. Work in the vineyard usually begins in March, unless February is "warm" enough for us to begin pruning. We began pruning duties on March 3, but that included cutting the wire holding down last year's canes, removing the tendrils and the Agfast. Those manipulations were necessary in order to free up last year's growth for pruning. Although we began pruning duties on March 3, we didn't actually finish pruning until May 1st! Our take home lesson from that experience was that we must remove the wire, cut the tendrils and remove the Agfast before pruning season begins.
When spring came, we had a typical budbreak which began at the end of April for the Chardonnay and continued with the rest of our varieties into the first week of May. After budbreak, bloom occurs around mid-June and then fruitset shortly after that. Although the activity in the vineyard is busy, I feel as if July is the busiest month. This year, Mother Nature "blessed" us with abundant rainfall, so that although we had rented a generator for the purposes of irrigation, we did not need to turn it on at all. July 2021 was the third wettest in Connecticut since they began keeping records, with 19 of the 31 days with some kind of rain event!
Our July and August was filled with shoot tucking, hedging and netting duties. The netting duties lasted until October 14, just ahead of the Chenin Blanc harvest which occurred on October 17 and 18.
Here are links to the Vintage 2021 blogposts:
Vintage 2021
Vintage 2021: January Update
Vintage 2021: Ground Hog Day
Vintage 2021: March Pruning Time
Vintage 2021: Pruning Update
Vintage 2021: April Update
Vintage 2021: Budbreak in the Vineyard
Vintage 2021: May Vineyard Tasks
Vintage 2021: June Heat Wave
Vintage 2021: June Work Fun Balance
Vintage 2021: Approaching the End of June
Vintage 2021: Vineyard is at Berry Formation
Vintage 2021: August Heat Wave
Vintage 2021: August Aftermath of Hurricane Henri
Vintage 2021: Summer Recap
Vintage 2021: Auxerrois Harvest
Vintage 2021: Chardonnay Harvest---Part 1
Vintage 2021: Chardonnay Harvest---Part 2
Vintage 2021: Chenin Blanc Harvest - Part 1
Vintage 2021: Chenin Blanc Harvest - Part 2
Vintage 2021: Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc Harvest
Vintage 2021: Barbera Harvest
Vintage 2021: Our 2021 Harvest at a Glance
Overall, I will remember Vintage 2021 as a rainy year which lead to a slightly lower than expected harvest. In spite of all of the rain, we were good farmers and our grapes didn't suffer from too much rot. Our harvesters diligently cut out all the rot from those bunches that did suffer and the wines are coming along fine.

The Chemistry of Noble Rot Wines

This is another post on noble rot wines, focussing on the chemistry of the wine. In order to get a final product that can be considered to be a noble rot wine, it is important that the colonization of B. cinerea on the grapes is of high purity. The higher the purity of the noble rot, the higher the quality of the final product.
Botrytized wines are typically aged for a long time either in barrels (like Tokaji Aszú) or in bottles (Sauternes, TBA wines). The length, the oxygen ingress, the level of SO₂, and the material of the cooperage have a huge impact on the aroma composition of the new botrytized wines.¹
Lactones

• γ-nonalactone, γ-decalactone and δ-decalactone has distinct aromas of apricot and peach
• γ-3-methyloctalactone, known as whisky lactone, is a tertiary aroma compound with coconut flavor extracted from wood during barrel aging
• 2-furanone or γ-crotonolactone enhances the aroma profile with caramel and stone fruit notes
• 2-nonen-4-olide, is a 2-furanone type lactone, which has the second lowest perception threshold (10.8 μg/L) after γ-3-methyloctalactone (whisky lactone), and is mainly associated with fruity and minty aromas only found in this type of wines
• 2-nonen-4-olide along with γ-3-methyloctalactone (whisky lactone), eugenol and γ-nonalactone seem to be responsible for the creation of the synthetic aroma of candied orange

Sotolon

• One of the first compounds identified as a key odorant was sotolon (4,5-dimethyl-3-hydroxy-2(5H)-furanone), having a sweetish, caramel, or nut taste
• Sotolon, is a compound landmark for Port aged wines with sensory character of curry, fenugreek, nuts and dried fruits, with a threshold of 19 μg/L
• The impacts of botrytization on grapes, such as oxidation and sugar concentration, seem to create the perfect substrate for sotolon production after aging

Thiols

• 3-Mercaptohexan-1-ol (3MH) is the most important thiol in botrytized wines enhancing the aroma profile with notes of citrus peel, grapefruit and passion fruit
• 4-mercapto-4-methylpentan-2-one, 4-mercapto-4- methylpentan-2-ol, 3-mercaptopentan-1-ol and 3-mercaptoheptan-1-ol are responsible for aromas of citrus fruits

Phenylacetaldehyde

• Phenylacetaldehyde has an aroma of honey

The ratio between glycerol and gluconic acid is considered to be a noble rot quality index. The higher the ratio the higher the quality of the potential wine.
Some distinctive descriptive terms associated with botrytized wines are peach, apricot, quince, tropical fruit, honey, and caramel. The aging process may add more nuances, eg, chocolate, tobacco, dried fruits, raisins, etc.
References:
1. Kallitsounakis, Georgios, Catarino, Sofia, An Overview on Botrytized Wines REVISÃO: VINHOS BOTRITIZADOS, Ciência e Técnica Vitivinícola, 2020, 35, 76, 10.1051/ctv/20203502076.
2. Magyar I., Soós J., Botrytized wines – current perspectives, International Journal of Wine Research, 2016;8:29-39 https://doi.org/10.2147/IJWR.S100653.
3. Sipiczki, Matthias, Csoma, Hajnalka, Antunovics, Zsuzsa, Pfliegler, Walter, "Biodiversity in yeast populations associated with botrytised wine making", Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg, 2010, 60, pg 387-394.

Noble Rot Fermentation

A prudent search of the Internet usually can result in the perfect reference that one is looking for. In this case, my husband asked me how a Noble Rot Fermentation is done. In 2020, I made, by chance, a very, very small amount of Noble Rot wine that I wrote about in a blogpost called The Most Expensive Wine.
This year, we don't really want to leave our fermentation to chance, so I found what I was looking for in a reference titled, An Overview on Botrytized Wines REVISÃO: VINHOS BOTRITIZADOS published in 2020!
Here is a summary of the main points of Noble Rot Fermentation from the reference:¹
Grape Varieties

• The main grape varieties used for noble rot fermentation include Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Furmint, Riesling, Picolit, Pinot Blanc and Gewürztraminer.
• These varieties have characteristics such as type of skin as well as oenological parameters, such as potential alcohol, sugar content and acidity that make them ideal for botrytization.

Harvest

• The harvest for noble rot wines cannot be done mechanically. Each grape that goes into the fermentation is harvested by hand and is based on botrytization process that promotes an intense enzymatic maceration of the grape skin.

Pressing

• After harvest, a sorting table is recommended for separating parts of the clusters that are less or not infected or co-infected by other fungus and bacteria.
• Whole cluster pressing in which stems facilitate pressing and their extracted tannins is also recommended to facilitate protein stabilization, with subsequent maceration for sugar and aromas extraction.
• Whole cluster pressing avoids the release of particles such as glucans in the must as these colloids will produce later clarification problems and will hamper the stabilization processes.
• The use of gravity versus pumps during berry juice transfer decreases the harshness of every operation.

Settling before fermentation

• Settling at temperatures lower than 10°C for 28 to 48 hours is beneficial but excessive clarification increases the possibility of stuck or sluggish fermentation as lees is a source of fatty acids, sterols, among others, which are important for yeast development.
• The optimum turbidity, without facing problems of bitter, reductive and herbaceous notes is between 500 and 600 NTU.
• Addition of lees, saved from settling of previously produced dry white wine, in tank or barrel filled with botrytized must, is a boosting factor for yeasts development during fermentation.

Alcoholic fermentation kinetics

• Following a spontaneous alcoholic fermentation of noble rot must with a sugar content of 320 g/L showed that after the yeasts’ growth phase, fermentation rate stayed stable and maximum during stationary phase, until the 11th day of fermentation when the death phase started.
• Fermentation stopped after 40 days, with a level of residual sugars at 100 g/L.
• The extremely high sugar content of these wines affected the yeasts’ growth phase due to the hyperosmotic environment that eventually led to ‘‘stuck’’ fermentation.

Vat types for fermentation

• Two types of containers can be used during fermentation, stainless-steel tank or wooden barrel.

The reference also provided a work flow for the fermentation of noble rot grapes:¹

References:
1. Kallitsounakis, Georgios, Catarino, Sofia, An Overview on Botrytized Wines REVISÃO: VINHOS BOTRITIZADOS, Ciência e Técnica Vitivinícola, 2020, 35, 76, 10.1051/ctv/20203502076.
2. Magyar I., Soós J., Botrytized wines – current perspectives, International Journal of Wine Research, 2016;8:29-39 https://doi.org/10.2147/IJWR.S100653.
3. Sipiczki, Matthias, Csoma, Hajnalka, Antunovics, Zsuzsa, Pfliegler, Walter, "Biodiversity in yeast populations associated with botrytised wine making", Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg, 2010, 60, pg 387-394.

Pinot Noir Tastings

Last week was the annual Beserkers Laura's House "Empty My Wallet" challenge started by Frank Murray III. My husband participated in it. The first night, we paired a 1999 Cristom Pinot Noir with leftover Beef Wellington. I loved the intensity of the Pinot Noir, it wasn't showing any age at all. The weight of the Cristom paired well with the beef.
Later in the week, we had some friends over and they brought a 2019 Flowers and we opened up a 1999 Rochioli. My husband made a slow braised beef short ribs, Asian style and our friends created a nice thin sliced cucumber, apples and butter leaf lettuce salad.
We look forward to this annual challenge. Anytime we can have an excuse to open an aged Pinot Noir and contribute to a good cause is a win-win!

What is Botrytis cinerea?

What is in a name? Botrytis cinerea is ignoble rot when it infects grapes resulting in bunch rot and grey mold, but under the right conditions, Botrytis cinerea can develop into noble rot capable of producing wines of immense sugar concentration. So what is Botrytis cinerea?^1,2

• Botrytis cinerea is a fungus
• The initial inoculum probably develops from overwintering mycelia which are strands of the living fungus that can survive on previously diseased tissues or from resting structures called sclerotia
• Grapevine flowers, immediately after capfall, and berries post veraison are particularly susceptible to botrytis infection.
• Infected flower parts located in the developing cluster may initiate fruit infection later during the season
• As the fruit reaches maturity, resistance to fungal growth declines and under moist conditions, new infections, incited by spores from external sources become important
• Botrytis relies on damaged tissue to begin an infection so any wounded green tissue is susceptible
• Grape varieties that produce thin-skinned, tightly packed bunches are prone to splitting and retain moisture, providing conditions that suit botrytis
• Botrytis susceptible varieties include Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Grenache, Muller Thurgau, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Traminer, and Sultana

Here is the lifecycle of Botrytis cinerea:¹

What are the conditions that can lead to noble rot?²

• Noble rot develops late in the season under conditions of fluctuating humidity, specifically humid nights followed by dry, sunny days which limits fungal growth
• Fall infection of Botrytis leads to the release of pectolytic enzymes that degrade the pectinaceous component of the cell wall leading to the dehydration of the grape under dry conditions
• This drying of the berry is crucial to the concentration of the juice
• Drying also limits secondary infection by bacteria and fungi including Penicillium, Aspergillus, and Mucor
• A distinctive feature of noble rotting is a loss in varietal aroma due to the destruction of terpenes that give these varieties their distinctive fragrance.

So, Botrytis cinerea, ignoble during the growing season producing bunch rot and grey mold, but noble under certain rare conditions which produces a desirable transformation into a dehyrated, highly concentrated grape enhancing it's quality.
References:
1. AWRI, Viti-Notes, Botrytis, 2010.
2. Ronald Jackson, Wine Science Third Edition, Elsevier, 2008, pg. 520- .

The Story of Our Wedding Bag Grapes

No matter how careful our harvesters are, there will always be some grapes that are left in the vineyard. We take advantage of this oversight, by putting wedding bags on these grapes. We think that the wedding bags are the key to getting the grapes to dehydrate and concentrate their sugars while providing safety from being the target of predators still looking for a sugar high.

As the leaves from the vines begin to fall, we are finding more grapes to bag. In the photo below, the bunch on the left was a bunch we found on November 10 and the bunch on the right was a bunch we found on November 21.

We have been making a late harvest Chenin Blanc since 2019 when we harvested the wedding bags on November 19, 2019. In 2020, we were not able to get to the wedding bags until December 11. Here is a photo of what the grapes looked like:

The 2020 late harvest Chenin Blanc yielded precious little liquid, but we did manage to ferment it and called the wine our version of The Most Expensive Wine, a Tokaji Essencia.
This year, we are carefully monitoring the transition of Chenin Blanc grape to botrytized raisin so that we don't go too far on the spectrum to raisin. Yesterday, while we were working in the vineyard, we gathered a few grapes and took the Brix measurement. Here is what we found:

2018 Braida Monte Bruna Barbera d'Asti

We are always on the lookout to try different Barbera wines because we also grow Barbera. Recently, my husband bought this 2018 Braida Monte Bruna. We liked it immediately. The wine was dark garnet in color and had notes of blackberries and boysenberries at the beginning which lingered until the finish of acidity at the back end.
I learned a little more about this Barbera at the Braida Website. Montebruna is a Barbera d’Asti DOCG made with 100% Barbera grapes grown in an estate-owned vineyard in Rochetta Tanaro. The must spends two weeks in temperature-controlled steel tanks where it ferments and is then transferred to large oak barrels to age for a year. My husband said he purchased this wine for about $32.00. Worth it!

Statistics for Our Varieties from 2019-2021

Since 2019, we have been taking our harvest to Jonathan Edwards Winery where Jon and his crew help us to press the grapes and turn the juice into wine. I thought that it would be interesting to compare the harvest date, weight, volume, Brix, and TA of the varieites that we grow in the vineyard. We also grow Barbera, but that variety is still maturing and we are making this wine in our basement.
Auxerrois

Auxerrois	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	September 23, 2019	636	50	19.6	3.23	7.35 g/L
2020	September 27, 2020	1670	133	19	3.07	7.5 g/L
2021	September 28, 2021	1638	130	18	3.25	7.2 g/L

Chenin Blanc

Chenin Blanc	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	October 14, 2019	3920	305	21.6	3.15	13.5 g/L
2020	October 11, 2020	8201	655	23.3	3.09	12.1 g/L
2021	October 17-18, 2021	6200	496	20.4	3.17	14.6 g/L

Chardonnay

Chardonnay	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	September 28, 2019	291	26	21.5	3.17	9.4 g/L
2020	September 24, 2020	1136	80	23.5	3.0	10 g/L
2021	October 3, 2020	2625	210	20.4	3.28	8.2 g/L

Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	November 3, 2019	332	30	19	3.25	11.1 g/L
2020	October 22, 2020	888	80	22.4	3.08	10.7 g/L
2021	October 24, 2021	561	45	20.1	3.07	10.4 g/L

Cabernet Franc

Cabernet Franc	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume of Juice/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
2019	October 26, 2019	377	32	23	3.23	11.3 g/L
2020	October 22, 2020	872	80	23.3	3.27	11.3 g/L
2021	October 24, 2021	402	32	19.8	3.2	7.4 g/L

It's interesting to see if there are any trends developing. One thing that is clear is that 2020 was an outstanding year for ripening and it is reflected in the wines we made in 2020.

Next Steps for our 2021 Barbera

We harvested our Barbera on Monday, October 25, just ahead of a nor'easter that was headed for our region the following day. We hand destemmed the small amount of Barbera that we harvested and used the yeast, F83 for our fermentation which we started on October 28.
We did daily punch downs so that the cap would be submerged in the liquid so that it would not be a substrate for Acetobacter to grow on.

On November 1, after verifying that the Barbera had finished fermentation, we pressed the wine away from the skins. Since we had a very small amount of wine, we used a huge colander which was placed over a clean 5-gallon food grade bucket. We also used a mash bag between the collander and the 5-gallon bucket and this effectively removed much of the larger particles from the juice. After we did this, we used a funnel to put the wine into a 6-gallon glass carboy.

In the above picture, you can see on the right hand side the sediment that has settled. Next steps for us is to rack this wine into a smaller container.

Shatter During Fruitset

We're doing a retrospective analysis on our somewhat low yields in our vineyard this year. The one variety that exceeded last year's weight at harvest was the Chardonnay. Coincidentally, the Chardonnay was the first to bloom around June 10 and reached approximately 30% bloom by June 13.
Most of our varieties were at some stage of bloom between June 10 and close to the end of June. On June 16 the following varieites were at this stage:

• The Auxerrois is beginning to bloom
• The Chenin is not in bloom
• The Chardonnay at about 50% bloom
• The Cabernet Sauvignon at about 20% bloom
• The Cabernet Franc at about 20% bloom
• The Barbera at about 10% bloom

Those flowers which bloomed early encountered rain on June 14, June 22, July 2 and July 3. One thing that we did notice during fruitset was the very sparse appearance of the fertilized berries.

This condition is known as shatter in the grape world. During the early summer, we had no idea of the impact of shatter on our yields. I looked online and found a very good article from the University of Maryland Extension on Grape Fruit Set and Shatter (Coulure) written by Joseph A. Fiola, Ph.D. In the article, Dr. Fiola mentions the following factors that can lead to decreased fruit set:

• Pre-bloom cultural practices such as shoot trimming or leaf pulling
• Nutrient deficiencies
• Deficiencies of any of the essential mineral nutrients can affect fruit set detrimentally
• Pre-bloom or post-bloom exposure to hormonal herbicide drift/volatilization
• Disease, insect, or other biotic stress before bloom can decrease fruit set
• Weather/Environmental conditions, including excessive heat (> 32°C/ 90°F) or cold (<15°C/59°F) can adversely affect pollen development, pollination, and fertilization
• Water stress can adversely affect fruit set
• Differences in cultivars

Of all of the above factors that affected our fruit set, I believe that weather conditions, as noted, rain during the period of flowering and fruit set affected our lower than expected yields this year.
References:
1. Joseph A. Fiola, Grape Fruit Set and Shatter (Coulure), University of Maryland Extension.

2019 Vernaccia Di San Gimignano

My husband bought this 2019 Vernaccia di San Gimignano from a local package store and we served it with appetizers of Brillant Savarin and sausage on crackers. The wine was fresh and easy to drink, reminding us of a Sauvignon blanc.
The grape, Vernaccia di San Gimignano was one that was not familiar to me so I went to the "grape Bible", Wine Grapes to learn more about it.
The Vernaccia di San Gimignano grows in the hill town of San Gimignano in the province of Siena in Toscana, Central Italy. It is a vigorous, mid- to late-ripening variety providing regular and generous yields. The maker of this bottle of Vernaccia is Fontaleoni, which is recommended in Wine Grapes. The picture on the label is a reference to the many towers in the town of San Gimignano.
This wine is very quaffable and the best thing is that it is around $15.00 a bottle!
References:
1. J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, pg 1019-10201131-1132, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2.

Vintage 2021: Our 2021 Harvest at a Glance

All of our grapes have been harvested and on their trajectory to wine. It's a good time to recap our harvest for 2021.

Variety	Harvest Date	Weight/ Lbs	Volume/ Gallons	Brix	pH	TA
Auxerrois	9/28/2021	1638	130	18	3.25	7.2 g/L
Chenin Blanc	10/17-18/2021	6200	496	20.4	3.17	14.6 g/L
Chardonnay	10/3/2021	2625	210	20.3	3.28	8.3 g/L
Cabernet Sauvignon	10/24/2021	561	45	20.2	3.07	10.4 g/L
Cabernet Franc	10/24/2021	402	32	19.8	3.20	7.4 g/L
Barbera	10/25/2021	60	5	23	3.23	10.3 g/L

For all of our varieties with the exception of Chardonnay, we had a lighter than expected harvest. We attribute that to some event that happened in our vineyard during fruitset where at harvest we were left with clusters that were very loose. This looseness worked in our favor for the Chardonnay which typically experiences some form of fungal attack but this year, we had beautiful, loose clusters.

This year was a bit of a challenge with rain and humidity throughout the grape growth period. However, the grapes were as clean as they could be given the conditions.

Vintage 2021: Barbera Harvest

After harvesting the Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, we had one more harvest to do, which was our small amount of Barbera. It might have been a larger harvest had we been a little faster at netting the ripening grapes. As it was, we didn't get to it before the deer efficiently ate most of the grapes on the east side of the trellis, which is nearest to the outer perimeter of our vineyard. Well, live and learn!
We were able to fit in the Barbera harvest in the morning, on Monday, October 25, before going to Jonathan Edwards winery to destem the Cabernet harvest that occurred on Sunday, October 24. My husband and I were able to harvest the Barbera in one hour.

We were able to harvest about three lugs worth of Barbera, which we approximated to be 60 pounds. We took the stats for the Barbera and it was:

Variety	Weight	Volume of Juice	Brix	pH	TA
Barbera	60 pounds	5 gallons	23	3.23	10.3 g/L

Turns out that harvesting the Barbera was the easy part. We hand removed each grape from the rachis (the grape stem), and the berries filled two 5-gallon buckets in preparation for inoculation with our yeast, F83.

On October 28, we rehydrated 5 grams of our yeast, F83 in 50 mL of spring water. After 20 minutes, we added the Barbera juice in 10 mL aliquots every ten minutes. Around 3:02 we inoculated the two buckets of Barbera with the rehydrated and tempered yeast.
We know that fermentation is occuring because the cap is rising to the top due to the release of carbon dioxide. We "punch down" the fermentation twice a day to prevent the cap from being a home to acetobacter.

Vintage 2021: Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc Harvest

Our last harvest of the year was on Sunday, October 24 when we harvested our Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. Our friends came once again to raise the netting and began harvesting around 9 a.m. The day was a cool but a beautiful one with sunshine and blue skies, a typical fall day in New England.
We had some new harvesters among our crew, including the cutest harvester, 6-1/2 year old Phoebe, who worked for 2 hours and said that she could have kept on going! That's the kind of crew we can really appreciate!
The harvest was a modest one, compared to what we had in our 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc harvest. But the grapes were clean!
The harvested grapes all fit in their respective half-ton bins and were transported to our off vineyard facility to spend the night.

The grapes were transported to Jonathan Edwards Winery in the early afternoon where their destemmer made quick work of the harvest and the destemmed grapes went into the cleaned half-ton bins for cold maceration, to extract color.
It was very nice to know that all of our grapes were finally harvested and beginning their journey from juice to wine!

A Little Levity During the Chenin Blanc Harvest

Our first day of the Chenin Blanc harvest was on Sunday, October 17. Our friends come early to help us raise the netting and put down the lugs for harvest in advance of the many people who come to help us harvest.
At the end of this first day of harvesting Chenin Blanc, our friend came up to me and showed me his Apple tracking miles walked! Since he was one of the people raising the netting, he got a lot of miles that day.
I thought it was blog worthy. He really did a lot of walking that day and the Apple tracking map showed how long and straight our rows are and where the 10 rows of Chenin Blanc are.
We always talk about cross-training in the vineyard. My husband has a word for it: VitiFit!

Vintage 2021: Chenin Blanc Harvest - Part 2

Part 1 of the Chenin Blanc Harvest blogpost brought us up to Monday, October 18, when the grapes had been destemmed and crushed and the juice safely put into a tank for cold settling.
We had a few days of rest that we called PHADD (post-harvest adrenaline deficit disorder, pronounced "fad") where our batteries were pegging on empty and we needed a recharge.
We were back at Jonathan Edwards Winery on Thursday, October 21 to rack the cold settled juice into another tank in preparation for inoculation. My husband hooked up the hoses to the pump and then we cleaned the hoses, as instructed by Jon, making sure that there was no residual water in the hoses. We then hooked up the hoses to the tank with the juice and then to the receiving tank which was nearby. The racking took about 45 minutes for approximately 500 gallons of juice, after which we were able to open the manway to look inside.
Here is a photo of my husband getting the last of the clear juice from the bottom of the settling tank. After getting as much juice as we could, we believe that 15 gallons of yuck went down the drain.

Since the juice was at 54 degrees, we decided to let it warm up overnight and came back on Friday, October 22 to rehydrate our yeast, QA23 and temper it. It's difficult to get our heads around 480 grams of yeast, because we have been dealing with 5 gram packets for the longest time. Last year, I thought that a 2 gallon bucket would work for the rehydration and tempering and I ran into trouble right from the start!
For 480 grams of yeast, rehydration recommends 4.8 liters of water at 100 degrees F. The rehydration takes around 20 minutes and then tempering with juice takes another 20 minutes.

In the picture above, you can see the clarity of the Chenin Blanc juice. The middle photo is the tempered yeast, foaming close to the top of the 5 gallon bucket! Jay took it to the top of the tank to inoculate the Chenin Blanc for us so now we cross our fingers and wait for fermentation!

Vintage 2021: Chenin Blanc Harvest - Part 1

In trying to decide on a harvest day, and knowing that our grapes were almost a week behind the 2020 harvest date, we gathered representative samples from our Chenin Blanc clone 982 and FPS-1 on October 9 and 10. We tested the Brix, pH and TA and came up with these numbers:

Variety	Date of Testing	Weight	Volume of Juice	Brix	pH	TA
Chenin Blanc clone 982	October 9, 2021	973 g	530 mL	18.6	2.95	11.80 g/L
Chenin Blanc clone FPS-1	October 10, 2021	302 g	160 mL	19.3	3.05	9.5 g/L

Looking at those numbers above and looking at the week ahead, we decided to cross our fingers and hope that the nice weather during the coming week would bring the Brix levels up and the total acidity (TA) down. We were indeed fortunate since the temperatures during October 11-17 were in the mid to high 70's, sunny and warm.
We scheduled our harvest for Sunday, October 17 and Monday, October 18, taking in to account feedback from our crew that splitting the harvest of our major variety, Chenin Blanc, over two days would be a good thing.
Here is a photo of a handful of our crew busy at harvesting:

Another change in our operation was to pick up the filled lugs with the t-bins and deploy the lugs into the other rows so that our crew was never looking for an empty lug.

Initially, we decided to harvest 8 of the 17 rows of Chenin Blanc, but the very industrious crew said that "While you have us, use us! Strike while the iron is hot! Let's do a few more rows!" So we decided to harvest 2 more rows of Chenin Blanc and were able to do 10 rows instead of 8 by 2 p.m. we were on a roll and feeling good about how much was accomplished.
The grapes in the lugs were put into the t-bins and there was a total of 7 t-bins to take to Jonathan Edwards Winery. Without going into detail, there was a bit of a snafu with plan A so we deployed plan B with the help of our hunter who called his friend who had a dump trailer that could haul 3 t-bins at a time. Our hunter also had a tarp that could cover the t-bins. My husband put one of the t-bins in his truck so that at the end of the day, there were 6 t-bins on the ground safely covered with a tarp.

On Monday, we had a handful of dedicated people who were determined that we would get the harvest to the winery for pressing. The crew was able to harvest the remaining 7 rows of Chenin Blanc by 2 p.m. and we made the last pressing of the day at Jonathan Edwards Winery. Once at the winery, at the close of the day on Monday, we all breathe a small sigh of relief. Phew!
The following day, on October 18, we were able to get a sample of cold settled juice and got these numbers:

Variety	Date of Testing	Weight	Volume of Juice	Brix	pH	TA
Chenin Blanc total juice after cold settling	October 19, 2021	6200 pounds	496 gallons	20.4	3.17	14.6 g/L

The Brix was now at a good level and the pH and TA are something that we know how to deal with, so alls well that ends well! We want to thank everyone who came on Sunday and Monday to help us harvest our Chenin Blanc and the crew at Jonathan Edwards Winery who are always so kind to us!

Vecchia Modena and Sushi

A few days ago, our hunter brought us fresh caught yellow fin tuna. We had some white rice on hand so it was a natural to make sushi with it. The question of what to drink with the tuna sushi was settled when we had a half opened bottle of Vecchia Modena in the refrigerator with our special sparkling closure. I have blogged about Vecchia Modena, a sparkling lambrusco in a blogpost I wrote in April 2015. At that time, we really liked this frizzante style wine because it was a good value for the money. It still is! When we paired this wine with sushi, we had no idea how ideal this pairing was. It worked!

An aside: I sent my mother this photo of the sushi and she wrote back to me saying that although she is not an eater of raw fish, she knows that if we were to have that sushi in Hawaii, it would cost a small fortune!
Buoyed by the fact that Vecchia Modena and sushi was a great pairing, we recently tried it with twice wrapped rice paper dumplings and karaage. That was indeed a good pairing as well. Try Vecchia Modena the next time you have an Asian meal. You will like it!

Vintage 2021: Chardonnay Harvest---Part 2

In Vintage 2021: Chardonnay Harvest---Part 1, we left our Chardonnay in Jonathan Edward's winery. They were also in the midst of harvesting their grapes so we spent the morning rehydrating our yeast to inoculate the Auxerrois juice. That done, we waited to be able to get our Chardonnay weighed when the fork lift broke.
We agreed that we would proceed with pressing the Chardonnay and back calculate how much the harvest weighed. Lucky for us, Jonathan Edwards brought the press into the winery because it was raining outside. The contents of the lugs were pitched into the press and the press cycle began around 1:30.
As the juice came out of the press, my husband put it into three 75 gallon stainless steel barrels making sure to distribute the fractions equally into the three barrels, something that Jonathan Edwards taught us how to do. Since the three barrels were almost full we believe that we had approximately 210 gallons of Chardonnay juice, which we agreed must have weighed approximately 2625 pounds.

On October 6, we went to Jonathan Edwards Winery to remove the cold probes that we had in the two of the three 75 gallon barrels in order to rack the settled juice from the heavier lees and take down some information regarding the juice, something we should have done on Monday when we initially pressed the juice. In any case, here is the information from the three barrels:

We asked Jon if we could use one of his neutral oak barrels for part of our Chardonnay fermentation and he was kind enough (he always is!) to loan us one of his oak barrels. This was the first time that we set up the pump for transferring the juice. Yeay! The juice from the three stainless steel barrels were racked into one oak barrel and three stainless steel barrels in preparation for inoculation to kick off the fermentation.

The following day, on October 7, we went to rehydrate our yeast, CX9 and inoculated the juice at 9:45 a.m. We went to check on the fermentations on October 8 and 10 and both the Auxerrois and Chardonnay fermentations were bubbling along!

Vintage 2021: Chardonnay Harvest---Part 1

Five days after our Auxerrois harvest, on Sunday, October 3, we called on our friends to come and help us with the Chardonnay harvest.

For the first time, we did something correct in our Chardonnay and the fruit escaped being attacked by fungus and birds, although there was a bit of yellow jacket scourge.

Our vineyard spacing is 4 x 7, meaning that each vine is spaced four feet from the next vine and each row is 7 feet apart. In our case, each vine can hold 20+ grape bunches. The picture above shows that for the first time, our vines were carrying two bunches of fruit on some of the shoots!
The eight rows of Chardonnay was harvested by 1 p.m. by the industrious crew. They took a break for lunch and time for my husband to give a toast.

After lunch, a handful of our dedicated friends helped us with the stacking and shrink wrapping of the Chardonnay-laden lugs for transport to Jonathan Edwards Winery.

Once at the winery, Jonathan Edwards brought the palleted lugs into the winery for safekeeping.

When all was said and done, we transported two pallets with 35 full lugs, one pallet with 25 full lugs and one pallet with 15 full lugs and 4 partially full lugs for a total of 114 lugs of grapes. That brought the day of Chardonnay harvest to a close!

Vintage 2021: Auxerrois Harvest

Our first harvest of this vintage was the Auxerrois which we harvested on Tuesday, September 28, 2021.
Here is a reality check when a harvest date is scheduled: We were looking at our weather apps and saw that the rains were vacillating between coming on Tuesday, September 28 or Wednesday, September 29. When we scheduled harvest to be on Tuesday, the apps said that the rains would come on Wednesday. However, when harvest day came closer, the rains were definitely coming on Tuesday.
The dilemna: push harvest to another day, or harvest and pray. We chose to harvest and pray.
Our friends came at 7:30 a.m., and being the seasonsed harvesters that they are, began taking off the clothes pins and putting the netting on the trellis wire to expose the grapes. When the harvest crew arrived, they began harvesting the grapes immediately. The weather coorperated and amazingly, there were blue skies and the sun even managed to peak through the clouds although we did hear rumblings of thunder in the distance to the north of us.
The crew was able to get all of the 2 heavy rows of Auxerrois and the 3 not so heavy rows of Auxerrois harvested before noon. The lugs were packed and wrapped and put on the truck for transport to Jonathan Edwards Winery.

Our friends were able to sit down and partake in a bit of lunch before the skies opened up and the rains came down in sheets and buckets! My husband was on his way to Jonathan Edwards Winery with the Auxerrois when it poured rain on the grapes. Once he got there, the 2 pallets of grapes were safely tucked away in the winery for pressing on Monday.
On Monday, the grapes were weighed and the whole cluster pressing was started. When the pressing ended, we had approximately 130 gallons of juice.

Although we expected to get a larger harvest than we had last year, the grapes weighed approximately the same and we had approximately the same amount of juice. We took a sample of the juice home for testing and here are the numbers:

The cold probes were put into the stainless steel barrels for cold setting and the juice was allowed to settle until Saturday, October 2 when the juice was racked from the cold settling barrels into newly cleaned barrels to warm up in preparation for inoculation with yeast. The first racking to get rid of the heaviest soluble solids yielded at most 2 gallons from the 65 gallon barrels.

On Monday, October 4, we went to Jonathan Edwards Winery to rehydrate our yeast, QA23 for inoculation of the Auxerrois. At that time, we took a hydrometer reading of the juice that we would use for tempering the yeast and it read 18.5. My husband believes that the initial juice was around 19 ^oBrix, because the numbers I provided above were taken with a refractometer.
The juice was inoculated at 2:05 p.m.