Vintage 2023: April Budbreak

We have been busy pruning, removing cuttings and laying down this year's fruiting canes and working during these beautiful April days that Mother Nature has gifted us. We went to the land on April 17 and were shocked to find that our grape vines were in various stages of budbreak! The varieties were typical of what we see when budbreak occurs with the Chardonnay ahead of the rest of our varieties followed by the Barbera, Auxerrois, Cabernet Franc, Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon.
This is without doubt the earliest that our grapes have entered budbreak. Here is how we track the various stages of growth for each season:

We attribute this early budbreak to the mild winter what we had in 2022-2023 but also to the heat spike we had on April 13 and 14 with temperatures reaching the 80+ ^oF!
On April 21, I took photos of our grape varieties in various stages of budbreak:

It's time to begin filling out the 2023 annual cycle of growth form. But also to kick our pruning into another gear. We were working as if budbreak was in May but Mother Nature always has tricks up her sleeves! It's a good thing that we have help from our friends!

How is Sake Made?—-The Fermentation

I have been blogging about how sake is made and it has been quite the journey. Here are links to previous blogs about making sake:

• How is Sake Made?---The Rice
• How is Sake Made?---The Water
• How is Sake Made?---The Koji
• How is Sake Made?—-The Yeast

Today's blog is about the fermentation, which is the penultimate step in sake making.
3-Step Fermentation or Sandan Jikomi
The fermentation step in sake making consists of three steps known as sandan jikomi.

• In the first step, a mix of shubo (source of yeast), steamed rice, koji, and water sit in a tank and ferment over a day
• Next, the brewers add a batch of steamed rice, koji, and water two more times to gradually increase the fermenting mash volume

The above three steps occur over a period of three to four weeks. The temperature of the fermentation is kept between 8 ^oC to 10 ^oC. The active fermentation produces enough alcohol in the mash to prevent any microbial contamination.

In the sandan jikomi two processes take place at the same time. The koji’s enzymes break down rice starch into sugar, and the yeast ferments the sugar into alcohol.

The beauty of this process is that since the sugar is fermented into alcohol as it gets produced, the mash's sugar concentration stays at an ideal level. Therefore, these parallel processes, together with the 3-step fermentation, actively support an efficient fermentation activity, producing a 17 to 20% alcoholic content by the end.
References:
1. Japanese Sake, How is Sake Made?
2. Harper, Philip, The Book of Sake A Connoisseur's Guide, Kodansha International, 2006.
3. Sakaya, Sake Making Steps

Vineyard Sled

One of the inevitable results from spring pruning are the cuttings that are left in the vineyard. This is not a good thing because old wood can harbor dormant spores of mildews and fungi, so we have always tried to be vigilant about removing the cuttings from the vineyard.
Over the years, we have thought of many ways of bringing out the grape vine cuttings from the vineyard. This is a bit tricky because we don't want use our tractor during the winter months to remove the cuttings because it can lead to soil compaction.
In the past, we've taken out the cuttings by hand because we didn't have too many vines due to the death of our young vines when we initially planted the vineyard in 2013. After replanting the vineyard in 2016, we had young vines, so pruning and removal of the cuttings did not become quite an issue until 2019. In 2019, we used tarps to bring the cuttings out. Yes, it was physically challenging work but the tarps did the job.
My husband, always in search for a better solution for cutting removal found this: the Berti Picker LC. A great solution, but way beyond our financial means. While it is an aspirational goal to own one of those, we needed a solution that could help us in the near term.
Last year, during pruning, my husband looked into purchasing a sled from AirFrames Alaska. Unfortunately, he was too late and the season for sled making was over. Our hunter loaned us his ice sled and although it was on the small side, it did work in pulling out the cuttings in an efficient and less physically taxing way than using the tarp.
This year, my husband was on top of things and when sled making time came around, he ordered one from AirFrames Alaska and to ensure that he would receive it, he ordered it in August 2022.
Here is a photo of our vineyard sled:

The trick to using the vineyard sled efficiently is to pile the cuttings at each linepost. It does take some time to do this during pruning, but the end result is very worthwhile. We have 37 lineposts that span almost 800 feet from end to end and approximately 190 vines in each row. My husband, with the help of our friend was able to remove 17 rows of cuttings in 3 mornings. Here is a photo of the sled before and during cutting removal:

Here is a video of the vineyard sled in action that our friend sent us:

Our hunter got a shot of my husband driving the mower pulling the vineyard sled full of cuttings on his trail camera and gave it a thumbs up. We think this is a great and economical solution for our small vineyard! Cuttings be gone!

2019 Jonathan Edwards Cabernet Franc

Good morning! I hope everyone had a great Easter. My husband went solo to work in the vineyard for half a day. When he came home, he made this chicken cordon blue with wild rice and broccolini.
We paired the meal with a 2019 Jonathan Edwards Cabernet Franc. The wine went very well with the chicken. It was inky purple in the glass and had a lot of black berry and black cherry flavors with a hint of spice on the finish. If you live in southeastern Connecticut, Jonathan Edwards winery is a great place to get delicious Connecticut grown wines. (Disclaimer: we are making our wines at Jonathan Edwards so we have the distinct advantage of tasting the wines before bottling. The 2019 Cabernet Franc is a delicious expression of the varietal. I am not sure if they have any of this vintage left!)

Pruning Progress

My husband is making great progress in pruning our 36 rows of vines. This year, he is doing two tasks simultaneously. He is trimming the tops of the canes and then doing the final pruning. As a contrast, last year, he went through the entire vineyard pruning the tops of last year's canes and then came though the vineyard to do the final pruning consequently, final pruning did not begin until April 11th in the Chardonnay. Today, my husband is pruning in our Chenin Blanc and has already finished 15 rows of pruning!

The above photos shows the "Before" and "After" of pruning. In the "After" photo the cuttings have been neatly piled by each line post. It took a while to figure this out. In the past, we left the cuttings in the alleys so that we could come back with a tarp ( ← check out this link) to gather it up and take it out of the vineyard, but since last year, we have used a sled, loaned to us by our hunter to remove the cuttings. This worked, but this year we have a better way of removing the cuttings. When it comes to that time, I will blog about it.

How is Sake Made?—-The Yeast

I took a little break from my journey on how sake is made, but I am back and the next step is all about the yeast.
The Yeast
This step is called the making of the mother culture or the shubo. In this step, the brewers will use a relatively small portion of the mash, koji, water and yeast to create the active yeast culture.

This is the starter for the fermentation of the main mash. The shubo needs to be acidic in order to prevent the growth of unwanted microbes. Sake brewers use one of two methods to create the acidic shubo. They use either the Kimoto/Yamahai-moto or the Sokujo-moto method.
Kimoto/Yamahai-moto Method
The traditional way to acquire acidity is to cultivate natural lactic acid bacilli which exist in koji or in the wooden tools and tubs. The brewers first mix steamed rice, koji, and water at around 8°C and gradually increase the temperature to cultivate the lactic acid bacilli for about two weeks. When the mixture reaches a significant level of acidity, brewers add the yeast to start the alcoholic fermentation. Another two weeks later, the acidity and alcohol kill the majority of the microbes except for the yeast. This type of shubo makes sake with a strong body and complex flavor. Oftentimes, if the sake is made using this method it will be so indicated on the label.

Sokujo-moto Method
The main method of boosting the acidity in shubo today is to add lactic acid. This process is a relatively new technique, invented in the early 1900s. It facilitates the shubo making by eliminating the traditional process of growing lactic acid bacilli. This way, the time needed to complete the shubo shrinks down from 4 weeks to 2weeks. The resulting sake tends to taste lighter than the sake made with traditional style shubo.

Can you believe that all of these steps must be accomplished before fermentation begins! Next blogpost will be on fermentation.
References:
1. Japanese Sake, How is Sake Made?
2. Harper, Philip, The Book of Sake A Connoisseur's Guide, Kodansha International, 2006.
3. Sakaya, Sake Making Steps

Vintage 2023: April is Here

Today, the first day of April brought rain during the day and some late afternoon sunshine. We have been busy in the vineyard with pruning duties. We're doing pretty well getting the vines pruned but we're going to need Mother Nature's cooperation!
This season we began in February by bringing in all of the branch locks (Agfast) that we put in the growing canopy to give each shoot space from it's neighbor to provide airflow, inportant in keeping mildews and diseases at bay. Compared to information in our 2022 spreadsheet, we brought in the last Agfast on April 17! Bringing in the Agfasts allows us to do our next task which is to free last year's fruiting canes by cutting off wires and tendrils. I do this task ahead of of my husband who is pruning and deciding which year old canes will be this year's fruiting canes.
He has pruned about a third of the vineyard, which is quite good because we were no where near this place last year. Each year we refine the tasks we do in order that the pruning tasks are done before budbreak.
So we ask Mother Nature to provide us with cool but dry days in April so that we can beat the bud break clock!