Venus grapes

I was out checking chemistry at the Rombough Vineyard in Aurora yesterday. Look at these:

Those are Venus grapes: Seedless, large berries in large clusters. They reached 14.9 Brix in Aurora OR (140' elev) on August 24, 2013. They will get a bit riper but are very edible now. Mild pleasant flavor.

That's an early harvest for this area. Everything will be early if the weather pattern holds, though it has been cooler and  more humid of late. We're at 1643 Growing Degree Days YTD, and it's likely we'll top 2000 but unsure by how much. 2100 or 2200 is in reach if it warms back up.

US winegrape plantings not keeping up with demand, so should you jump in?

This article is pretty interesting:

The romantic notion is that it'd be fun to buy and run a winery, to grow your own grapes. Vineyard vistas. Bucolic splendor. A delightful "working retirement." Yes, that is extremely seductive, but like a lot of things, it's an idea which, in actual practice, requires a ton of work (way more than any reasonable human would expect) and throws up constant surprises, many of them negative (grape predators; unforeseen costs; regulatory hassles; difficulty to make good wine; how to sell your wine?, etc.). Many growers say it's a lifestyle you choose, not something you do for profit. For every winery that achieves cult status and can sell its wines at crazy high prices, there are several hundred that struggle to sell their wines at all. Most of them can get along, but a few fail.

Consistent with that backdrop, the US saw an excess of winegrape plantings in the 1990s, which squeezed grape and wine sellers' profits. There has been a dearth of plantings as a result, and so the US will be unable to meet its own rising wine demand. As a result, foreign winemakers are increasing their sales to US consumers. Unfortunately, there are many very good foreign wines that are sold in the US at prices so low that it adversely impacts the US winemakers' abilty to compete.

Over the years I think I've learned some of the reasons why foreign producers can price so low for their U.S. sales. Let's use the Farnese Montepulciano d'Abruzzo as an example--it's priced at $8 or $9 retail in the US, for a good Sangio-like wine, and that includes shipping it from Italy, and markups through our corrupt three-tier distribution system, so you can only imagine how low the price is that the winery receives. So how do they do it?:

a. Sometimes they get government subsidies (New Zealand);

b. Usually the land's been in the family for generations and there's no debt on land or equipment;

c. Usually the extended family members all work in the vineyard and winery, which depresses costs;

d. The "recipe" is locked in and the winemakers fully understand the range of vintage climate, winery situations, and can make quick and correct adjustments without having to defeat mystery;

e. Perhaps the European producers have had enough time to be better at shaving costs and finding synergies; and

f. Sometimes the family has done a good job of marshalling wealth over many generations, and thus can ride out economic downturns, even if it means several years of losses. 

So, might it be a good time to plant grapes in the US? Maybe. But make sure that you can find a market for your wines, at prices you can live with. And too many enthusiastic newbies to grapegrowing just dive in and make numerous mistakes. They plant whatever their neighbor is growing, or, worse, whatever they want to grow (despite the fact that it may not be suited to that climate or soil). They buy too much new equipment. They don't know how to keep young grapes alive. They don't know how to make good wine. They underestimate the costs. They haven't a clue how to market and sell. The best advice is to start a city or suburban vineyard and grow grapes and make wine that way, on a small basis, and learn that way.

Then, if you are confident you can avoid all those obstacles, and if you are ready for 10x the amount of work that you can possibly imagine, and if you've done all your homework and have enough knowledge in all the required areas (viticulture, winemaking, marketing, regulatory, project planning), then OK. Go for it!

Regarding which grapes to plant: Consider hybrid grapes (modern varieties). These are vinifera grapes crossed with American grapes. The result is earlier ripening and better disease resistance. Earlier ripening means less bird predation and (in the Pac NW) a better chance to get the fruit in before the rains return. Disease resistance means less spraying, or (here) no spraying, which saves a lot of time and money as well as being better on the environment. If you pick the right modern varieties for your site, you can make wine that is liked by your customers, and there are dozens of promising modern varieties available. The American grapes sometimes have flavor profiles that take getting used to, but with many of the modern varieties this is only a small step and the vinifera flavors predominate. Also, it is likely that there will be restrictions on spraying (in France and elsewhere, inorganic sprays have rendered vineyard soil completely poisoned and lifeless), and if that happens it will complicate the growing of vinifera. 

Compared to the CA vinifera described in the above article, hybrids are cheaper to grow, but is that enough of a difference to make U.S. winegrape plantings profitable enough? I'm not sure. I'm glad U.S. wine demand is rising but it's unfortunate that it's being met mostly through inexpensive foreign wines. Perhaps the "buy local" movement is a strong enough force that a local customer will pay, say, $12 for your wine instead of $8 for that Farnese Montepulciano.

Bottle Shock

I've been reading about bottle shock. It's relevant because we just finished bottling our group effort 2012 Leon Millot (Epyllion Vineyard). I know that the wine is probably "off" in the bottle now, but after some time it will wake back up.

Pinot Noir is notoriously finicky with bottle shock, or perhaps there are other reasons that it varies in bottle from good to bad to good again.

But science has yet to catch up. What is bottle shock, what causes it, and how long does it last? Is there anything we can do to minimize it?

Articles about bottle shock are all over the map:

This is one of best articles I've found, from winebussiness.com.  But the range of advice is so vast that it only proves that many winemakers are totally clueless about bottle shock (or perhaps the author of the article missed some of their statements). E.g.,
a. Bo Barrett (Ch. Montelena) thinks that putting wine in bottle deprives it of the oxygen that it had received through the pores of the oak barrel, and the result is a growth of Brettamyces (a spoilage organism common in wines in varying amountst) in the bottle. Or,
b. Jeff McBride at Benziger believes that filtering the wine removes phenolic and color compounds which causes bottle shock and takes time to recover through the oxidative process (note: I do not see how removed wine components can recover with time; also, there is a lot of evidence that even sterile filters (with pores small enought to remove yeast) do not have any effect on wine molecules. Or,
c. Stefano Milgotto of WineTech (a mobile wine filtration service) thinks that the culprit is the addition of too much oxygen during the winemaking process. He thinks that filtered wine, right after filtration, sees a loss of varietal character (I would argue that it's not the filtration, it's the oxygenation during filtration, that is the issue.) And:
d. Gordon Burns of ETS Laboratories, seems to have it right: He thinks there is no one cause, but instead there are many root causes, some of which are not understood yet.  He thinks that if the free SO2 in a wine is stable, then bottle shock will be minimized.

Dr. Waterhouse, at UC Davis, says that little research has been done on bottle shock, and this is probably because most winemakers don't worry overmuch about bottle shock because it's always (or almost always) "cured" by passage of time.

He also says that, during bottle shock, bouquet (aroma) is lost because aldehydes are formed from ethanol in the presence of the added oxygen from bottling.

Dr. Boulton, also at UC Davis, thinks that peroxide is the culprit, not oxygen.

And, as to bottle shock associated with wine shipment (or even travel across town for dinner): This may be due to heating and cooling of the wine, which can move air (which is 20% oxygen) in and out of the wine bottle.

And this article suggests that six weeks is a fairly safe time to wait, to see the effects of bottle shock worn off. But some think it's worse with filtered wines, or worse with white wines. Clearly, more research is needed.

Bottom Line: Always let a wine mature before you drink it. This, BTW, is why many restaurants, in their zeal for cash management and lean inventory, commit a double cardinal sin when then offer wines that are too young to drink at prices that are 2.5x to 3.5x normal retail prices. You are overpaying for wine that is too young to drink. Take your own well-aged bottle to dinner, and pay corkage!

Kill Your Lawn

Check this out:

The lawn in the Western U.S. is fast becoming a thing of the past. Water is in such short supply, and Western populations are growing so fast, that many cities are paying residents to take out their lawns. Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent by cities in this effort.

This is a wise move, for it conserves scarce fresh drinking water. Keeping a green lawn is a relatively new phenomenon. In nature, grass goes dormant in summer and it greens back up when the heavier rains return. Watering it all summer is contrary to the natural cycle. And using treated drinking water to irrigate grass is doubly wasteful.

And there are many gorgeous drought-tolerant native plants you can choose from, instead.

Have you ever been to the Sierra Foothills AVA (wine region in California) in late summer? The golden (dormant) grass, and green oak tree leaves, and black boulders make for a beautiful sight. The trick is to learn that the natural, seasonal colors of Nature are beautiful.

Dormant grass is not dead; it's just waiting for rain. Fresh water is a scarce resource. Come on! Get with the "Green" mindset. And learn to love the natural colors of nature.

(And a huge benefit: less grass mowing!)

Veraison!

Veraison ("VAY-ray-zaw(n)"--swallow the "n") is the French word for "change." There is no English equivalent, so we use it also.

It refers to the change from the berry-growing phase to the berry-ripening phase.

Normal veraison for winegrapes in the Willamette Valley is about August 12, so having it on August 2 is early. That is consistent with our warmer year in 2013.

So far, so great! for Oregon winegrapes.

The photo is of my Cascade grapes, showing their first turn to color. Regent is also starting to turn. And on the vinifera side, Pinot Noir is turning color in the Valley. Very exciting stuff.

Organization promotes hybrid winegrapes in Europe

Here is the group's website. Its name, PIWI, is an acronym for the German name for fungus-resistant grape varieties.

The problem in Europe is that the cherished vinifera winegrape varieties are losing out to fungal attacks. The grapes haven't been allowed to evolve fungal defenses and thus they require more and more chemical sprays to fight fungus. This has rendered many vineyards sterile--devoid of life. A shocking result, considering that in healthy soil there are thousands if not millions of beneficial fungii, insects, worms, etc. in a cubic foot of earth.

France (and to a lesser extent other wine countries) has been fighting hybrid grapes for over a century, as they were perceived as a threat to the classical vinifera varieties. But as attention is directed to this looming environmental catastrophe, those rigid countries are starting to open up to hybrids.

Hybrids are crosses of vinifera grapes (which have desirable flavors) with modern grape varieties (which can provide disease resistance, winter cold tolerance, and earlier ripening). It's classical crossing, not modern genetic engineering: The pollen from one grape is put on the egg of another grape, and the resulting seeds collected and sprouted, to see if a better variety has been created. The process takes many years, but has already given us a number of winegrapes which not only resist fungal disease, but also ripen earlier and make great wines.

So it is pretty big news when countries like France are starting to realize something must change.

In the U.S., vinifera don't have disease pressure in very dry climates, such as Walla Walla WA. But in many states, growing vinifera requires a heavy spray program. Even if the sprays are organic (those are more expensive), spraying still requires a lot of tractor fuel, so growing disease-resistant hybrid grapes is quite "Green."

Here is a quote from Mark Hart, of Mt. Ashwabay Vineyard and Orchard: "The writing is on the wall that these PIWI grapes will play a larger role in European viticulture as restrictions on pesticide use tighten."

It's a fascinating issue that bears close watching. Meanwhile, everyone should be trying hybrid (modern) winegrapes' wines frequently. If you haven't, you may be surprised at their variety and quality!

Life lessons from a master winemaker

Mike Martini, the third-generation winemaker of that name, speaks from his family's 80 years of experience when he offers the following life wisdom:

1. Great creations reflect the personality and strengths of the person who created them. Your strengths shine through when you’re passionate about something. Whether it’s your secret-recipe barbecue sauce or the way you play a favorite song on a guitar, your own style will make something not just great – but uniquely your own.

2. There are many different paths to the same goal. Not everyone approaches their work the same way – and that’s OK. As long as the goal is the same, keep an open mind about how to reach those goals, particularly when working with others.

3. You’ve got to learn to make your own mistakes. While you can learn from others’ mistakes, sometimes the knowledge that comes from making your own mistakes can be just as valuable. Don’t be afraid of mistakes; instead, see them as an opportunity to improve.

4. The most fundamental skill is patience. With winemaking, you get one shot a year at harvest, and just about any good wine is worth waiting for. Develop your patience as you would any other necessary skill and in the end, you’ll be happier with the result.

5. If our neighbors succeed, we all succeed. There’s a saying that you’re as only as strong as your weakest link, but if you flip that, you can also be as strong as your strongest link. Over time, the success of any one of us brings all of us up.

6. Perseverance pays off. There will be times in life when giving up seems like the best option – but really, it’s only the easiest option. Stick to your plan through the difficult times and you’ll be rewarded in the end.

7. To master anything, you need to learn everything that goes into it. When times do get tough, you need to rely on more than just surface-level information. A deep understanding will make it easier for you to think creatively, find solutions and excel.

8. If you’re passionate about what you do, the clock doesn’t matter. How many golfers check the clock while they’re on the course? How many surfers abandon the waves to go see what time it is? Not many. If you have a passion for something, it’s no longer work but a pursuit of doing what you love. If your job is something that you enjoy as much as a hobby, putting in the time and effort won’t ever feel like a burden.

(Quoted from a story at eldoradospringsmo.com)

PS-That is a little town in SW Missouri, where I spent summers sometimes as a youth. It has water that is so sulfurous it is undrinkable to some outsiders' palates, but it's a pretty little American town with a bandstand in the park. And they made "lemonade" from that water: Folks come from miles around to drink it and bathe in it, believing it is healthy. Here's a photo of the bandstand; it housed brass bands in the late 1800s.