Sometimes what is needed is just patience – which in our business means waking up every day with optimism not necessarily supported by reason, trying not to freak out about everything that could go wrong, hoping that the weather cooperates and things don’t go south, and taking humble pleasure and relief when things turn out OK. “Patience” has been rewarded this year—the continued warm weather, punctuated by days of just enough rain, is allowing us to let fruit hang on the vine and ripen for longer than we normally would. Rain can be a problem this time of the year—the vine soaks up the moisture and transfers excess water to the berries, causing flavor dilution and swelling in the berries, sometimes even to the point of skin breakage. This year, however, the rains have been short and have been followed by days of sun that dries the vines out again. Any Botrytis that was encouraged by the rain, dries up, adding richness to the flavor of the grapes.

Red varieties are really benefiting nicely from these conditions; white varieties are too, but to a lesser degree. The longer hang time in the reds is reducing vegetative aromatics and shifting the tannin structure to yield better aromas and a more pleasant, supple mouthfeel in the finished wines. White varieties are very healthy and solid but aren’t showing the same marked improvement over what we normally see in good quality years. This could be a year that our red wines really shine.

What’s coming up in the next week? As part of the waiting game, we’re watching fruit quality in our vinifera reds. We’re not as concerned with the chemistry (sugar and acid) as we are with how the grapes are physically holding up. Sugar and acid readings are tracking just fine, both in the appropriate range to harvest at any time. What we are observing are changes to the berries, leaves and even the pedicels —the little stems that attaches the berries to the cluster. The leaves are still necessary to capture sunlight energy and convert it to a form that can drive the berry ripening process, and the woody parts of the plant, including the pedicels, are the conductors of this energy to the berries. As the fruit and vine matures, the pedicels start to break down, ending this aspect of ripening in the berry. The berry continues to change, though, mostly drying up a bit as moisture is lost, concentrating flavor in the berry, and altering the texture of the skins. This is evident when tasting this fruit, and these changes will also carry into the finished wine—more ripe, jammy fruit, and softer, less green tannins. Definitely something to look forward to.

What makes this even better is that we are finally going to have both Carmine and Cabernet Sauvignon back in the stable. Both of these varieties took a beating during the hyper-winters of 2014 and 2015, and the vines have now recovered (and new vines have matured) enough to yield a crop. They are looking really good, and we’ll soon have them in our fermenters, showing off their potential.

In the cellar we’ve racked a few of the early varieties off the yeast lees, with later varieties either in the throes of active fermentation, or finishing up their fermentations. The first barrels of Dornfelder have been filled with this new wine which is already showing an amazing depth of color, fruit intensity and tannin structure. It has been inoculated with a malo-lactic culture to enhance the complexity and softness, and should result in a really nice wine.

The continued warm and relatively dry weather is giving us something that we don’t always have in our harvest—the ability to let fruit hang and ripen under full sun and heat. This time of the year we usually have to start considering trade-offs – carefully watching fruit quality and health of the leaves and often having to harvest before we would really like to beat the onset of deterioration from mold or disease. Right now, with the conditions we have been seeing, disease just isn’t a problem and we are free to let the fruit continue to develop sugar, burn up acid, and start tasting really good.

In one of the early Harvest Notes, I commented on the early onset in veraison in one of our grower’s Cabernet Franc vineyard. At that time, it was promising but too early to tell the ultimate effect this might have on final fruit quality and whether it would lead to accelerated development and an earlier harvest. Based on past experience I was betting “no” on early harvest. Most often when grapes are ahead of schedule coming into harvest, it always seems to even out by the end, and harvest ends up being at the normal time. So it was a bit of a surprise and a testament to this season’s great conditions when we tested the Cabernet Franc earlier this week and found that everything was indicating a fully mature crop. We harvested on October 2, and the grapes are now in the fermenter, on their way to becoming what looks to be a phenomenal example of this phenomenal variety.

Speaking of red wines, we pressed off the fermenting Chancellor, one of the earlier red varieties and the resulting young wine was deeply colored with nice berry-like aromas and full tannins. The Dornfelder has also completed fermentation and will soon be barreled for aging. Starting next week, we’ll be bringing in more of the late-season varieties, starting with Blaufränkisch and Carmine.

Another variety that is worth mentioning is Chardonnay. This year’s fruit was clean and ripe when delivered, with a nice balance in of sugar and acid. Last year’s Chardonnay was aged in 500L (132 gal) French oak puncheons, and this will be taken out of barrel in the coming week for bottling and to make room for the new vintage. These are special barrels—the size, just over twice the size of a normal barrel, changes the volume to surface area ratio and gives a more subtle and nuanced extraction of oak from the barrel. The result is a more elegant expression of fruit with a fine oak structure. Given the degree of perfection of the 2017 fruit, fermentation in these barrels should yield a truly spectacular wine.  Stay tuned for release in 2019!

Bob Green
PIWC Executive Winemaker

We’re in the middle of harvest now, and in a bit of a lull in the pressing schedule. It will be short-lived though —a day or two and we’ll be back working with the late season varieties in full force. But this gives us a moment to look at how the harvest has been to date, and what the outlook is for the remaining weeks.

The big news so far is the weather and how many consecutive times the good side of the coin has come up for the grapes. The last several weeks have been hot and dry, with a lot of sun. The temperatures have been in the 80’s for the most part, which is ideal for giving the vines a huge boost to ripen the fruit. Fall heat can also nudge molds and mildews into gear, though, if there is enough moisture to get them going. And that’s been the beauty of this weather pattern: ample dry air and sun has kept these undesirables at bay, allowing the grapes to reach nice maturity while avoiding rot.

One grower observed that despite the dry conditions with no rain for several weeks, he’s had to mow the grass every week, and the only brown spots were where the tractor has been driven on it. This is because of another aspect of the weather: cool clear nights that produce a heavy dew by morning. Not only has this kept the grass green, but it has also provided just enough moisture to the vines to allow them to continue the ripening process without stress. The dew dries up by mid-morning, keeping disease from taking serious hold. All of this has given us a stellar harvest period to date, for the most part offsetting the less than ideal conditions of the earlier part of summer. The pattern has now changed to one that is more typical for us this time of year: temperatures are in the 60’s, but we are still having a lot of sun in the forecast. Late-season varieties will continue to ripen, and molds and mildews will continue to be held in check. All puppies and rainbows for the grapes at the moment.

Ripeness can be assessed and measured in several ways. First is sugar content, measured in °Brix”. This is the most common metric in the American Industry (other countries use different scales, or scales that also relate to potential alcohol). Sugar accumulation in grapes is a function of photosynthesis, and ample sunlight, adequate moisture, and leaves that are not disease-damaged are needed for maximum sugar levels. These conditions are all in place so far this year and varieties harvested in the last week have shown nice increases in sugar content to normal and typically better than normal brix.

Acid content, measured as either total acid (in g/L or %) or pH, is another important way of assessing the ripeness of the grapes. There are two primary acids found in grapes: tartaric and malic. As berries mature, tartaric acid remains at a fairly constant level while malic acid is transpired by the vine, lowering the acid content. The degree of acid metabolization by the vine is dependent on heat, and in a cool year, we see less malic acid transpiration and thus higher acid levels. This is what we are seeing in some varieties this year, especially the earliest ones because of the cooler conditions seen earlier in the season. Later varieties with longer exposure to the sun and heat are finally getting down to normal acid levels.

The final measure of ripeness and by far the most important: flavor. As a winemaker, I can adjust both sugar and acid level with reasonable results. It is much more difficult to make flavor adjustments that are successful. Unripe fruit simply lacks flavor, and we can’t just add it from another source. We are kind stuck with what we get. One of the keys for our area in terms of developing flavor in berries is being able to let them hang on the vine long enough for the ripe flavors to develop. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this requires ample sunlight, adequate moisture and leaves that are not disease-damaged. And yes, this is what we are seeing in the varieties that have been on the vines through this period. Nice, ripe flavors are showing up with a vengeance.

The upcoming week will have us back in the vineyard taking samples, trying to determine when to harvest each variety and block. In the meantime, we’ll be monitoring wines fermenting in the winery, and keeping the caps on the fermenting reds punched down. Some of them will be pressed mid-week and will soon be ready for those of you looking to purchase them as Young Wines.

Bob Green
PIWC Executive Winemaker

The Lake Erie Region is well-known for its abundance of Concord and Niagara—the workhorse grapes of the juice and jelly industry epitomized by Welch Foods. Of course, those who are more familiar with the wines of the region also know that there are excellent local vineyards of standard wine varieties like Riesling, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Franc, to name but a few. Presque Isle also prides itself on making wines from European wine varieties that don’t have as much name recognition, but which can and do produce world-class wines – varieties like Dornfelder, Blaufrânkisch, Carmine, and Pinot Blanc.

Moorhead Farms Dornfelder

Of course, these grapes don’t plant and tend themselves, and for that we rely on our growers. And when it comes to growing the most interesting non-standard wine varieties, one grower family stands out: John and Cindy Moorhead, and their son, Mike. Since the 1960’s they have been growing premium wine grapes—native varieties, French-American and Cornell-developed hybrids, and European Vitis vinifera. They currently have 22 different wine varieties planted, some in large quantities and others as a one-row experiment. The farm is constantly evolving as John, Cindy and Mike strive to find the best varieties—many have been tried and rejected—for our local conditions and the best way to grow them.

In the coming week we’ll be harvesting Dornfelder and Pinot Blanc. They make reliably good wines in Germany and France (and other places), and have made some excellent wines here in our region. Our Dornfelder, for example, has won several gold medals and has been among Pennsylvania’s Top Ten Wines in recent years. Dornfelder is the result of a German grape breeding program that was striving for an early ripening, dark-skinned red wine grape. The cross, first made in 1955 and released as a named variety in 1979, is now mostly grown in Württemberg in southern Germany. Under the Moorheads’ care in the Lake Erie Region, it expresses with red wines that are deep in color, medium bodied, with a nice tannic balance. The last several weeks have been hot and sunny—more summerlike than the actual summer was—making up for the overall cool temperatures earlier in the summer and this is really helping the vines to produce fruit that has a nice sugar level, low acid and ripe tannins. As a result, we are looking for big things from this year’s Dornfelder – excellent ripeness along with deep and intense aromas that balance the soft tannins and full mouthfeel.

Pinot Blanc

Pinot Blanc is a mutation of Pinot Noir (as is Pinot Gris) that is grown in many parts of Europe, most notably Alsace and Northern Italy (as Pinot Bianco, of course). It is also grown in Austria and Germany where it goes by the name Weissburgunder. It may not have the reputation of other fine white Burgundys, but it produces a really nice everyday white wine, pleasant and easy to drink. Pinot Gris has also really benefited from the heat and sun of the past weeks in even more ways than just superior ripening. This varietal has thin skin that can be susceptible to damage and molds and mildews close to harvest but this will not be a concern this year with the little amount of rain that we have experienced lately.

There will be more about John, Cindy and Mike as we continue to bring grapes in from their farm. They are true pioneers in the region, and the quality and diversity of the varieties they grow is noteworthy.

Bob Green
PIWC Executive Winemaker

Lynn on the press

Our harvest officially began this past week. At our last report, we were watching the weather cautiously and hoping to avoid any negative effects from the hurricanes. No worries! It was a week of sun and fun for the grapes and continued positive crop development.

The press pad crew, Jim, Adam and Lynn, have been diligently going over each piece of equipment making sure they’re all clean and ready to go. This preparation paid off, and our first week of harvest week went smoothly. Well done, gentlemen. As usual, we started off with Niagara, Fredonia and Seyval, three varieties which are the backbone of several of our most popular blended wines.

We also brought in our first vintage of Grüner Veltliner. After considering grape chemistry (Brix, total acid and pH), fruit condition, and most importantly, flavor, the grapes were hand-harvested on Tuesday and brought to the winery for processing. Next step: fermentation!

Jim Bartlett and a young Vidal vine

It’s harvest, though, and we always keep looking forward to what is next. This means more vineyard visits and different varieties. Jim and Darlene Bartlett have been growing grapes for us for several decades, and primarily grow Fredonia, Chancellor, Chambourcin, Traminette, and the Vidal used in our famous Eskimo Kisses, as well as a few more varieties in smaller quantities. The vineyard is just down the road, behind the winery, a short tractor’s drive away.

Vineyard visits with Jim are always educational. Jim worked at Penn State’s Grape Research Lab in North East before he and Darlene purchased their own vineyard in the ‘70s. He is constantly making changes to the vineyard in an effort to improve quality of the grapes, to optimize quantity—not just total yield, but optimal yield given each season’s conditions, and to minimize disease pressure. For us, all this care and attention ensures that we get a consistent, high-quality crop year after year. Jim will be bringing Fredonia to us soon, followed by Chancellor.

Overall, fruit quality is looking very good. The cool temperatures of the season are manifesting as higher acid content in the grapes; sugar content is what we normally expect with a chance for even better than normal levels in later varieties . Most importantly, the fruit is free of disease, and varietal flavors are developing nicely as the fruit ripens. The sun and heat we’ve had the last few days have only enhanced this, and we so far have been spared any ill effects or unwanted rain from the hurricanes that have devastated parts of the Caribbean, Texas and Florida.

Bob Green
PIWC Executive Winemaker