Growing wine grapes, making wine workshops to be offered in April

The Purdue Wine Grape Team will host two Extension workshops in April for those interested in commercial winegrowing and winemaking. The first workshop, on April 15, will focus on vineyard establishment and will help farmers and entrepreneurs who are planning to expand their businesses. The workshop will be at Oliver Winery’s Creekbend Vineyard in Ellettsville, Ind., from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Topics include vineyard layout, vine planting, trellis establishment, weed management, sprayer calibration and use of Driftwatch, as well as vine training and canopy management through year three after planting. Private pesticide applicators will receive recertification credit for attending.

At the second workshop, on April 29, the team will discuss ways to advance high-quality grape growing, winemaking and wine marketing. The workshop will be from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Buck Creek Winery, located southwest of Indianapolis. “Our spring wine grape workshops are a perfect opportunity to improve upon your sustainable vineyard and winery practices,” said Christian Butzke, associate professor of enology.

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Assembly ships wine shipping toward governor

The Senate has joined the House of Delegates in passing a proposal that enables wineries to ship bottles directly to Maryland homes. All 45 senators who voted on the shipping bill gave it the green light.(Sen. J.B. Jennings is away at flight training and Sen. Ulysses Currie did not vote.)

Gov. Martin O'Malley has said he would sign the legislation. That's the only major step remaining, though procedural legislative votes remain. The legislation would take effect July 1, in time for late summer wine sipping.

After years of disputes about whether Maryland should join 37 other states and the District of Columbia in allowing wine shipping, the alcohol industry, consumers and lawmakers this year struck a compromise. The House passed the bill nearly unanimously on Saturday.

Wineries can pay a $200 annual fee to ship to Marylanders. Residents can receive up to 18 cases per year. Retailers, including those who feature "wine of the month" clubs, may not ship to Maryland homes. Only about a dozen states allow retailer shipping.

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Lake Country Wines offers in-store wine making

Lake Country Wines is now officially open for business. Located on the northeast corner of Bob’s Adium gas station in Brandon, Lake Country Wines offers an extensive selection of concentrated grape wine kits and related equipment for the home winemaker. The owner of Lake Country Wines, Mike Cleary, is also offering an area exclusive – in-store wine making.

Customers have the choice of purchasing kits and equipment to make their own wines at home or to use the store’s equipment and make their wine on location. Cleary said he’s excited about the opportunity to introduce others to the growing hobby of home winemaking and is offering free classes and one-to-one instruction.

Making your own wine is legal and is exempt from both federal and state regulations, Cleary noted. Customers may make up to 100 gallons per year free from tax and up to 200 gallons per household. Each gallon makes about five 750/ml bottles of wine.

The wines kits offered by Lake Country Wines are all made from wine grapes grown around the world. Choices include cabernet, merlot, chardonnay, pinot and creative combinations like peach chardonnay, blackberry merlot, blueberry shiraz and green apple Gewurztraminer.

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Why Blending in Winemaking Matters

“Blending is the winemakers’ equivalent to chefs cooking up a signature dish,” says Brian Bicknell, owner of the New Zealand winery Mahi. While some wines — such as Burgundies — are made from a single kind of grape grown in a single year, most wines are blends of grapes grown in various years. Blending together wines made from different grapes allows winemakers to combine less-stellar batches — too acidic or tannic, say — to create a wine that’s better balanced.

Every year, Mr. Bicknell sits down with four or five people from his vineyard — including his wife, who he says has a “fresher and more commercial palate” — to make the blending decisions. They spend two weeks tasting and rating 30 or so unbottled wines in stock at the winery, aiming to craft from them an ideal blend, which is then bottled and sold.

As an exercise, you can try blending at home. Start with a few bottles of different mid-to-low-end drinking wines, and keep three rules in mind: Taste your wines at room temperature, not chilled, so the flavors blossom fully; taste the dry wines before the sweet ones; younger before old and more-acidic wines first; and take breaks to prevent “palate fatigue.”

“At the end of the day, the best blend is in the eye of the beholder,” says Mr. Bicknell. “Everyone has a signature style.”

Winemakers usually consider the following before they blend:

Grape type. Different grapes have innate flavors: Sauvignon Blancs, for example, tend to be floral and fragrant, while Chardonnays have a fuller body. And thin-skinned Pinot Noirs grapes are much lighter in tannin than thick-skinned Cabernet Sauvignons grapes.

Vintage. Temperatures yield different flavors in grapes: Colder years tend to result in higher-acid grapes and warmer years in grapes with riper fruit flavors.

Vineyard. Besides temperature, certain vineyards also have specific soil characteristics that filter directly into the taste of the grapes. And certain wine-growing regions favor certain winemaking styles — California winemakers, for instance, prefer different tastes than French winemakers.

Machine or hand-picked. Grapes picked en masse by machines are usually harvested later in the year. Having spent more time on the vine, they produce wines that Mr. Bicknell calls “fruit bombs” because they’ve had more time to ripen and produce sugar. Hand-picked grapes, plucked at an earlier stage of ripening, tend to exhibit less in-your-face fruit flavors, and create wines that carry earthy expressions on the palate.

Pressed vs. free-run. When grapes are machine-pressed, much of the potassium from the skin also seeps into the liquid. This lowers the acidity of the grape juice and adds a “soapy” texture.

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Wine & Food Event at Olio

Most people don’t associate alcohol with education. This, Olio Restaurant hopes to change that by bringing in Bob Stashak, well-known winemaker, for its wine lecture and tasting event, Wednesday, March 16. Bob Stashak began his winemaking career at F. Korbel and Bros. after graduating from the University of California at Davis in 1973.

Twenty years later, he found Classic Wines of California, which had been looking to expand its sparkling wine production. There, Stashak implemented a traditional bottle-ferment sparkling wine program. Stashak, who’s been in the winemaking business for 38 years, now oversees all of Classic Wines of California’s sparkling wine programs, including bottle fermented and tank-fermented sparkling wines.

Stashak will bring his wine tasting expertise and wine knowledge to Olio Restaurant. Along with wine and wine education, there will be a specialized menu, including bruschetta, smoked trout fillet, white bean and tomato soup, medium-rare prime Angus cigarel, and a chocolate cupcake.

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California winemaking actually began in Mission Valley

Few San Diego wine aficionados know that the first vineyards planted for winemaking in the western United States were located in Mission Valley. In fact, those first vines were hand-carried into California by Franciscan Friar Junipero Serra in 1779, and were planted at the first San Diego Mission site along the river. The early pioneering Franciscans planted grapes to make wine for church services, and planted Mission olives and figs around the church properties as well. The Mission grapes were first brought into Mexico by the Spaniards in 1521, and from these early vineyards Jesuit missionaries spread those European vitis viniferra grape cuttings to South America and eventually into San Diego. The Mission Valley vineyards were the original source of grapes that sparked the beginning of the California wine industry as vineyards were planted at all the Mission sites from San Diego to Sonoma. Most likely, the friars had no idea that California would become one of the most famed wine regions in the world.

Although San Diego isn’t considered a premier wine region as yet, many grape growers and winemakers have met with great success here. The late Leon Santoro, winemaker for Orfila winery near the San Diego Wild Animal Park (and in Julian), proved to the wine world and critics that this region can produce “world class” wines by receiving over 100 gold awards for San Diego County wines.

Want to try making your own wine? Expert tools and advice are close at hand. Serous wine drinkers are trying their skills at making their own wine these days with the aid of winemaking kits, custom crushes, and home style operations. Mission Valley residents have the benefit of Home Brew, a wine and beer making supply center located at 5401 Linda Vista Road (619) 295-2337 near the south entrance to USD. Home Brew sells all necessary winemaking supplies, fermenters, bottles, corks, yeast, how-to-books, and many other essentials.

One book they sell, From Vines to Wines by Jeff Cox is an excellent guide for anyone considering making their own wines. Another nice publication, written by Alyson Crowe, called The Winemakers Answer Book is loaded with solutions to every possible problem associated with the winemaking process. And, Winemaker magazine is dedicated to hobbyists with many interesting articles, offering access to abundant winemaking supplies.

For those who prefer catalogs and/or want to investigate the process, Northern Brewer offers a home brew catalog featuring all the tools needed to make wine, and they sell a wide variety of wine kits that have all the essential ingredients for you to make your first wine. Making your own wine will deepen your knowledge of wine, and give you a perspective of looking from “inside the bottle outward, rather than from the outside looking in.” Winemaking can be a very rewarding experience with great benefits. In reality, all famous winemakers started wine-related careers with their first attempt in the winemaking process, so this is your opportunity.
Best advice: start with a simple wine kit.

The easiest way to get started is to buy a simple wine kit. Home Brew in Linda Vista and Northern Brewer offer many kits, with a large selection of grape varietals to choose from. Winexpert is a leading wine kit manufacturer of quality products. Their premium winemaking kits contain concentrated juice from many optional varietals and sources, containing 16 liters, yielding six gallons of wine that can be bottled in six weeks. Kit prices vary, but generally cost between $60 and $150 per kit.

Wine kits are a great way to begin the learning process. But once you’ve nailed down that simple process, you can move to the next level, by purchasing your own grapes locally. This will get you involved in the regional agricultural industry, and put you in touch with many interesting San Diego County grape growers.

Home Brew of Linda Vista has all the tools needed, as they sell starter kits with everything you need to get going, except the grapes. These kits cost about $120 for the basics, up to $200 for the deluxe set. Once you gather “the tools of the trade” you’ll learn basic chemistry, sanitation guidelines, precise measurements and weights, recipe reading, yeast types, aromatic and tasting techniques. In fact, you may discover a new passion in the art form of making wine.

Thanks to the late Bob and Lila Knapp of E.D.I.T.S Publishing in Ocean Beach, I learned about the wine culture in the 1980’s while working for them at Deer Park winery in Escondido and St. Helena. Today, I grow Nebbiolo grapes in the premier wine country of Baja California near Ensenada where I make my own wine. But, growing grapes for your own wine is a major step, taking much work and dedication, not to mention the economic factors and risks of farming. Thankfully, San Diego County has some excellent fruit available at local vineyards.

Visit this winery in Old Town and learn all about winemaking while sampling great wines. William Holzhauser of Hacienda de las Rosas Winery in Old Town State Park can guide you to some sources of local grapes. His winery is actually in Ramona, but this unique tasting room is located near at the Fiesta de Reyes (the old Bazaar del Mundo) at 2745 Calhoun Street, open daily from 11:30 to 8 p.m., 9 p.m on Fridays and Saturdays, (619) 840-579 or haciendawine@aol.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . If you’re thinking about making wine and purchasing local grapes, you should visit and talk with this dynamic character, and sample his wines while learning about Old Town history. In addition, William is a leading wine and vineyard consultant for San Diego County.

Today, San Diego has about twenty wineries spread out from Carlsbad to Escondido, Ramona to Julian. As far as I know there are no vineyards at this time in Mission Valley, so if you have a patio or deck in the valley, plant two vines and you’ll be a modem pioneer. Due to the blessings of the Internet, proximity to Home Brew in Linda Vista, simple winemaking kits, and living in California’s first wine region, now is the perfect time to attempt making your own wine…

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Dubbo wine grapes wiped out

The Chairman of Macquarie Valley Food and Wine, Ken Borchardt, says the entire grape harvest in Dubbo, worth around $3 million, has been wiped out by mildew and disease from the wet weather late last year.

The founder of the Red Earth Estate says some growers are pulling out vines and planning to grow cherries and other fruit crops instead of grapes. Mr Borchardt says the tighter competition could be a positive for wine makers.

"If the weekend warriors, or those that didn't take the industry serious were out, it would definitely open doors for us in reference to markets," he said. "Also if the amount of fruit or wine produced for Australia was decreased, we could actually start earning a little bit better dollars (per pallet).

"Then we could get into the marketplace and market what Australia's very good at, producing premium high quality wines."Mr Borchardt says despite this year's loss there will be wine as some cellars are releasing stock they have held since 2008. He says growers are now looking towards next year's harvest.

"The vines right now are not as stressed due to it having produced fruit. "They've had a very good growing period, our vines are mostly right now, they've never looked so healthy, so that's preparing the vines mostly for next year. "So 2012 could be a bumper harvest, subject to moisture and humidity of course," he said.

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Facing down hundreds of bottles of wine in a wine shop while attempting to pick just the right one can be a daunting task for even the most experienced wine aficionados.

At a recent wine tasting at Stew Leonard's Wines in Norwalk, Heather Munden, Artisan Winemaker for St. Francis Winery in Santa Rosa, Calif., not only treated customers to hand-crafted wines from the vineyard, but offered a tutorial in winemaking.

As customers sipped, she discussed the winemaking process and, in particular, the increasingly popular artisan wines and "old vine" wines.

The term "artisan wines" means different things to different people, but it typically refers to wines made in smaller vineyards.

Many new ones have sprung up in California's wine country in recent years, in what some have referred to as the Golden Age of Artisan Wines. The smaller vineyards usually use a hand-harvesting method for their grapes.

Mechanical harvesting versus hand harvesting the grapes has been open to debate, with strong advocates for hand-harvesting. Its proponents point to the ability to sort fruit by hand and eye, thereby excluding rotted fruit and leaves. Additionally, grapes, juice and wine are moved as gently and as little as possible.

Munden discussed the hand-harvesting of St. Fran-cis' wines. "Typically grapes are harvested during the day in temperatures of 75 degrees and up," she said. "Our grapes are harvested after midnight when the temperatures are about 45 degrees. With the grapes being cooler, the fruit flavor is preserved."

For more than 35 years, St. Francis Winery in Sonoma has hand-crafted fruit-forward wines from mountain and valley vineyards in Sonoma County. While most renowned for its red varietals, including its "Old Vines" Zinfandel (all old vines 60 to 110 years old), Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, St. Francis also produces a Chardonnay.

Of the Old Vine Zinfandel, Munden says, "This is a wine with a sense of history. Imagine that many of these vines have been around before Prohibition."

The older vines produce much less fruit than newer vines. The difference in production can be a half ton per acre for the old, compared to six tons per acre for the new.

"There is much more concentration of flavor in the older vine fruit," Munden said.

"The old vines have been lovingly tended to by three, four or five generations of winemaking families."

At the tasting, Munden sampled a selection of St. Francis wines and described the flavors and pairings of each one. The Chardonnay "has a citrus taste; you can taste the lemon peel and it can be paired with fish and pastas with a cream sauce," she said.

The Merlot, she said, "is 99.9 percent estate fruit; you can taste the smoothness of the fruit and it has a chocolate silky finish." She says, "It reminds one of women with pretty dresses and nice shoes. It's feminine and refined. This is a wonderful cocktail wine, but it can be paired with brick oven pizza or an elegant dinner."

Of the Cabernet, she said, "The Cabernet has a rich, chewy mixture of blackberry, black current, cedar, vanilla flavor with a supple round tannis at the finish. The Old Vine Zinfandel has deep aromas of ripe black cherry and licorice with toasty oak notes that carry it into a long luscious finish."

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A new zeal for winemaking

As land masses go, New Zealand is the youngest country on Earth, having been around for about three million years. Averaging around 120 kilometres from west to east coast, it's the only truly maritime wine-producing country -- ocean breezes cool vineyards off substantially in the evenings.

Marlborough is easily the New Zealand winemaking region pumping out the most wine. Located on the northeastern edge of the southern island, it's where most of New Zealand's renowned Sauvignon Blanc is produced. These days, there's more focus than ever on sub-regions -- valleys within Marlborough that each produce their own style based on climate and soil. Hawke's Bay, located on the eastern shores of the north island, is the second most popular region, with Central Otago and Martinborough bringing up the rear.

Last Wednesday, there was a trade tasting of New Zealand wines led by Robert Ketchin of New Zealand Winegrowers. Canada imports the equivalent of about 850,000 cases of New Zealand wine a year, 350,000 cases of which is shipped in bulk for blending into Cellared in Canada wines made by some of our larger producers. The other 500,000 cases hit the shelves, a big jump from the 30,000 cases we saw only 15 years ago.

Sauvignon Blanc is New Zealand's baby -- of the 850,000 cases shipped to Canada, around 64 per cent is Sauvignon Blanc. Forty-two per cent of all vines planted across the country produce Sauvignon Blanc, most made in a style that's often imitated but never duplicated by other countries. The wines are typically very crisp -- they're almost never aged in oak barrels, but rather kept in stainless steel tanks until bottling. Lemon, lime and grapefruit flavours typically dominate, with grassy/herbal and green pepper/jalapeño notes often present as well.

While Chardonnay is still produced in healthy numbers, Ketchin reported that as a category it's flat -- Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris are New Zealand's rising stars. The former grape (which makes up 18 per cent of Kiwi wines) results in light, fruit-forward reds with cherry and raspberry notes and modest, earthy complexity. They're not as funky as red Burgundy or as concentrated as those from Sonoma County, but still over-deliver for the price. Pinot Gris, a white grape, makes up around five per cent of production; it's typically made in a style that brings a great, viscous mouthfeel and ripe tropical fruit notes.

There are a couple of areas in which New Zealand wineries are both unified and progressive -- the closures on their bottles, for example. Around 95 per cent of Kiwi wines are sold in screwcap bottles; clearly the country's winemakers have faith in their ability to keep wines fresh and devoid of flaws.

New Zealand wineries are also making great strides in sustainable winemaking, with the goal being that all wineries will be sustainable by 2012. As it stands, around 80 per cent of wines are sustainable -- all materials, carbon outputs, etc. are monitored and documented -- with that number continuing to climb in light of the country's self-imposed deadline.

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Express yourself while winemaking in Loire

More than 600 Loire valley winemakers gathered in Angers in February for three days of tasting and touting their terroirs. But the vignerons, whose vineyards are spread along the banks of river's 630 miles, are as varied as the terroir or soils they till and the more than 740 million gallons (28 million hectoliters) of wines they produce each year.

Nearest the Atlantic coast are the Muscadet makers, who struggle to overcome a reputation for producing mediocre bulk wines from Melon de Bourgogne grapes planted in gravelly, sandy, soils that are rich in gneiss and granite. Some winemakers have even removed the word Muscadet from their labels.

Pierre Luneau-Papin's Marie Chartier explained as she poured several white wines that were crisp, fresh, and filled with peach and citrus flavors.

"If you go to a wine shop." she said, "and tell the man you want a good wine, but you do not want Muscadet and he says 'No problem Madame and hands you this bottle,' (which reads 'EXCELSIOR'). You take it. You taste it and you come back the next day and say 'Oh, it was very good. Muscadets are not as good as this wine.'

"But, in fact, it is a Muscadet," she laughed. "It is Melon de Bourgogne. It is just more easy for us to sell it this way."

East of Nantes and Anger is the hamlet of Savennieres where Evelyn de Pontbriand, owner and vigneronne of Domaine du Closel-Chateau des Vaults, practices organic methods to make still whites and reds and sparkling wines from different plots on her 15-hectare estate.

"My objective is to express this magnificent terroir. The soil is schist. The grape is Chenin Blanc (a white wine varietal without a distinct aroma profile, but is) a blank canvas on which the design of the terroir shines through," said de Pontbriand.

"Making white wine isn't difficult," she insisted. "We don't do anything. We press it. We put it in barrels or tanks. We just taste. It practically makes itself.

"What is difficult is to farm properly. That's extremely subtle. You really have to walk every day through vineyards and look everywhere and see how it's going," she said.

Her Clos du Papillon, which comes from a butterfly-shaped, four-hectare plot, "is special because the spot is special. It's a geological spot...There is an area, which must have had little volcanic eruptions when it was below the sea. The soil is much darker, very complex...When you walk, it is warmer there and the vines are (35-to-70 years) old. The spot yields a bone-dry wine that offers a mix of roasted nuts, apricot and a long finish filled with minerals.

Near the eastern end of the Valley, not far from Sancerre and Pouilly Fume, lies the village of Menetou-Salon, where vineyards have existed since at least the 11th century. It is here that Philippe Gilbert and his winemaker Jean-Philippe Louis take the same varietal used in Burgundy, Pinot Noir, and "try to stay out of the way and work with Mother Nature," said Gilbert

The pair have embraced biodynamic methods for their 67 acres of vineyards that lay above Kimmeridgian limestone alternating with softer marl. The method of organic farming emphasizes the use of manure and composting while excluding artificial chemicals and pesticides.

"When you use chemicals say against mildew, you know how it works. It says 'Put it on' and it's good for 10 days and you're covered. You can stay home for 10 days and not think," Gilbert said.

"When you're in biodynamics, It doesn't work like this anymore. If you don't like to go into the vineyard, then don't do biodynamics. Because you have to go, you have to think, you have to study, you have to share. It is more work, but it is also more peaceful and better for the earth."

Unlike most other Loire winemakers, Domaine Philippe Gilbert makes just four wines - two whites, a rose and a red. The red Les Renardieres 2007 made from 25-year-old vines shows plenty of dark berries, a bit of spice and smoke with soft tannins.

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The Parker era in wine, and beyond

California felt an earthquake last month, and its epicenter was in Maryland. Buildings didn't sway in San Francisco, and the U.S. Geological Survey issued no reports. Winemakers, however, may be excused for thinking the earth moved underfoot when Robert M. Parker Jr., once described as the world's most powerful critic in any medium, announced he would no longer review current releases of California wines. Like real California temblors, Parker's shift was considered inevitable but still was a surprise when it happened.

Parker founded his Wine Advocate magazine in 1978 and has published it every two months since from his home in Monkton, Md., north of Baltimore. Through his use of the easily understood 100-point scoring system, his consistent palate and the unwavering perspective of a consumer advocate, he built a modest newsletter into the world's most influential wine magazine. Retailers use Parker's ratings to sell wine; collectors rely on Parker to tell them which rare wines to invest in; and his annual spring ratings of the most recent Bordeaux vintage send that revered region into a price-fixing frenzy.

For 20 years Parker wrote it all himself. He hired an associate in 1997 to cover a few regions, and in 2006 he hired a team of reviewers and divvied up the world like an emperor assigning territories to governors. But Parker kept California, Bordeaux and the Rhone Valley as his own beat - until last month, when he sent an e-mail to subscribers of his online bulletin board, Erobertparker.com, outlining some changes. The main news was that Antonio Galloni, who had covered Italy and Champagne for the Advocate since 2006, will take over Burgundy and California. Parker will continue to review wines from Bordeaux and the Rhone and will do vertical tastings of older wines to see how they have aged.

"I'm 63 years old and have been putting in 60- to 80-hour weeks for over 32 years in this profession," Parker said in an e-mail interview. "I'm looking forward to having more time in Bordeaux and the Rhone Valley. Although I will certainly miss tasting many of the current releases of California, I think it's time for a younger person (Antonio just turned 40) to be given the spotlight for both California and Burgundy, and he's more than up to the task, I'm certain of that."

Although Galloni has been writing for the Wine Advocate for the past five years, wine chat boards and blogs lit up with speculation on how his ratings might differ from his boss's. Parker, for example, champions the ultra-rich, highly extracted style that has fostered the growth of California's hard-to-get and extremely expensive cult wines. Will Galloni's ratings sell those wines as well as Parker's have, especially if they are a few points lower? What if he has a "European palate"? A drop of a few points could have a significant effect on sales of wines in the triple digits.

"We don't even know if this new guy likes California wines," said one winemaker, who asked not to be identified.

The inclusion of most of Burgundy in Galloni's portfolio marks the first time since 1997 that chardonnay and pinot noir from the Cote d'Or and California will be rated by the same Wine Advocate reviewer.

"I don't think that presents any unusual challenges at all," Parker wrote in his e-mail. Maybe not a challenge to Galloni himself, but California pinot noir has evolved into a bigger, riper, sweeter style over the past several years. That style is a decided rarity in Burgundy, where pinot noir typically has a more austere, mineral voice. A skilled reviewer should be able to appreciate both styles, but it will be interesting to see what effect Galloni's preferences might have on winemakers.

As Parker's handpicked successor, Galloni cannot be expected to diverge dramatically from his boss's style. Retailers still will promote wines with "Parker scores" or, more accurately, ratings from "Robert M. Parker Jr.'s Wine Advocate." As with a fine wine maturing, it will take time to discern the effects of a change in byline at the Advocate.

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