The Viti+Culture Podcast (Chris Missick)

Coming Spring 2021, subscribe today.

At Viti+Culture, we talk about wine, but we also talk about a lot more than wine. We bring you leaders in the wine industry as well as thought leaders that love wine, in order to tease out the details that made them successful, pursue their dreams, and have helped them cultivate a good life. My name is Chris Missick, and I’m a veteran that left my career as a lawyer in Southern California, to make cool climate wine in the Finger Lakes region of New York. If you love wine, seek motivation, are thirsty for information, and enjoy storytelling, this is the podcast for you.

In this episode, Chris Missick sits down with a man who has been called the Robert Mondavi of the Finger Lakes, a pioneer that has taken his winery, Fox Run Vineyards to great heights and in the process has helped build the Finger Lakes wine region as well. We're sitting down with Scott Osborn to discuss his early days in the wine industry in California, the explosive growth of the New York wine and Finger Lakes wine industry, his exploration of geology and the legacy he hopes to leave behind.

Full transcripts available on our Substack at www.viticulturepodcast.substack.com, and full video interview available on our YouTube Channel.

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Fox Run Vineyards at https://foxrunvineyards.com/ and Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

The first in our bi-weekly look at what is happening throughout Finger Lakes vineyards. As we wait for budbreak, Chris explores the various things people are focused on in the vineyard right now. Season 1 will run between April and August, and will alternate between interview shows and vineyard status updates. In Season 2, airing November through March, we will take a closer look at what happens after harvest, in the cellar.

Full transcripts available on our Substack at www.viticulturepodcast.substack.com, and full video interview available on our YouTube Channel.

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Fox Run Vineyards at https://foxrunvineyards.com/ and Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

Laura Winter Falk holds a Ph.D. in nutrition, is the author of the book Culinary History of the Finger Lakes, is a certified sommelier by the Court of Master Sommeliers and owns and operates a tour company that TripAdvisor has named one of the top 10 wine tours in the United States and number one and the Finger Lakes region. Her tours under the name Experience the Finger Lakes! take consumers on a deep dive of the region with curated visits and experiences at select wineries. We explore what prompted her to leave her successful career, and become an entrepreneur in the wine industry.

Full transcripts available on our Substack at www.viticulturepodcast.substack.com, and full video interview available on our YouTube Channel.

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Experience the Finger Lakes! at https://experiencefingerlakes.com/, and Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

Episode 0004:

Finger Lakes Viticulture – April 29, 2021

The growing season is barely underway, and the white knuckles and sleepless nights have already begun, particularly in light of our cold event and snow last week.  I promised you that in our “In the Vineyard” series, which airs biweekly between our long form interviews, you would have the chance to peer into the thoughts and experiences of Finger Lakes wine growers, as we experience 2021.  

April began with daily temperatures in the forties and fifties, and nightly temperatures ranging from the twenties to the thirties.  After the first week of April was behind us, temperatures grew unseasonably warm as we experienced our first days in the 60’s and 70’s in many, many months.  I think it was probably October or early November, since we had temperatures this warm.  For nearly a solid week, daily temperature highs were in the sixties or above, which is important for a concept called growing degree days.

In the Finger Lakes, we generally consider April 1st through October 31st to be the growing season.  That growing season is dependent on temperature, specifically air and soil temperatures.  Grapevines will begin to signal that dormancy should end and the growing season should begin when soil temperatures remain around 50 degrees.  For soil temperature to be at that point, the ambient temperature must be greater than that, or at least above fifty for an extended period of time.   

As part of monitoring temperatures, we use a calculation and temperature tracking system we called Growing Degree Days or “GDD.”  Essentially, to calculate GDD you take the maximum temperature and the minimum temperature in a day, and calculate the average.  You then subtract  50 from that number,  which is our baseline temperature for grapevine development.  The difference will give you the GDD number for that day.  If the result is a negative number, you simply calculate that day as 0.  For example, if the high on a given day is 70, and the low is 50, you add them together and divide by 2 to find your average temperature, which would be 60.  By subtracting 50 from 60,  you end up with a measure of 10 GDD for that given day.  By conducting this exercise daily, and keeping track, you can compare it to previous vintages to see how far ahead, or behind, you are in a given season.  Although you can calculate GDD with the start of the year, the numbers actually start to matter around April first, since that is generally, the period when we start to accumulate growing degree days.

Generally, they don’t accumulate so quickly.  As you can see in this chart, the number of growing degree days we began accumulating in April was pretty high.  And then, we fell off a cliff.

We experienced an event last week that every wine grower fears, and that many in France endured this year as well - the late frost.  We didn’t just have a frost though, we had cold temperatures and snow.  

The unique thing about the Finger Lakes, is just how much the lakes regulate the mesoclimate, or the weather and temperatures, in any given location.  Proximity to the lake, aspect, and a number of other factors determine what the impact is.  As a general rule, there are vineyards in the Finger Lakes that are warmer.  During the growing season, this means you can accumulate more ripeness.  On the outer bands of the growing season, that is budbreak and harvest, frost can cause damage to the vine.  In particular, low temperatures this time of year can damage buds that are starting to grow this year’s fruit.  If you’ve experienced bud break, in other words, the bud has begun opening and the vigor of the vine has begun to push its first vegetation, the cold temperature can freeze the tissue and even young grape clusters, and severely impact fruit production.  The key temperature we look for that will cause damage to grape bud or vegetative tissue, is 28 degrees.

That kind of event occurred this week, with temperatures dipping, snow falling, and chilly winds blowing.  Ironically, the snow and wind were welcome.  Snow, and even ice, can buffer a grape bud and regulate the temperature, keeping it very cold, but at the freezing temperature of water, 32 degrees.  Likewise, air flow can help keep the temperature slightly higher as grapevines don’t generally feel wind chill the way we do.  Cold, still air, is the most dangerous situation.

Quite frankly, we don’t know what the impact will be quite yet.  In our vineyard we were witnessing some of the buds starting to swell.  For vinifera grape vines, we are still a few days and weeks away from budbreak.  In speaking with other growers, everyone is in a “wait and see” mode, with most holding out hope that we grazed a bullet.  We will certainly keep you updated on how this event impacted the region.  

Say your prayers, and send good thoughts.  This was a very difficult start to the growing season.  I’ve been through enough of these cycles in the Finger Lakes to still remain extremely optimistic for 2021.  

I remember a conversation I had with one of our growers, Jeff Morris, back in 2012.  It was a warm, dry year, and I remember asking him how much we were ahead of quote “normal” in vine development.  His response was, there is an average in the Finger Lakes, but there is no normal.  No year is normal.

2021 is out to prove this statement right.  So far, there are challenges, and still a lot to find out.  Was it normal to get this cold and this much snow in late April?  Well, it certainly wasn’t the average.  

As dandelions are beginning to sprinkle the grass with dots of yellow, and trees begin to don their fist brushes of green, spring is arriving in the Finger Lakes.  There is an inevitability to it in the air, and despite a few days on the horizon that may be some cause for concern, the race to harvest is nearly underway.  

If you have any questions about growing grapes in the Finger Lakes, or those things that we are wrestling with this time of year, be sure to drop a question in the comment sections of YouTube of Apple Podcasts.  We’ll answer your show on the air, and share any insight we can.  

Paul Brock was trained as a chemical engineer, but found his way into farming and winemaking in the Finger Lakes. Together with his wife Shannon, they own Silver Thread Vineyard on Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes. He practices bio-intensive farming practices, emphasizes building soil health, and produces beautiful wines in a serene setting. He has spent the last decade building the viticulture and enology program at Finger Lakes Community College.

If you enjoy the content, please rate us 5 stars!

Full transcripts available on our Substack at www.viticulturepodcast.substack.com, and full video interview available on our YouTube Channel.

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Silver Thread Vineyard at https://silverthreadwine.com/, and Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

We are in bud break!

After the cold and snow and quite frankly the big scare of April 21, we spent some time assessing the impact to the vines after that real cold episode. Remember we were off to a very strong start of this growing season, with higher than average temperatures, and lots of sun. In the wake of the cold of late April, temperatures have slowly begun to increase, and it doesn’t look like there are any deep freezes currently on the horizon. Overnight lows are still in the 30s, but our daytime temperatures are beginning to reach between 50 and 60, with some 70 degree days on the horizon.  May 4th was a beautiful warm day with a high in the mid 70’s, but between May 5 and May 10, we have barely accumulated any growing degree days.  Down at the winery, we have stood steady for the last week or so with a growing degree day accumulation of 121.6 since April first.  To put that in perspective, in a near perfect growing year like 2020, we had only accumulated 36.1 on the same date, which was actually pretty low on average.   Essentially, despite a roller coaster spring, we remain on track.  Truthfully, growing degree days are interesting to examine this time of year, but with so much of the growing season before us, they don’t mean very much to us quite yet.  If you’re confused about all this talk of growing degree days, check out episode 4 where I break down what these numbers mean, and how to calculate them.  

I often record these vineyard updates a few days in advance of the release of the podcast. As a result, our timeframe for these biweekly updates is pretty close to what is going on in the vineyards, but it’s not always exact as to the day of the podcast release. Since we last shared where we were in the 2021 growing season two weeks ago, budbreak has begun all across the region. When bud break occurs, the rate of development is not necessarily uniform on every vine, and different varietals have different rates of their early development. Furthermore the location and a variety of other factors will contribute to exactly when budbreak in a vineyard will occur. In our vineyard I have noticed that the Chenin Blanc is much more advanced than our Cabernet Franc. These two varietals are located on opposite ends of our vineyard. The Cabernet Franc sits towards the top of the slope, and the Chenin Blanc sits towards the bottom of the slope closest to the lake. Our decision to plant Chenin Blanc closest to the lake was really one of small variations in temperature. There has been concern in the Finger Lakes that Chenin Blanc it’s not as cold hardy as Cabernet Franc, and we wanted to get it as close to that large body of water as possible, to ensure that it would receive as much protection from Seneca lake as we could provide on the coldest of the cold days. So now, let’s take a look at exactly what is happening physiologically with the vine during bud break.

Bud break isn’t necessarily a single event, it’s a continuation of events in the lifecycle of a vine.  In fact, it’s the culmination of energy from the previous growing season, that has been preserved in the vine, and is unleashed as temperatures warm and sunlight increases throughout the day.  Due to temperatures and the long dark days we experience in the winter, the verdant growth of a vine would be impossible.  Amazingly, the vine is prepared for that.  Buds, which will emerge in the following year after dormancy, are developed in the previous growing season.  Throughout the winter months, carbohydrates are stored in the roots and the trunk of the vine, and a hard scale is in place over the bud to protect it.  The energy highway system within the vine, the xylem and the phloem, cease activity.  When the temperatures rise, growing degree days accumulate, and the  sun shines for longer periods of time, the vine is triggered to unleash the reserves of energy remaining from  the previous season, and to begin prompting the bud to begin the growing process.  The bud will swell and develop a fuzzy appearance, and the leaf primordia will  begin to push through the scale.  The growth is remarkable and rapid. 

The entire purpose of bud break is to begin the vine’s growth of leaves, in order to ensure photosynthesis can begin to feed the plant with a new reservoir of energy.  The leaves emerging  from the bud are the catalyst for this, and the growth is rapid to ensure that the vine can take advantage of achieving as much surface area as possible in order to maximize the amount of sunlight it can take in.  Bud break sets the stage for rapid shoot development, where the vine builds its ability to uptake as much energy as possible through photosynthesis, and ultimately, use that energy to ripen fruit.  

Amazingly, the flower cluster formation has already begun, though we can not quite see it yet. Within one to three weeks, we will be able to make out the very beginnings of what will become clusters, and ultimately the fruit we will guide into becoming wine. 

The lessons of life in the vineyard extend far beyond growing fruit.  Viticulture reminds us of the cyclical nature of life, the fact that to everything there is indeed a season.  A season for growth and a season for rest.  It reminds us that bounty can be followed by dormancy.  It sets a rhythm and forms a link between the events that happen in our lives, and the majesty that is nature.  Budbreak, or budburst, is the perfect example of that.  It carries the excitement of birth, of new life, of the promise that awaits us.  New life is springing up all around us, flowers are starting to blossom, the birds are laying eggs, the energy is palpable.  

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube.  It really helps with the ratings and in introducing new folks to the show.  Be sure to tune in next week, where I speak with the incredibly amiable Paul Guglielmo.  Paul had a great career in radio, but left it behind to put all of his energy into growing his brand of pasta sauces based on his Italian grandfather’s recipes.  Our interview may not be about wine, per se, but his business insights, emphasis on family, and the passion to build something that will be a legacy certainly fit with our goal of defining and pursuing a good life.  

In this episode, we go beyond wine and vineyards to explore food and culture and family. Today, we're speaking with Paul Guglielmo, a staple of the radio industry in Rochester, New York, and an entrepreneur that relied on his Italian grandfather's recipes to craft World-Class pasta sauces. He's well on his way to carrying a closely guarded family recipe to great heights and in the process, honoring his family heritage and recognizing the importance of community.

If you enjoy the content, please rate us 5 stars!

Full transcripts available on our Substack at www.viticulturepodcast.substack.com, and full video interview available on our YouTube Channel.

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Guglielmo Sauce at http://www.guglielmosauce.com/, and Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

Season 1, Episode 0008

Finger Lakes Viticulture – May 26, 2021

It has been an incredible stretch of warm, and even hot sunny weather in the Finger Lakes since our last update two weeks  ago.  As of today, we stand at 300.3 accumulated growing degree days.  Nine of the last thirteen days have seen highs above 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and five of those nine above 80.  It’s been sunny and hot beautiful weather, but it is the Finger Lakes, and we are already looking at a weather change, with the high this upcoming Friday pegged at  around 48 degrees, warming to a more moderate trend of high 60’s and 70’s.   Let’s take a look  and compare our current growing degree days to previous years.  In 2020, at this same date, we stood at 212.8, in 2018, we stood at 347, in 2014, we were at 309, and in 2016, we were at 190.  These years experienced some significant variation, and a lot of those vintages were dependent upon the amount of water and sun the vineyards received. 2018 was terribly difficult with warm weather and  a lot of moisture, whereas 2016 stood in stark contrast as a severe drought year with warm temperatures.   Nonetheless, it’s great to see our  growing season on track.

In the vineyard, we are in the midst of the vegetative growth cycle.  The buds have fully burst, shoot development has taken place, we have witnessed flat leaf stage, and the flower clusters have fully initiated.  As you can see from the footage, beautiful flower clusters are branching our from the young tender canes, and the 2021 vintage fruit is about to start its formation.  The clusters represent many small flowers.  Grapes, like all fruit, go through a flowering stage prior to fruit formation.  Each flower on each cluster has what we call a cap, and so our next benchmark will be to look for cap fall, and the start of bloom.  

This chart  from Michigan State University, nicely depicts the stages of the vegetative cycle of grape  vine growth.  As shoots climb ten to sixteen inches, the flower clusters are clearly visible, and the stage is set for the vegetative cycle to end, and the reproductive cycle to begin.  

By the time of our next update, we will likely have seen cap fall and  maybe even bloom.  We’ll be sure to document it along the way, and show you exactly what it looks like.

This time of year,  the vineyard growth moves quickly.  From bare canes to an emerging lush canopy,  it’s amazing how  quickly the  days  go by and the vineyard bursts forth.  It reminds me of how quickly we let our  lives pass, and how important it is, despite the pace of growth and change, to take time and reflect on the wonder of it all.  Ironically, the speed of the growth in the vineyard, forces me to pause and slow down.  The lessons of the vineyard never cease, and viticulture has so many subtle ways to teach us how to live a good life.  

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube.  It really helps with the ratings and in introducing new folks to the show.  Be sure to tune in next week, where I speak with Liz Stamp, a partner  with Lakewood Vineyards.  With the third generation now deeply involved on this fourth generation farm, Liz’ perspective on this incredible family brand and business takes us through the early days of Finger Lakes grape growing, and launching a wine business on Seneca Lake in the 1980’s.  A story of family, determination, and working  towards a sustainable future, Lakewood Vineyards is a must visit for your Finger Lakes wine expedition.

If you enjoy the content, please rate us 5 stars!

We talk with Liz Stamp, a decades long leader of the Finger Lakes wine industry, and partner at Lakewood Vineyards, located just north of Watkins Glen on the West side of Seneca Lake. We discuss her multi-generational farm winery, the nature of family business, overcoming the challenges of Covid-19, and her involvement with the many trade and industry organizations that seek to promote Finger Lakes wine.

Full transcripts available on our Substack at www.viticulturepodcast.substack.com, and full video interview available on our YouTube Channel.

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Lakewood Vineyards at https://lakewoodvineyards.com/, and Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

Season 1, Episode 0010

Finger Lakes Viticulture – June 10, 2021

There is no denying it, the growing season is going strong so far.  With warm temperatures, and adequate, but not excessive precipitation, I’m feeling good about 2021.

I’m also feeling great about this podcast, and the many projects going on at our winery.  We are gaining hundreds of new listeners, without any real advertisement so far.  Word of mouth seems to be spreading, and I am receiving some great feedback.  As a reminder, the best way to help the show grow is to rate the show with 5 stars in Apple podcasts, and like our YouTube broadcast videos - and tell a friend.  At Missick Cellars (www.MissickCellars.com), I’m proud to announce that we have now opened the Art Gallery at our Dundee location.  The ethos of this show, of sharing stories from others, of expanding our world view in terms of art, philosophy, entrepreneurship, and music, and of working diligently so that we can live our best life, have come into fruition in my own business.  In pairing up with Pittsford Fine Art (https://www.pittsfordfineart.com/) in Pittsford, New York, we have been able to work with an artist owned co-op art gallery, of regionally and nationally recognized fine art artists, to elevate the experience we offer at the winery, and promote the idea of cultivating our own lives around the beauty that we get to experience in this world every day.  I’m grateful to Pittsford Fina Arts, and incredibly proud to share the artwork of these really talented individuals.  If you are interested, you can take a look at a video we released taking you through the new gallery, that link can be found right here, and is on the YouTube channel for the winery.

As far as vineyard development, as of June 8, we currently stand at 507.6 growing degree days.  As of June 8, in 2020 were at 429.4, in 2019 we were at 404.6, and in a warm vintage like 2016, we were at 438.  We are lagging behind 2018, which had seen a growing degree day accumulation of 568, but we have not seen the level of precipitation that we saw in 2018 - at least not yet, fingers crossed.

Many of the native grapes, grape like Concord which we don’t make wine from but grow for jelly and eating, have  gone or are going through bloom. Our vinifera blocks of Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Franc and Riesling, are poised for bloom, with cane and canopy growth going strong.  It is at this point most growers will apply a pre-bloom spray regimen in their vineyards.  This is an important time to spray for some common vineyard problems, such as powdery mildew, downy mildew, and black rot.  The sprays made immediately pre-bloom, and until about a month after bloom, are crucial in our efforts to ensure sound and strong fruit, and  a quality crop for the year.  Fungicides are crucial in this period, making the next month one of the key “make it or break it” periods of the growing season.  

Pre-bloom nutrient sprays may be important as well.  Although the physiology between grapes and tomatoes may seem quite different, this is a common time of year to make sure all of our tomatoes have an adequate supply of calcium to ensure problems like blossom end rot do not plague us in the next few months.  Grapes and grape vines also need adequate nutrition, and so depending on where you are located, and the specifics of your site, this may be a consideration for your vineyard as well.

I do love this time of year.  Daisy’s fill the middle rows with large bouquets of white and yellow.  The birds chorus and the rustling of the leaves provide nature’s symphony in the vineyard.  The time for rest has clearly past, the time for diligence and hard work is here and urgent.

In the coming week, we are anticipating slightly cooler temperatures, with highs in the 70’s.  So far though, this has been a great spring.  The precipitation of May and June so far has been scattered.  Only a few thunderstorms have dropped significant rains, most of the time it has been short and gentle showers.  I did have some concern over the high temperatures and amount of rain the last few days.  With that, came higher dewpoints and humidity, which can promote the spread of disease.  With the moderating temperatures, and moderate rains in the forecast however, the year is starting to show promise.  

Be sure to tune in next week, where I speak with Auyon Mukharji, one of the talented signers and violinist in the outstanding indie music outfit, Darlingside.  Darlingside, with its amazing vocal harmonies, literary lyrics, and sweeping instrumentation, capture the modern sound of philosophy embodied in music.  Their sound is often the soundtrack to my cellar work, and their music my accompaniment to winemaking.  Their music offers me a sense of the elevated, the inspirational, and it inspires my work in many ways.

If you enjoy the content, please rate us 5 stars!

We talk with Auyon Mukharji, an incredible musical talent with an ear and voice for harmonies, and a virtuoso with violin and other string instruments.  He’s a member of the band Darlingside, an indie quartet out of Boston, that captivated me and the rest of my cellar crew with their album Extra Life, Fish Pond Fish, and their joint recordings with Irish singer songwriter, Henry Jamison.

Full transcripts available on our Substack at www.viticulturepodcast.substack.com, and full video interview available on our YouTube Channel.

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Darlingside at http://www.darlingside.com/, and Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

Be sure to check out the band’s NPR Tine Desk Concert appearance for a great 15 minute intro to them and their music at:

Well, 2021 continues to provide us with warm weather, adequate rainfall, and beautiful days.  After a severe thunderstorm that moved through the region on Monday, June 21, bringing with it heavy winds and pouring rain, we experienced a burst of cool temperatures.  With a high of only 66 degrees yesterday, our warming pattern returns, with highs in the 80’s today, and an expectation of 90 by Friday.  Our growing degree days are moving ahead as well, with a total of 756 as of June 22.  To put that in context, for the same date in 2020, we were at 722.  In 2019, we had only clocked 619, and in the warm dry vintage of 2016, we were also at 722.  We are skewing slightly warmer than usual, and so far, the vineyards are looking great.

Since our last vineyard update two weeks ago, everything in our vineyard and in all the vineyards I’ve seen, has moved quickly through bloom, and fruit is beginning to set.  Bloom is a precarious time.  Grape flowers do not need to be pollinated to produce fruit, and so we aren’t worried specifically about pollination, but we do hold our breath a little bit during that period because any extreme weather events can create a situation that damages the tender flowers, and may potentially impact fruit set.  Things like hail, extreme downpours and heavy winds didn’t cause us any problems this year. 

We are now in the first stage of berry development.  This is the period we refer to as fruit set, and is a period of about two months, where cell division is extremely active as the berry grows in size.  It is during this period that the berries are accumulating their crucial acids such as tartaric and malic acid, and other important physiological components such as tannins.  Over the next several months, we’ll monitor the berry size development through fruit set, lag phase, and veraison.  

Everything in our vineyard is moving along wonderfully.  The Chenin Blanc in particular look exceptionally strong this year.  As far as pests and diseases, powdery mildew is rearing its head in the region, but that has been tamped down with the appropriate sprays.  Leaf hoppers are also looking to make their presence known, and so we will be keeping an eye on that.  Although it’s not grape related, the region is suffering through one of the worst infestations of gypsy moth caterpillars this year.  The destruction in some locations around the Finger Lakes is awful.  They prefer to feed on oak leaves, and in far too many instances, have left many oak trees nearly bare.  I keep a small home orchard at my house, and it has taken alot of effort to keep my apple, pear and peach trees free of these terrible critters.  

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube.  It really helps with the ratings and in introducing new folks to the show.  Be sure to tune in next week, where I speak with Bob Madill, a longtime leader in the Finger Lakes Wine industry, and a friend of mine.  Bob cut his teeth in the wine industry in Ontario Canada, and was a founding member of Sheldrake Point Winery in the late 1990’s.  His perspective on the world of wine is global in scope, and his contributions to increasing the professionalism and quality of Finger Lakes wines and wineries, is a fine legacy. 

If you enjoy the content, please rate us 5 stars!

We talk with Bob Madill, one of the founders of Sheldrake Point Winery on Cayuga Lake. Born and raised in Canada, and with more than 25 years in the wine industry and a previous career in tech, he brings a unique, global perspective to Finger Lakes wine. He isn't afraid to address the difficult issues, whether they be personal, business related, or cultural.

Full transcripts available on our Substack at www.viticulturepodcast.substack.com, and full video interview available on our YouTube Channel.

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

We celebrate the 4th of July with this special release of the Viti+Culture podcast. Today, it’s all about apples, cider, and America’s original beverage.

I’ve chosen today to release this excerpt of an interview I did with Alex Robb, cidermaker at the increasingly renown Rootstock Cider in Williamson, New York, because cider apples played such an integral role as an agricultural product, as well as a beverage for social cohesion and nourishment, during the American Revolution.  

In the US, we use the term cider broadly.  Some of my earliest memories were of heading over to Kelly’s Apple Farm in Hilton, NY to enjoy a glass of fresh pressed apple juice.  But, cider for the colonists, was indeed more of the British and European consensus a fermented version of the apple crops we so closely identify with the Northeast, the Northwest, and other cool regions around the US.  

Indeed, as American mythology would have it, but for the iron screw from an apple press, used for making cider, one of the beams of the Mayflower, which had broken in a storm, would have been forced to turn back to England.  That screw helped save that beam, and cemented the history of Plymouth Plantation, the role of the colonialists in New England, and indeed, the role of apples in North America.  It has been speculated that saplings planted in barrels and seeds of apples and pears were even transported to the New World in the early days of European colonists.  

Further, we have legends like Johnny Appleseed, or John Chapman, who spread the seeds of apples throughout the Northeastern corridor as settlers headed west, providing nutrition, cider, and apple stock for further plantings.

As far as the framers of our republic goes, cider was a choice beverage of everyone from John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Ben Franklin.  In fact,  among the many amazing quotes by our own revolutionary gourmande, Ben Franklin, is this gem, “Give me yesterday’s bread, this day’s flesh, and last year’s cider.”  He was clearly a man who knew good food, and good drink.

Alex Robb has a wealth of experience in both winemaking and cider making, and I would argue, his ciders are even better because of his knowledge of viticulture and winemaking.  We enjoyed a wonderful long conversation, and I’m looking forward to sharing more of Alex’s great mind with you.  Today, however, we are focused on part of our conversation regarding America’s original beverage: cider.  Alex crafts many different styles of apple and pear ciders at Rootstock Cider, in beautiful Williamson New York, just outside of Rochester.  It’s a world of its own, populated less by people and grapevines, and more by expansive family owned orchards.  His insight into cider, and indeed the world, are a valuable contribution to the agriculture and craft beverage industry in New York.  

On this fourth of July and other great American holidays, grab a glass of Rootstock cider, have a listen, and let’s celebrate our great country.  In the midst of so many challenges, we are blessed to call the USA ours, and this country works because we believe in it.  And look for more of Alex in season 2, as we go deep into his background and his own personal philosophy.

We often say, as American as apple pie.  Perhaps, instead, we should be saying, as American as apple cider.  

Don’t forget to join us Thrusday for our weekly vineyard update, and be sure to check out our interview with Derek and Stacey Edinger, from Brewery Ardennes, debuting July 15.  And now, here’s the show.

______________________

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Rootstock Ciderworks at http://www.rootstockciderworks.com/, and Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

Himrod Farm Supply is our local farm shop near the winery.  It’s run by some of our local Mennonites, and considering its rather small footprint, always seems to have everything we need for the vineyard and the winery.  Whenever you visit, you’re bound to run into someone you know.  Last week, I ran into a friend who is a vineyard manager, someone I hope to bring on the show in our second season, and we were discussing the vintage so far.  We shared the fact that with some varietals, we are well ahead of last year.  We also shared some of the frustrations with the increasing disease pressure, specifically powdery mildew.  Warm temperatures and high humidity are the key ingredients for its spread.  Powdery mildew is actually a fungus, and spread by spores that seek out the living tissue, generally the leaves this time of year, to spread and propagate.  Aptly named, powdery mildew leaves a white fungus on the leaves, and will ultimately damage the leaf tissue.  This is problematic, because it will inhibit photosynthesis and ultimately impact grape development.  The increase in pressure is giving some growers flashbacks to 2018, that most challenging of vintages, where heat and moisture were at record levels and resulted in an incredible amount of difficulty in the vineyards.  

Speaking of heat and growing degree day accumulation, as of July 5, we are currently at 1047.6 growing degree days. As usual, we try to put that in context by looking at some past vintages.  For the same date in 2020, we were at 990.1.  In 2019, we had only clocked 886, and in the warm dry vintage of 2016, we were also at 934.  Recalling the zombie apocalypse vintage of 2018, we were at 1105.  We continue to skew slightly warmer than usual.  Our ten day outlook is showing temperatures continuing to teeter between the mid 70’s and mid 80’s, but with increases in the number of days with rain.  

One thing I learned very quickly when I moved to the Finger Lakes from California, was the saying that if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.  Oftentimes, forecasts for rain do not mean we will have precipitation all day.  Rather, storms will work their way through the region, dropping a quarter to a half an inch of rain and then returning to sunnier conditions.  This is one of the reasons drain tile is so important in the Finger Lakes.  To recap, drain tile is essentially perforated pipe, strategically placed throughout the vineyard and draining to a main line that then ejects the excess water into a naturally draining location.  Several things are important with regard to this.

First drain tile really helps evacuate that excess moisture, resulting in the ability to get back into the vineyard to work quickly.  In years like this, it is important that we are able to reenter the vineyard with a tractor as quickly as possible so that we can apply sprays to combat powdery mildew.  It’s also important for the vines, because, as we say, vines hate wet feet.

Consequently, drain tile must be installed in a manner that allows you to draw as much excess water out of the vineyard as possible.  In this shot from our vineyard, you can see how we installed the drain tile in a manner that helps the water drain at an angle, down hill, into the main line.  

As stewards of the land, we also must recognize that the water we drain from our vineyards will end up in Seneca Lake, as we are on the watershed for the lake.  This increases our responsibility to farm in a manner that is lake conscious, and considerate of our environment.  Excess nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, can contribute to nutrient imbalances in the lakes that will foster the growth of algaes that are dangerous for aquatic and human life.  Many people who live around the lake get their drinking water from the lake, and we always need to be sure we are protecting this resource.  

Like so many technologies, whether they be cement or aqueducts, the ancient Romans actually invented drain tile, but the knowledge wasn’t applied in the US until the 19th century.  A quick reference of the Wikipedia page on drain tile, note that Both Cato the Elder and Pliny the Elder reference drain tile for easing excess water on farmland as early as 200 BC.  It was introduced in the US in 1838, by John Johnston, not too far from here in Seneca County, where he laid 72 miles of clay tiling pipe on 350 acres.  His efforts increased his yield of wheat from 12 to 60 bushels per year, and became part of his three pronged rule for farming success, D-C-D, or dung, credit, and drainage.  

Drain tile is another feature of Finger Lakes grape growing that isn’t as common in warmer grape growing regions.  In my ten years in the Finger Lakes, there has only been one vintage where we were really concerned about drought.  Most of the time, the problem is excess water, and all the issues that stem from that.  Drain tile is one way to alleviate excess rainfall, and help us get back into the vineyard and address the other problems we face.  

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube.  It really helps with the ratings and in introducing new folks to the show.  Be sure to tune in next week, where I speak with Derek and Stacey Edinger, founders of the newly established Brewery Ardennes in Geneva New York.  Brand new to the industry, they opened their Brewery on Memorial Day, 2021, and are already making a big splash in the region.  Their diverse experience and entrepreneurial drive are inspiring.  And if you missed it, check out our audio only special Fourth of July podcast, where I talk with Alex Robb of Rootstock Ciderworks about America’s original craft beverage, cider.    

If you enjoy the content, please rate us 5 stars!

In an historic sheep barn well over a century old, Derek and Stacey Edinger of Brewery Ardennes, are making their craft beverage dreams come true, and in the process, bringing a valuable new experience to the Finger Lakes. Located in Geneva New York, just around the corning from our Geneva tasting room, the culmination of their careers in high tech, engineering, and hospitality have laid the ground work for an ambitious and exciting project.

We are currently backed up on transcript production, but they will be coming to our Substack at www.viticulturepodcast.substack.com, and full video interview available on our YouTube Channel.

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

In this episode we are speaking with Johannes Selbach, of Weingut Selbach Oster, one of the Mosel Valley’s most outstanding producers of world class Riesling. Johannes and I discuss the family’s long legacy of winemaking in Germany, the importance of his relationship with his father, his approach to picking, fermenting, and building a family wine brand in a daunting new world.

If you enjoy the content, please rate us 5 stars!

Ahr Valley Fundraiser Information: Account holder: AHR A Wine Region Needs Help for Rebuilding eV Bank: KSK Ahrweiler Kreissparkasse Ahrweiler Wilhelmstrasse 1-7 53474 Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler Germany Bank branch number: MALADE51AHR IBAN: DE94 5775 1310 0000 3395 07 - Recommend using Wise.com for all transfers

For a full transcript, visit our Substack at www.viticulturepodcast.substack.com, and full video interview available on our YouTube Channel.

Check out Selbach Oster wines at: https://www.skurnik.com/producer/selbach-oster/ https://www.selbach-oster.de/en/wine.php

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

Be sure to rate us 5 stars, and leave a comment!

Welcome to one of our long-form episodes of our continuing series, in the Vineyard. For today’s show, I sit down with Jeff Moriss, owner, farmer and wine Grower for Glenora Farms.  I’ve been friends with Jeff for more than a decade, and his personal background is one of the most fascinating in the finger Lakes. In today’s show, will spend time getting to know Jeff, but will also take a deep dive discussing the various vintages in the finger Lakes as well as the prospects and the outlook for 2021. Jeff is famously told me that in farming, You can either referee a hockey match or conduct a symphony, continuing that he much prefers to conduct a symphony. His winegrowing is meticulous, many of his vineyards more than 40 years old, and his grapes go into some of the highest rated finger Lakes wines.

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube.  It really helps with the ratings and in introducing new folks to the show.  Be sure to tune in next week, where I speak with Erni Loosen, of Weingut Dr. Loosen and a number of other exciting projects such as Oregon’s J. Christopher, the Pfalz’ Villa Wolf, and the collaboration with Washington’s Chateau St. Michelle in the production of Eroica.  Erni’s effusive personality, decades long experience, and passion for making fine wines that respect the land, have earned him Decanter’s Man of the Year Award and international recognition.  Our conversation was fun and engaging, and definitely an episode you don’t want to miss. 

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

If you enjoy the content, please rate us 5 stars!

In this episode we are speaking with Erni Loosen, of Weingut Dr. Loosen and a number of other exciting projects such as Oregon’s J. Christopher, the Pfalz’ Villa Wolf, and the collaboration with Washington’s Chateau St. Michelle in the production of Eroica.  Erni’s effusive personality, decades long experience, and passion for making fine wines that respect the land, have earned him Decanter's Man of the Year Award and international recognition.  Our conversation was fun and engaging, and definitely an episode you don’t want to miss. 

Check out Loosen Brothers wines at:

https://www.loosenbrosusa.com/

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

You can watch the interview on our youTube channel here:

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube!

Episode 0019:

Finger Lakes Viticulture – August 17, 2021

As I’ve mentioned, I’m from California.  I was born and raised until I was around 11 years old in Huntington Beach, I spent a few of my teenage-hood years just outside of Rochester, NY, and then returned to California and lived throughout the state until I was around 30 years old.  Living in the mild climate of southern California skews the way you perceive seasons.  Warm and beautiful summers merely give way to mild winters.  The pool is never covered and winterized, the sun rarely gives way, and the garden is lively nearly the entire year.  Perhaps it was a form of seasonal deprivation I experienced growing up, or maybe  it is something that most people perceive, but I find myself becoming more attune to the changes in temperature and weather generally as I grow older in the Finger Lakes, and even more specifically to the way the light changes.  The light, the reflection in the leaves, the glow on the horizon, the changing times of sunrise and sunset, are the precursors that hint at coming change.  In the late winter and early spring, these changes are exhilarating and enticing.  They foretell the promise of unknowns.  As August creeps towards its end, and summer begins its wind down, it is not necessarily the temperatures that foretell what awaits, but a glowing premonition which prepares our bodies, our minds, and the plants for what is waiting days, weeks and months into the future.  The observation is empowering, it’s a primal instinct that signals to your body that you are in tune with your place.  It is also humbling.  You do not have a veto, you can not change this course, nature will always prevail.

Beginning a week ago, I commented to my wife that the light is changing, the great wind down has begun, and the phase changes of the season are set in motion.  Harvest is coming.  There is still so much time ahead of us, so much ripeness to attain, but the culmination of the 2021 growing season inches closer every minute of every day.  

In our In the Vineyard segment from 2 weeks ago, we explored via a long-form discussion with Finger Lakes winegrower Jeff Morris, a bit of how this vintage has progressed, and put it in the context of his farm and past vintages.  I hope you learned some things in that episode that shed some new light on grape growing in the Finger Lakes.  When we last spoke, we had followed the arc of record warmth and continuous hot days in June, we discussed the stretch of continuous wet weather that put disease pressure on the vineyards, and unlike our friends in California and out-west, we prayed for the rains to subside for a bit.  For the most part, they have, and we’ve been able to get the disease pressure from things like downy and powdery mildew under control, though we are keeping our eye on weather forecasts. Temperature wise, we have ebbed and flowed with some heat waves, and some cooler weather.  Throughout the last few days, cooler temperatures at night, many as low as 52 degrees have brought some respite, and daily highs have hovered in the high 70’s to low 80’s. As it stands on August 17, we are currently at one thousand nine hundred ten growing degree days.  To put that in context by looking at some past vintages, for the same date in 2020, we were at two thousand thirty seven point three.  In 2019, we had only clocked one thousand eight hundred twenty nine, and in 2016, we were also at two thousand fifteen.  In 2018, we were at two thousand eighty.  We continue to skew slightly warmer than usual.  Our current ten day outlook is showing temperatures continuing to teeter between the high 70’s and low 80’s, but with an uncomfortable return to daily scattered showers.  This doesn’t mean we are destined for a bad harvest, but we do want to start seeing less rain and more consistent dry warm weather.  From my perspective, we are shaping up to be in for a good vintage, which will reflect a general typicity for most Finger Lakes wines.  I also know, we are anywhere from a month to two months from our Riesling harvest, and a lot can happen in that period of time.    

In the vineyards, veraison is everywhere.  Early ripening red hybrids are purple, and grapes like Marquette are inching closer to building their sugar ripeness.  Vinifera grapes, for the most part, have exited or are exiting rapid cell division, and moving towards sugar accumulation.  The skins grow supply, and grapes like Riesling make their freckles identifiable as the berry grow more supple.  Harvest dates are set to reflect a fairly consistent mean this year.  I’m expecting Chardonnay to begin harvesting for sparkling wine around the middle of September, and Riesling the first part of October, and Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc to see its harvest begin later in October.  Although I put most of my emphasis on vinifera, the grape vines with a genetic lineage to Europe, harvest is set to begin as early as next week for some of the hybrid varietals grown in the Finger Lakes.  

The history of wine making in the Finger Lakes is radically different than many other parts of the world.  Our history, dating back to the 1860’s, was heavily focused on native and hybrid varietals that were harvested and made into sparkling wine.  Grapes like Isabella, Delaware, and Aurora.  Though Isabella was the first purposely cultivated grape varietal in the Finger Lakes, and is still grown here today, Aurora has a particularly interesting history.  In the world of hybrid grapes, Albert Siebel is French viticulturist legend.  From his vineyard in Ardeche, in the Rhone Valley, he developed some of the most popular hybrid grapes.  Seyval Blanc, a hybrid I work with to this day, was developed by Seibel.  Aurora, was perhaps one of his most successful endeavors.  He had originally bred and sold it as a table grape, and named the varietal in honor of the Roman goddess of the dawn.  Its propensity to spoilage after picking led to its fall from grace as a table grape, but also its rise in use for winemaking.  After having been brought to the United States in the 1940’s, it became wildly popular for winemaking and by the 1970’s, was the most popular non-labrusca grape grown in New York.  This era corresponded with the post-prohibition rehabilitation of New York wine growing, with giant brands of the industry such as Great Western and Taylor using it across their production.  

The production of these sparkling wines relied on Aurora for providing a strong acid base for the various non-varietal based wines, especially sparkling wines.  Consequently, it became practice to harvest them very early, and use them as a blending component to provide an inexpensive base for building inexpensive sparkling wines.  One of the wines from this production that had grown in popularity once again, was a wine called J Roget.  J Roget was produced by Constellation Brands at their Canandaigua facility, and as mimosa brunch culture blossomed in America’s big cities throughout the 2010’s, J Roget grew with it as the staple for restaurants seeking to use inexpensive sparkling wines for their bottomless mimosa brunch specials.  As Constellation shifted market focus, and sold off a number of brands to Gallo, this particular sku created some issues for the pending Gallo/Constellation  deal.  The Federal Trade Commission, concerned that J Roget would solidify a monopoly for Gallo in the inexpensive sparkling wine category, was a brand that the FTC refused to be included in sale of the portfolio of brands.  Consequently, its future seemed doomed, and the varietal, Aurora, began to be removed from many vineyards.  

It remains to be seen whether Gallo, who along with the purchase of the brands from Constellation acquired the largest production facility in the Finger Lakes, will be producing a sparkling wine to fill the gap that the absence of J Roget has left behind.  I’m certainly not one to question the business model of Gallo, they’ve proven to be exceptionally successful.  The corporate maneuvering of these industry giants, has put many small growers of grapes like Aurora in a bind, and part of this story will unfold as we see the future of Finger Lakes grape growing and wines unfold.  As most small Finger Lakes wineries don’t make wine from Aurora, it really is dependent upon the products they have been used for for generations to continue production.  If they don’t find a market for those grapes, those vineyards will disappear and either be converted to other hybrid or vinifera varietals, or converted into some other agricultural use.  

This background merely sheds some light on the fact that some Aurora is set to begin harvest next week.  The harvest of Aurora, like the light in the sky, is another cue that harvest is approaching.  It is also a cue this year, that the Finger Lakes wine industry is evolving.  Much of that evolution has been pioneered by small family producers, but as with varietals like Aurora and the giant brands that fed the growth of those wines, big players are set to become an increasingly dominant role once again in the region.  The status quo that was shattered in 2020 continues to change with other forces at play.  The story isn’t written, but all of us in the Finger Lakes are a character, whether large or small, in a book that is yet to be written.

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube.  It really helps with the ratings and in introducing new folks to the show.  Be sure to tune in next week, where I speak with Todd Eichas, who along with his wife Dani, is celebrating the ten year anniversary of New Vines, a Seneca Lake winery and bed and breakfast.  A true micro-winery, Todd and Dani embrace the concept of agri-tourism, and make some of the best Gruner Veltliner in the region while they’re at it.    

If you enjoy the content, please rate us 5 stars!

Todd Eichas, who after 30 years working in industry as an electrician and training manager, partnered with his wife Dani for their second act as vintners and operators of a Seneca Lake bed and breakfast.  New Vines, the name of the winery and the bed and breakfast, produces my favorite Gruner Veltliner in the Finger Lakes, and their inn has garnered endless praise from guests who have stayed with them.   New Vines provides an amazing agri-tourism experience, in a comfortable intimate setting.

Check out New Vines wines at:

https://www.newvines.com/

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

You can watch the interview on our YouTube channel here:

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube. 

Episode 0021:

Finger Lakes Viticulture – September 2, 2021

I want to start by thanking each one of you that has downloaded the show, shared it with friends, subscribed, ranked, and commented via your favorite podcast platforms.  As of this week, our show ranked 79th in the US on Apple Podcasts in the food and wine category.  We’ve also built a strong audience in both New Zealand and Norway, where in each of those countries, we ranked in the top 10 on these charts as well.  Thanks for the support, as we continue to climb charts, build listenerships, and grow this community.  In six months, we’ve accomplished alot, and I promise, there is so much more to come!

Thanks also for joining us for our bi-weekly “in the vineyard update.”  With the calendar now showing September, things are about to get extremely busy as harvest is nearly here in the Finger Lakes for my winery, Missick Cellars.  I had planned to end Season 1 of Viticulture in August, and take a few months off to focus on the winemaking tasks at hand.  With some great shows edited and ready to be delivered to you, we will keep on pushing through into October with interviews with winemakers, technologists and philosophers.  As of now, I’m not planning on producing any “In the Vineyard” updates for YouTube throughout harvest, but we will drop some special audio only updates, so stay tuned. For Season 2, we will continue with our long form interviews, we will feature some podcasts via a sub-series called “In the Cellar,” and will be adding a new Substack feature called “Long Reads.”  In this segment, planned as a separate release of the podcast, we’ll go through some long form written content on broad subjects ranging from wine, viticulture, and makers generally, reading passages and providing commentary.  

As we’ve mentioned many times, growing degree days don’t tell the whole story of a vintage, but they do give us a window into the nature of a vintage.  So far this year, as of August 30, we are at 2261.  So far, over the last decade only four vintages have shown more accumulated growing degree days. 2012, 2016, 2018 and 2020 were all slightly warmer, with 2016 marking 2,310 GDD, 2018 marking 2,363, and 2020, with 2,307.  In contrast to our current positioning at 2,261 GDD, throughout the previous decade, the other 6 vintages ranged between a low of 2059 GDD and and a high 2180 GDD.  

The challenge in the vineyard remains moisture.  Moisture with this heat can create a situation with compromised fruit in the vineyard, and that compromised fruit usually means sour rot.  

Sour rot is unmistakable and nasty.  Essentially, as berries move past rapid cell division and begin accumulating sugar post veraison, once sugar content in the berry exceeds 8%, the potential for sour rot exists if the skins become compromised.  As long as the juice and sugar are enclosed in the skin of the berry, this problem will not raise its head.  In general, the skins become compromised from a number of different variables.  From birds and insects feeding on berries and breaking skins, to mechanical or growth cracks.  Mechanical cracks happen when operating machinery in the vineyard and some implement injures the berries, and growth cracks most often happen after heavy rains, which cause the grapes to swell beyond their capacity to hold the water, and cause ruptures in the skin.  Finally, skins can become compromised by powdery mildew as well.  

Once the skin has been damaged, the stage is set for sour rot.  Most sour rot is caused by acetic acid which essentially turns the sweetening juice inside the grape into vinegar.  It’s spread by the drosophila fly, which is a tiny fly that swarms cluster and acts as a vector for the spread of the acetic acid.  

Sour rot is not something that is a major problem in every vintage in the Finger Lakes, but it is a persistent issue we deal with.  Some years are drastically worse than others.  I’ve referenced 2018, which was a vintage with a perfect confluence of circumstances to promote sour rot.  In 2020, the vintage was nearly perfect with no real pressure on the grapes from sour rot.

Although 2021 is nowhere near as bad as 2018, it certainly has not been a relatively easy vintage like 2020.  The pressure we are dealing with is above average, and that will impact picking decisions and therefore wine styles.  It was also mean a variable harvest across varietals and sites.

For a peek behind the curtain of the mind of a winemaker, I am noticing increasing pressure from sour rot in our Riesling, but not in our Chenin Blanc or our Cabernet Franc.  Consequently, I will target an earlier harvest than usual for our Riesling.  Without high sugar ripeness, and with higher titratable acidity and low pH, this is not the optimum picking for producing weighty dry riesling.  It can however, make delightful low alcohol and Kabinet style Rieslings.  To understand what I mean by Kabinet, with a K, we need to take a look at the German classifications for Riesling based on what we call the must weight.

I’m going to really simplify this and the German classification system, but must weight is the average sugar reading for a particular lot of picked fruit.  In the United States, we use a measurement for sugar ripeness known as brix, where the higher the brix, the higher the sugar.  As a general rule, the German classification rates wine types from lowest brix at harvest to highest brix at harvest as Kabinet, Spatlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, and Trockenbeerenauslese.  Wines, at least in the first three classifications, can be produced from dry to off dry, and even some sweetness.  Picking at a Kabinet level usually requires a minimum brix of 17.  We can make a very simple calculation for potential alcohol based on brix, by multiplying the brix by .545.  In other words, at 17 brix, a wine that is fermented to dryness has a potential alcohol of around 9%.  In order to find a sugar acid balance, these wines will often be left with some residual sugar, and finished with a potential alcohol of around 8%.  At these levels, these grapes may not produce the most complex wines, but they can make delicious, low alcohol, very enjoyable wines.  Additionally, due to the low alcohol, high acid, and bit of residual sugar, these wines can have very long lives.  

When grapes are becoming compromised, and the decision is made to pick early, all is not lost.  We can still make delicious, approachable and enjoyable wines.  Of course, the other component of that is to make sure you’re picking only the cleanest fruit.  In circumstances like this, we will continue dropping bad fruit, and ensure that our hands are not even touching sour rot clusters when it comes time to harvest our fruit.    

As a veteran, the news of the last few weeks have been difficult to watch.  I’ve made time to reach out to many fellow veterans, friends who served selfelssly in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  The images on our televisions and in our news feeds brings back a lot of memories for many vets, and I’d like to encourage you to check in on those you may know that have served.  Lend a listening ear, be a friend.  Many need that right now.  

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube.  It really helps with the ratings and in introducing new folks to the show.  Be sure to tune in next week, where I speak with Katarina Axelsson, co-founder and CEO at Tastry, touted as being the world’s first artificial intelligence driven sensory sciences company, with a tagline that Tastry taught a computer to taste.  Katarina’s story is inspiring, and weaves wine and technology in a way that represents the cutting edge of the wine industry.

If you enjoy the content, please rate us 5 stars!

Today, we are speaking with Katerina Axelsson, who while working towards her Bachelor in Science in Chemistry from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, paid her way through college by working in a large regional wine chemistry lab.  Her hard work ethic and obsession with unlocking the secrets of sensory science and consumer preference, led her down the path towards tech start-up, entrepreneur, and CEO.  Today, she leads Tastry, touted as being the world’s first artificial intelligence driven sensory sciences company, with a tag line that Tastry taught a computer to taste.  From my research, there’s a chance that Tastry is about to revolutionize the global wine industry with a variety of models to connect boutique wineries with as yet unknown customer bases, those seeking AI based blending solutions, and an overall deeper understanding of exactly what is in our wines.

Check out Tastry wines at:

https://www.tastry.com/

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

You can watch the interview on our YouTube channel here:

Andreas Hütwohl is instrumental to Weingut Von Winning, a producer of renown Grosses Gewachs (Great Growth) wines in the Pfalz, centering on Riesling, Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, and Chardonnay.  Andreas and I delve into the traditional winemaking practices that have garnered Von Winning acclaim, and we chart his course from studying Biology, to pursuing winemaking.  Andreas is an energetic, insightful leader in the German wine industry, and his perspectives offer an exciting new take on the future of high end German wine.

Check out Von Winning with Skurnik Wines and Spirits at: https://www.skurnik.com/producer/von-winning/ https://www.von-winning.de/en/weingut/

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

You can watch the interview on our YouTube channel here:

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube.  Sorry for the misfire - harvest got me out of practice!

Episode 0024:

Wine Reads – November 18, 2021

Welcome back to Viti+Culture, and welcome to season 2.  It’s been a few weeks since our last podcast, but here we are, rested and ready to deliver some great content.  Harvest is finally over, a few fermentations remain bubbling away, the cellar is cleaned, our equipment is winterized, and we are moving into our next phase of cellar work - stabalizing and bottling sparkling wine, preparing to bottle our early release wines like our Cabernet Franc Rose, our White Merlot, and some of our Chenin Blanc, and finally disgorging some of our sparkling wines, such as our 2017 and 2019 Chardonnay based Blanc de Blanc, and Chenin Blanc.  I’ll keep you updated as to what winemakers are experiencing in the cellar as we move forward with season, and key you in to some of the winemaking decisions we have along the way.

We are also launching a new segment - Wine Reads - where we choose an article from the world of written content on wine, read it on the show, and share our thoughts and opinions on the topic.  If you’re a wine writer, feel free to forward me an article for consideration at viticulturepodcast@gmail.com.  I’m happy to look it over, and maybe even discuss it with you on the show.  We will continue to produce and publish our long-form interviews on YouTube, but some of the shorter content will be podcast and Substack only, so make sure you’ve clicked subscribe in your favorite podcast platform, and sign up to our Substack newsletter.  

For our first Wine Read, I figured I’d actually reflect on the 2021 vintage by reading the letter I’m preparing to send out to our Missick Cellars Wine Club.  I’m excited to be shipping out the first Finger Lakes produced Sparkling Chenin Blanc with that shipment, as well as some other really cool small lot wines, but I also generally engage with our members by sharing some of my deepest thoughts, and letting them know what is going on in the cellar.  Here’s a sneak preview of the vintage, an audio taste of our wine club, and a survey of what the final tally of the 2021 vintage felt like. 

Remember, if you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube.  It really helps with the ratings and in introducing new folks to the show.  Be sure to tune in next week, where I speak with Phil Plummer, winemaker at Montezuma, Idol Ridge, and Fossenvue wineries.  Phil embraces the ethos of our show, those of the philosopher-maker, and intertwines culture, art, history, and music in some subtle, and not so subtle ways, into each of his wines.   

So, here we go, our 2021 Missick Cellars Wine Club Newsletter:

Dear Wine Club Member,                                                        

When I was deployed as a soldier in the Army with Operation Iraqi Freedom, every few months we were able to take an R&R day, and head down to the large U.S. base in Kuwait on the coast of the Persian Gulf called Camp Doha.  Camp Doha had a PX (post exchange) that was both sized and filled with the inventory of a Super Walmart.  It was where we could stock up on nearly everything we needed, or wanted, to get us through the long weeks back at our small desert outposts.  

Camp Doha also had a Starbucks and a Burger King, all of which brought a sense of normalcy, but also a little bit of cognitive dissonance.  I remember browsing those location oriented Starbucks mugs while waiting in line that list the city you are in, and looking at the one with Kuwait City and the skyline depicted.  I wish I would have bought one as a memento.  The pearl of Camp Doha in those days however, was a place called the Marble Palace.  It was a short bus ride from camp, and had a large recreational pool adjacent to the Gulf, there were therapeutic masseuses, and in many ways, offered everything you could find at a luxury resort.  It was, for a day, potentially overnight if you had some other business to attend to, a respite from the dusty tents we slept in, the day to day monotony of my job as a Signal Corps non-commissioned officer, guard tower shifts in 110 degree temperatures, and hours spent sitting under the skud bunkers scattered all throughout my home camp with a battle buddy, talking about home.  

Harvest certainly does not carry the emotional intensity or gravity of deployment, I would not sell our servicemembers short by drawing a straight line between the experience of deployment and the intensity of the harvest or the crush pad.  There are analogies though, and in many ways, the pace of harvest rarely allows for the periods of pause and contemplation that a deployment permits.  Nonetheless, as harvest approaches, the mind prepares for what you know will be extremely long days, endless physicality, isolation from family and friends (outside the wine industry), discomfort, and exhaustion.  Similarly, it provides a purpose, a mission, with goals that must be accomplished, in specific periods of time with little room for error.  The elements of weather, of available resources, the risk of physical danger around powerful equipment if you’re careless or thoughtless, and the knowledge that there is an end date, all provide a very similar psychological framework to that the soldier experiences.  You have set out on a path, the end goal is known, there will be surprises and challenges, but at the end of this period, victory is in sight.

I recalled my time at the Marble Palace, a place I hadn’t thought about in years, after returning home for the first time in what felt like weeks (though it had only been a few days), to spend an entire day and night with my family.  It was mid-October, about half-way through crush, and having the chance to push Andrew and Audrey on the swing-set in the backyard, sharing dinner at the table with the family, and having my wife Laure massage my shoulders that night made home feel like the R&R I had been craving.  I particularly enjoy pairing our wines with meals during harvest.  It puts a perspective on the hard work we are presently enmeshed in, and opening the time capsules of vintages past during dinner with the family, ties moments of our past to moments of the present, even as we all sacrifice and work for the future that is gurgling away through its fermentation in the cellar.   

Perhaps the moments from my deployment were fresh with me this year after what we witnessed in Afghanistan in August, and during which I spent countless hours speaking with other veterans and checking in on friends that I knew had spent years of their life in that country.  Perhaps it was because we were shorter on cellar staff this year than in years’ past, placing extra burdens and extra work on myself and my assistant.  Maybe it was simply because I see my children growing so fast and am realizing how quickly time goes with every year we gather around the table to watch them blow out that additional candle on the cake.  And finally, it may have been because this was such a difficult harvest, where extra vineyard work coupled with crucial picking decisions dictated the quality of the wine that was made, and with our first year of a significant harvest from our estate vineyard, I felt an enormous amount of pressure to deliver the best possible effort to everyone who enjoys our wine.  

2021 was our most difficult vintage since 2018.  As with 2018, moisture was the catalyst for a lot of stress on vineyard crews this vintage.  The heavy rainfall, high temperatures, and high dewpoints which kept vineyard canopies and clusters too wet for too long in 2018, had analogs for all of us who farm grapes in the Finger Lakes this year.  Granted, temperatures were not as high as three years ago, and dewpoints were not as deleterious, the rain proved a difficulty that we had to navigate around.  There were indeed some much needed breaks, three or four days here, maybe a week there, but from August through the end of October, the rain fell, and we needed to be cognizant of when it was falling.

Though 2021 wasn’t our largest harvest, between our own wines and some custom crush projects, we processed nearly 70 tons of fruit, with about 6 tons coming from our own vineyard.  We managed an incredibly clean harvest of Chenin Blanc, Riesling and Cabernet Franc, with multiple passes in the Riesling in order to produce some different styles of estate wines, from sparkling to still.  Our vineyard, planted in 2019, is in what is called its third leaf, in other words, its third growing season.  The third leaf is generally when you can expect to get your first real crop, with an expansion of yield occurring in the following vintages.  Of course, yield is not the most important aspect.  The vineyard must be balanced, producing enough fruit to match the energy output of the vine, but not so much that you stress the vine or dilute the concentration of flavors that a vineyard can deliver.

In addition, we worked with our traditional growing partners at Gibson Vineyard and Morris Vineyard, to bring in varietals like Seyval Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Valvin Muscat, and some other hybrids that will go into our Foreword series.  

Although we have a significant amount of wine still fermenting, I must share with you that I am more proud of this vintage than nearly any in the last 10 years.  There are vintages that naturally make great wines.  The weather is perfect from April to November, harvest happens on your schedule and not based on the risk of rain, and every piece of equipment cooperates fully with no downtime or repairs required.  I think of vintages like 2012, 2016, and 2020, where a winemaker can only get in the way of making good wine.  Nature gave us great, clean and ripe fruit, and we need only fulfill its promise.  Vintages like 2021 require inordinate amounts of attention to detail, a willingness to sacrifice bad fruit in the vineyard in order to make good wine in the cellar, a dedication and time commitment unparalleled in many other fields, and a drive that overlooks exhaustion, lack of sleep, and sore muscles.  Those ingredients have added up to what amounts to be the proof of work, required in challenging wine regions like the Finger Lakes, and years like 2021, that deliver high quality, deliciousness, and inspiration even under trying circumstances.  These are the vintages that prove the mettle of the winemaker.  

2021 will be a vintage that I believe will deliver some of our best sparkling wines.  On their way in the years to come will be a small lot of estate Chenin Blanc, Cab Franc Rose, Chardonnay based Blanc de Blanc, Estate Riesling, and Gewurztraminer.  Our sparkling wine program has continued to grow and witness strong sales, and we are responding by increasing production with the focused goal of being known as one of the great sparkling wine producers in the region and the U.S.

In other areas of “winery life,” our brand change continues moving ahead.  New signage should be up by the spring, and new labels showing up on shelves in Upstate New York retailers.  Our new labels shipped in October, and we began labelling wines as quickly as we could.  Our new labels speak to our place, with the shoreline of Seneca Lake outside our cellar presenting the background frame for where we are, our new logo, as discussed in our previous letters playing a prominent role, and each wine now suggesting a specific food and wine pairing.  Of course, these are only my opinions, but I welcome you to try them out and send me your suggestions as well!

I generally try to make our Fall Wine Club shipment focused on wines that I think will pair well for Thanksgiving, and so with that backdrop, each of these wines will be on our Thanksgiving table, paired perfectly with all of the classic accoutrements of my favorite holiday.  

2020 Sparkling Chenin Blanc

I’ve mentioned in the past that we have been pioneering Chenin Blanc in the Finger Lakes since 2015, when we engaged in our first contract planting of the varietal at the Gibson Vineyard.  The logic was pretty simple… I love Loire Valley wines.  The Loire, being a cool climate growing region in France, famously grows Cabernet Franc and Chenin Blanc.  One of the most premiere subregions in the Loire Valley, is Vouvray.  What is wonderful about Vouvray wines, is that so many different wine styles can emerge from them.  From dry crisp whites, to sparkling, to wonderfully rich and sweet styles, Chenin Blanc from Vouvray exhibits an amazing amount of versatility.  Knowing that the Finger Lakes can have such variable vintages, with there being a necessity to alter the styles of wine depending upon what the year gives us, combined with the fact that Cabernet Franc is, in my opinion, our premiere red varietal, planting Chenin Blanc just made sense to me.  We garnered our first harvest in 2017, making only a few dozen cases.  We have continued exploring the varietal, planting our estate block, and making a wide range of Chenin Blanc wines.  This spring, I hope to release our 2020 barrel fermented dry Chenin Blanc, alongside our 2021 estate Chenin Blanc which was fermented in stainless steel and finished with a touch of sweetness.  In the meantime, I’m extremely excited to share this first, Wine Club disgorgement of our 2020 Chenin Blanc.

We began producing sparkling Chenin Blanc in 2019, but that wine remains in tirage, resting on its lees in bottle, with an anticipated disgorgement in 2023.  Only 50 cases were made in 2019, and with its level of acidity, it will need time to grow into its full potential.  2020, being a beautiful and ripe vintage, also managed to deliver to us some exhilarating and fresh sparkling wine bases.  Our 2020 Sparkling Chenin is technically an early disgorgement.  Most of the 100+ cases will be disgorged at a later date, but with the profile of this wine showing such elegance, I wanted to disgorge a special lot for our wine club members to enjoy this holiday season.  

Just prior to harvest, we disgorged 30 cases, removing the spent yeast sediment and finishing the wine with a small dosage of a few grams of residual sugar.  This sparkling wine is still dry, but accentuates the wonderful fruit that comes from Chenin Blanc from the Gibson Vineyard.  Rather than topping the bottle with a Champagne cork, we opted to use a stainless steel crown cap.  Most of the time, when I use cork on sparkling wine, I will let the wine sit in the cellar for up to 6 months before release.  It can take quite a bit of time to allow the cork to cease its propensity to expand.  Trying to open a sparkling wine that has just been corked is nearly impossible, and can be dangerous if it is tried with a corkscrew due to the pressure inside.  Opening with a bottle opener isn’t as exhilarating as popping a cork, but I assure you, it has no impact on the quality.  It also means, you won’t have a problem opening it on Thanksgiving, should you want to share it with family and friends.  

Produced in the classic traditional method, the base wine was picked slightly early, fermented to dryness, and chaptalized with 24 grams per liter of sugar prior to bottling with a yeast culture.  The wine then went through its bottle fermentation and aged for around a year on the lees in the bottle prior to disgorgement.  

This is the first sparkling Chenin Blanc ever produced and released in the Finger Lakes, and we managed such a small disgorgement in order to ensure that our Wine Club members received the first chance at tasting the “unicorn” wine.  It has actually been one of the fun benefits of having the only two plantings of Chenin Blanc in the Finger Lakes, since ever demi sec, barrel fermented, sparkling, and dessert Chenin will inevitably be the first ones ever produced and released.  My hunch is, given some time and the opportunity to taste what these wines can do, we’ll start seeing more and more plantings of the varietal in the region.  When that happens, you’ll be able to say you joined us in this journey before anyone else.  

2019 Morris Vineyard Riesling

As you may know, my philosophy on Riesling is to treat it with utmost care, producing dozens of small lots from which I can later blend our mainline Dry Riesling and Riesling.  I do that because I see these two wines as the canvas upon which I paint my view of that vintage through this varietal.  Fermenting in small lots, in different mediums with different yeast cultures, provides the color palette from which we can paint these pictures.  It is from these small lots that some exciting single vineyard, or specifically designated wines come from.  Our 2019 Morris Vineyard Riesling is no exception.  

An incredibly small lot of 22.5 cases, this bottling represents a single barrel of Riesling which exhibited such immense appeal to me, that I wanted to be able to share it with our wine club.  Fermented in a ten year old barrel that delivered little to no oak flavor influence, this wine was uninoculated.  In other words, no commercial yeast culture was added to this wine, rather, only ambient yeasts converted the sugars in this wine to alcohol.  The Australians have a term for these wines - ferrell ferments.  Ferrell, referring to the fact that the fermentations are wild, are characterized by their lack of intervention from the winemaker.  Interestingly, it also means that there likely wasn’t a single yeast culture that fermented the wine, but rather, numerous different cultures that rose and fell in dominance depending on the conditions of the wine, i.e., the alcohol, nutrient load, etc., at any given time.  It was our job to merely produce fresh clean wines with as light of a hand as possible.  Consequently, after fermentation, the wine was allowed to rest on its lees (spent yeast) until March of 2020, when it received a small dose of sulfur to prevent oxidation.  It was removed from the barrel in June of 2020, and bottled in July.  We allowed the wine to cellar in a temperature controlled room until this shipment and its release.  

In ten years, we have likely released more than 50 Rieslings.  Some vintages have seen as many as 8 different bottlings of the varietal.  Of all these different wines, this specific bottling is likely my favorite bottling of still Riesling to date.  Although dry, it provides generous fruit and balanced, but bright, acidity.  It is a perfect food pairing wine, and will be an excellent accompaniment for Thanksgiving Dinner. 

2018 Cabernet Franc

Of all the wines I produce, if there is one that my wife will most frequently ask me to grab for dinner from the winery, it will be one of my Cabernet Francs.  She loves them, and she also loves the variability they provide vintage after vintage.  Our 2017 Cabernet Franc, with a bright and sunny fall, but coming from a slightly larger crop, was refreshing and light with prominent notes of cherry and raspberry.  It has been the kind of wine enjoyed with a meal, and just as often, with some chocolate and television, relaxing after we have put the kids to bed.  Our 2018 is a much deeper wine, with slightly more pronounced tannin, richer color, and complement of herbs to match the fruit.  It’s richer texture can carry fattier meats, and pairs just as well with game.  It has become the new favorite around our house, and it is wine I am thrilled to be releasing shortly.  As with the other wines in this shipment, Wine Club members are getting the first tastes of these exciting new releases.

When it comes to producing red wines, I do engage in some slightly different cellar practices than many of my other colleagues in the Finger Lakes.  I have mentioned many times before, but saignee is a French word for “the bleed.”  This practice involves removing portions of juice from a red wine fermentation before the fermentation has begun.  The goal of this technique is to naturally increase the skin to juice ratio of the red wine fermentation, thereby increasing the availability of anthocyanins and tannins.  Anthocyanins are the red color molecule that gives red wine its color, and so by increasing the availability of this molecule in the fermentation, I am able to produce deeper color red wines.  Additionally, increasing the tannin naturally provides more bonding points for the color, and adds structure to the wine.  All of this is in the backdrop of understanding that berry size tends to be much larger in the Finger Lakes, due to the amount of rainfall we receive.  Saignee provides the winemaker with a natural tool to make deeper, more structured red wines, while also making some pretty delicious rose from that initial “bleed.”  Finally, there is an impact on the acidity of the wine.  Grape skins contain potassium, and potassium can help precipitate tartaric acid during the fermentation, naturally lowering the level of acid and increasing the pH of the wine. 

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube.  It really helps with the ratings and in introducing new folks to the show. 

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube. 

Episode 0025:

Wine Reads – November 24, 2021

Although I can not say Thanksgiving is uniquely American, as our Canadian neighbors celebrate Thanksgiving at least a month or so before those of us in the United States, the holiday does possess a uniquely American mystique, with art, music, movies, cartoons, and other cultural motifs proliferating our celebration of this day throughout the world.  Considering some of our largest listenership comes from folks outside the U.S., it’s pretty clear that there are hundreds of people listening who won’t be sitting down at a table tomorrow to eat turkey, say a prayer of thanks for the blessings in their lives, and dig in to a large meal and hopefully, lots of really cool wines.  Additionally, although I understand it can be really helpful, I kind of get tired of all those lists with the “Great Thanksgiving Pairings” in the title.  So, in light of our own Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., and the fact that every culture has some holiday they celebrate that generally involves the ritual of gifting a bottle of wine, I thought I’d share this thought provoking piece from Mike Veseth, over at the WineEconomist blog, at WineEconomist.com.  I share my own thoughts after reading the piece, but his article, dated November 23, 2021, and titled “An Economic Theory of Thanksgiving Wine,” combines economics, wine, and the spirit that really captures the multidisciplinary approach we take here.  

For today’s special Thanksgiving Wine Reads, here’s Mike’s post:

https://wineeconomist.com/2021/11/23/thanksgiving-wine/

Thursday is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States and many of us will gather with family and friends for the holiday feast. If you have been invited to share Thanksgiving with others (and if you are interested enough in wine to be reading this column), then you must confront a perennial problem: what wine should  you bring?

Deadweight Loss?

Why is the choice of a gift wine an economic problem? Well, it isn’t much of a problem if you plan to drink it all yourself. Then you should just buy what you like — but don’t expect to be invited back next year!

Since the point will be to share the wine with other guests, the choice is more difficult because just as you can’t be sure exactly what dishes will be served, you cannot be certain what wines the other guests will like the best.

There is a pretty good chance that you will experience what economists call a “deadweight loss” which is more or less where the benefit that the guests derive from your wine is less than what they’d have gained from a simple cash transfer.   The story (which is possibly true) is told about the time Malcolm Forbes threw himself an extravagant birthday party where the guests were served some of the rarest, most expensive wines on the planet. Forbes went from guest to guest pouring the evening’s show-stopper wine. Finally he came to Warren Buffet. Wine? said Forbes with a smile. No thanks, Buffet replied. I’ll take the cash!

Warren Buffet understood the concept of deadweight loss and wanted nothing to do with it!

The Problem of Other People’s Money

The problem is asymmetric information. You know your own preferences and budget situation pretty well and so you have a fairly good idea of what you are giving up when you buy an expensive bottle of wine as a gift. But you don’t know the preferences of the other guests very well or whether they would prefer your wine or a simple cash payment to be spent on something else. You can’t be sure that their gain is greater than  your loss.

This leads (I hope you are following along) to the conclusion that you are most efficient when you spend your own money on yourself because you can fairly well calculate both the gain and the opportunity cost. You are less efficient (in terms of deadweight loss) when spend your money on others. You are even less efficient when you spend other people’s money on yourself. And you are hopelessly inefficient when you spend others people’s money on other people. 

What do you think?

So it would seem like the most efficient thing to do would be to decline that dinner invitation and stay home with your wine. How sad! No wonder economics is called the “dismal science.”

It’s Not About the Wine

But here’s the notion that saves the day. Thanksgiving is not really about the wine (or the turkey or the green bean casserole), it is about the sharing. Thanksgiving is more public or communal good than private good. And so, if you do it well, the particular elements of Thanksgiving including the wine will play a secondary role to the general warmth of the shared experience.

I used to get frustrated when wine wasn’t the centerpiece of gatherings, some of which were actually organized to celebrate the wine. But then I got over it. Wine is doing its job when it makes everything else better. Don’t you agree?

This fact changes a bit how you might approach your choice of a Thanksgiving wine to share. Cost is nearly irrelevant. Picking a wine that draws undue attention to you (and  your fine taste or great wealth) almost defeats the purpose.  A modest wine that makes everyone smile — maybe something with bubbles? — will serve very well. And then you can concentrate on what Thanksgiving is really about.

That said, no one will complain if you bring a nice Port, Madeira, or Sauternes to savor at the end of the meal.

>>><<<

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Enjoy the wine and the feast and most of all each other!

I must say, I couldn’t agree with Mike more.  Thanksgiving is, my personal favorite holiday.  Yes, it is a day of some indulgence, but if that indulgence stops with food or wine, you have missed the point of life.  It is a day that is set aside as special.  You wear a nicer shirt, you may even throw on a sports coat.  You put out your finer china, the special family set you only use a few times a year.  You honor the tradition of generations past you may have never met, while your kids run around making memories that they will carry with them and share with generations you’ll never meet.  Importantly, based on your family tradition, you share the same meal.  Each family has their own special side dishes, prepared in their own special ways - that one specific dish that if you went to someone else’s Thanksgiving they may not have, and even if they did, would be made in a different way.  These are the things that create a family culture, and as a country, though we lose some of the finer touches that happen at each individual table, we share as a national culture by trimming our work hours, trimming a turkey, and sitting together with the one’s we love.

Wine is an important part of all of this.  It is the lubricant of conversation, the complement to our hard work in the kitchen, and the reflection  on time and place that make this life worth living.

As for my Thanksgiving pairing suggestions, I’d be a bad businessman if I didn’t say to pair your dinner with a Missick Cellars wine.  Although, of course, they’d be great!  I would be a worse winemaker, and a worse host, if I didn’t say, find a wine that means something.  A place you and your family have visited.  A flavor profile that reminds you of your childhood that you can share with your family.  A year or vintage that has some deeper meaning to those around the table.  Thanksgiving is a time for meaning, and the most important wines on your table aren’t those that merely taste the best with turkey, or cranberry, or potatoes, or some vegan vegetable protein for those that don’t eat meat - it is the wine that tells the story of some part of your family, your history or your place.  It is about the story of something you connect to.  Thanksgiving connects us as a people that exist in a place that is not just merely lines on a map, but reminds us that we Americans are a nation.  We need that right now.  We can also use wine to remind those around us of the great times we’ve shared, as we enjoy a moment together where we make new memories.  

I must admit, I studied political theory as an undergrad, and no small part of those studies were dedicated to economic thought.  As an actual economist, Mike nails the point here.  Bubbles, a fun dessert wine, and something not too ostentatious capture the spirit of the day.  I always encourage American wines on such an American holiday, and there are so many great places in the US making wine today.  Grab one, or  few, of those bottles...but also think about a bottle that ties your family to the American narrative.  Open a bottle that provides an emphasis on your own family story.  Whether your national roots are English, Belgian, Italian, French, Brazilian, Mexican, or Lebanese, or any of the great places that make wine in between - enjoy the holiday, open a bottle of summer in a glass, and study, remember, and cherish the faces around you.  This, is what life is all about.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. 

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube. 

Today we are speaking with Phil Plummer of Montezuma Winery, as well as Idol Ridge and Fossenvue Wineries in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Phil's work with these wineries and brands is broad in scope, but some of his small lot projects had come to my attention for their purity, clarity, and deliciousness. Our broad and wide ranging conversation visits deep dives on winemaking, art, music, and social commentary. Phil understands much more than winemaking, but he certainly is mastering the art.

Check out Montezuma Winery at: https://www.montezumawinery.com/

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

You can watch the interview on our YouTube channel here:

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube, and visit my winery in the Finger Lakes at Missick Cellars. 

Episode 0027:

Wine Reads – December 2, 2021

https://wineindustryadvisor.com/2021/09/02/winemaking-hybrid-grapes

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, this is Chris Missick, and welcome to Viti+Culture, and our segment Wine Reads, where we take a look at some of the most interesting, compelling, and even controversial stories and articles in wine.  With harvest behind us and winemaking ongoing in the cellar, I had bookmarked a story from September, that I thought would shed a fascinating light on an entire category of winegrapes that many grape growers on the West Coast of the U.S., and certainly in many of wine growing regions around the world, have very  little experience with, than is hybrid grapes.  Although I personally farm vitis vinifera, Riesling, Cabernet Franc and Chenin Blanc, I work with growers and make wines from a wide variety of hybrid grapes here in the Finger Lakes.  From Seyval Blanc, Vidal Blanc, and Cayuga, as white varietals, to Marechal Foch, De Chaunac, Marquette, Baco Noir, Chambourcin as red varietals.  

Some receive their own bottling, most are components in delicious, but cost effective blends, and all are worthy of more attention and some discussion.  I’ve enjoyed some wonderful hybrid wines from Switzerland, and tasted some remarkable hybrid wines from places like Missouri, Michigan, and Tennessee.  These varietals make winemaking possible, where vinifera otherwise wouldn’t survive or thrive.  They also lend a new light on sustainability efforts, requiring less sprays, and less concern over certain aspects of canopy management or cold damage.  

Coming to us from the Wine Industry Network ADVISOR, Kathleen Willcox discusses these varietals in a piece entitled The Future of Winemaking is Hybrid, and details why “U.S. winemakers are seeking out non-vitis vinifera grapes.”  Links to the article are in the shownotes, and I encourage you to check out the article.  According to her bio, Kathleen Willcox writes about wine, food and culture from her home in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. She is keenly interested in sustainability issues, and the business of making ethical drinks and food. Her work appears regularly in Wine Searcher, Wine Enthusiast, Liquor.com and many other publications. Kathleen also co-authored a book called Hudson Valley Wine: A History of Taste & Terroir, which was published in 2017. You can follow her at @kathleenwillcox.  So here we go:

The Future of Winemaking Is Hybrid

https://wineindustryadvisor.com/2021/09/02/winemaking-hybrid-grapes

By Kathleen Willcox - September 2, 2021

Why US winemakers are seeking out non-vitis vinifera grapes

—Kathleen Willcox

There will always be a place for conventionally produced vitis vinifera. But, in truth, more and more influential producers and consumers are looking for something with a little more soul, and a lot more edge.

Hybrids—especially in the challenging grape-growing zone of the East Coast—have become ascendant for several reasons.

First, more consumers are seeking out unconventional, organically grown wines. IWSR predicts that by 2023, about 976 million bottles of organic wine will be consumed, up 34 percent from 720 million in 2018.

Younger wine lovers are especially keen to find wines produced from sustainably grown grapes, according to Silicon Valley Bank’s most recent Wine Industry Trends and Report, which stated “sustainability, health and environmental issues,” in tandem with concerns over “social justice, equity and diversity,” are driving the purchasing decisions of Millennials and members of Gen Z.

Unfortunately growing classic vitis vinifera in certain East Coast regions is nigh impossible without nuking them with chemicals.

But growing hybrids pretty much anywhere is arguably easier. And more eco-friendly.

Thankfully, the pioneering work of scientists and early adopters of non-vinifera grapes have helped yield a new generation of growers, producers and consumers who embrace them.

The Hybrid Science

Programs at Cornell University and University of Minnesota have created thousands of new varieties of grapes designed to combat diseases and weather challenges. Grapes that emerge from these programs are typically crosses between so-called European vinifera, and others native to North America and Asia, like riparia, labrusca and rotondifolia.

Cornell has been working on developing hybrid grapes for more than 100 years.

“Genetic sequencing technology has come a long way, and in the past 10 years we have been able to use sequencing to quickly determine cold hardiness and disease resistance,” says Bruce Reisch, a professor who specializes in grapevine breeding. He joined Cornell in 1980, and since then, has released 10 new wine grapes and four seedless table grapes. He explains that they are not genetically modifying the grapes, merely determining which ones will flourish in challenging conditions, and pursuing the more promising hybrids.

For wineries like Shelburne Vineyard in the Champlain Valley, where winters are harsh, springs rainy, and summers humid, the work of scientists like Reisch is nothing less than essential.

“Shelburne has been planting hybrids since 1998, and while they pioneered hybrid grape growing in Vermont, we have all been thrilled to see how much the market has grown and developed,” says winemaker Ethan Joseph, who joined Shelburne in 2008. “We’ve learned how important site selection, careful vineyard management, and low intervention winemaking are. We treat our hybrids with as much care and thought as other growers treat their vitis vinifera, and that has allowed the terroir and the best qualities of these grapes to shine through.”

Joseph’s ultimate goal is to eliminate the use of chemicals, a feat he says would be “impossible” if they grew all vitis vinifera. He’s most excited about Marquette (a Pinot Noir hybrid with notes of cherry, pepper and summer berries), Louise Swenson (a white hybrid with acidity, and floral notes), and La Crescent (a white wine hybrid with notes of apricot, citrus, and peach).

In 2017, Shelburne went out on a limb and pushed aggressively into the natural wine and hybrid space with Iapetus. “That line has skyrocketed,” Joseph notes. “Now it comprises about 40 percent of our 5,000-case annual count.”

Convincing the Consumer

Colleen Hardy, co-owner of Living Roots Wine Co. in the Finger Lakes and Adelaide, concurs. She launched Living Roots in 2016, in partnership with her South Australian winemaking husband Sebastian as a kind of cross-global viticultural experiment.

“We wanted to use grapes in both regions that are, first and foremost, climate appropriate,” Sebastian Hardy says. “In the Finger Lakes, that means Riesling, Pinot Gris, and Gewürztraminer, but also Aromella, Arendell, Rougeon, Regent and Petit Pearl.” The couple, who sells 85 percent of their production from their tasting room, doesn’t have trouble hand-selling their hybrid and hybrid-vitis vinifera blended wines. “Once we talk visitors through it.”

Colleen Hardy says that finding high-quality hybrids is dependent on the grower. “We offer to pay more if they grow it with the same care that we expect with vinifera, and hold off on spraying,” she says

“In the Hudson Valley, especially if you want to grow organically, hybrids are necessary,” says Todd Cavallo, who founded Wild Arc Farm in Pine Bush, N.Y. with his wife Crystal. “We lost our entire crop of Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir in 2018. We replanted some of the Pinot Noir, but the rest we planted to hybrids.”

Wild Arc’s one-acre estate vineyard is primarily experimental though; they source most of their grapes.

“We are working with other like-minded producers who want organically grown hybrid grapes,” Cavallo explains. “A lot of [hybrids] have been grown for bulk wines, but we are promising growers that if they change their farming practices, we’ll pay more.”

By working cooperatively, Cavallo and others hope that they can simultaneously increase the value of hybrid fruit, and change market perception. 

Philadelphia-based Alexandra Cherniavsky, a sommelier and consultant who finds distribution for wineries at restaurants, has seen the market for hybrid wines change firsthand. But she believes there’s still a long way to go before restaurants are ready to open their lists to hybrids.

“Once people try wines made from hybrid grapes, they’re a lot more open,” she says. “They sell well in tasting rooms, where the winemaking team can explain their history and provide context.”

But if they’re going to take off, they need to appear on more restaurant lists. “Wineries should approach local restaurants armed with the educational materials and context they provide at the tasting room. If they know how to explain them to diners, they’ll be a lot more liable to put them on the list,” Cherniavsky says.

Not Just for Challenging Climates

The East Coast is hardly the only place hybrids are found. At Bells Up Winery in Newberg, Oregon, winemaker Dave Specter says that their Seyval Blanc is farmed with fewer chemicals than his vitis vinifera. And, the wines have achieved “cult status,” selling out every year.

“We are the only planting of Seyval Blanc in Willamette Valley, and only the second in Oregon. It’s not only a part of our plan to diversify our vineyards and enable us to react to climate change, but also part of our larger push to appeal to younger, more adventurous consumers,” he says.

A parallel movement, PIWI, is happening in Europe, although as Reisch explains, it’s slightly different.

“Most of Europe does not have the harsh winters that we do here,” he says. “The hybrid programs there are inherently very different, because their grapes are being crossed with the goal of resisting different disease and weather pressures.”

Some regions have yet to open the door to hybrids; they’re banned in France in wines with appellation names, but for a certain type of American winemaker—and consumer—that kind of prohibition only makes them more enchanting.

____________________________________________________________________

As a producer, I have experience many of these anecdotes firsthand.  Year after year, our bold red blend of hybrid grapes, our crisp dry Seyval Blanc, our Charmat produced blend of hybrid whites, and our balanced but sweet Moscato made from Valvin Muscat, a grape developed by Bruce Reisch, are among our bestsellers.  In our immediate region, our Seyval Blanc sees perennially brisk sales at off-premise retail locations.  I craft these wines with the same dedication as every other wine, and consumers love them.  They still do not receive the recognition they should from major wine publications, but they keep our customers happy, and that keeps us in business. 

Even I admit to stressing our production of vinifera varietals, from sparkling to still, and from white to red.  It is afterall, what we personally grow.  But I commend the three growers I work with in the Finger Lakes, that year after year, with drastically less inputs and nearly regardless of weather, grow and deliver clean and delicious fruit.  When I left California to make wine in the Finger Lakes, people questioned why I made the transition.  A major component for me was the sense of adventure, and feeling of it being a frontier.  Frontiers introduce us to new things, they force us to think differently, and find new ways of addressing challenges.  For a century, the Finger Lakes and much of the East coast has done that through developing grape varietals that suit the climate.  Today, it’s done with those considerations in mind as well as with a thought towards preservation and conservation.  Saving a pass through the vineyard with the tractor means one less spray, or more, and that means less compaction of the soil, and better soil health.  Every little thing we do adds up, and just like that, a century of lessons from the frontier may impact the world of wine in the century to come. 

 If you’re a wine writer, feel free to forward me an article for consideration at viticulturepodcast@gmail.com.  I’m happy to look it over, and maybe even discuss it with you on the show.

Please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube. 

Today we are exploring how one person found his way into the wine industry, and the steps he's taking to learn winemaking. Matt Butts is currently working in the cellar after years of working in tasting rooms, and a career in welding before that. In this show, we highlight one path towards becoming a winemaker, and the steps Matt has taken to achieve his dreams.

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

You can watch the interview on our YouTube channel here:

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube, and visit my winery in the Finger Lakes at Missick Cellars. 

Episode 0029:

Wine Reads – January 1, 2022

Hi, this is Chris Missick, and welcome to Viti+Culture, and our segment Wine Reads, where we take a look at some of the most interesting, compelling, and even controversial stories and articles in wine.  On the heels of this holiday break, I have decided to take a few spur of the moment trips, one to the Yadkin Valley in North Carolina, and the other to the Texas  Hill Country in mid-January.  I’ve heard so many great things about both regions, and the Hill Country in particular, and figure it will be a nice break from the upstate winter we’ll be fully enmeshed in.  With that in mind, my Google News Alert with the keyword Finger Lakes popped up with this message about Fredericksburg, widely considered the heart of the Texas Hill Country AVA.  It’s an AP wire story, so I don’t have an author to directly credit, but you can find the article by googling the title, Fredericksburg pleases the palate in a Texas-size way.

So here we go:

“California has Napa and Sonoma; New York has the Finger Lakes and Texas has Fredericksburg,” said Jesse Barter, owner of Hill & Vine Restaurant as he poured a ruby-hued Tempranillo into my glass.

It does indeed. The Hill Country west of Austin and north of San Antonio includes Texas-sized acreage devoted to wine production, making it the second largest AVA (American Viticultural Area) in the U.S.

The Central Texas Hill Country is one of two major wine-producing regions in the state – the other being the Llano Estacado (Staked Plains) in Texas' northwestern corner.

Here in the Hill Country, some 100 wineries dot the landscape along Highway 290, known as the Wine Road, from Fredericksburg to Austin. Fifty of those are in Fredericksburg itself, with 50 more in the permitting process.

More about the wines later, but back to Barter and Hill & Vine. When I was there for dinner the restaurant had been open for three weeks, and if you were lucky enough to snag a reservation at all, the waiting time for a table was often two hours or longer.

The buzzy crowd sipping cocktails while they waited didn’t seem to mind. Yes, the food is that good. Most everything has a Texas twist — the hummus, for example, contains black-eyed peas. The taco is stuffed with snapper from the Texas Gulf Coast, while the onion rings use onions from the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas.

I ordered the watermelon and green tomato salad with mint and basil leaves, spiced local pecans and herbed goat cheese with a citrus vinaigrette dressing, and thought it the tastiest salad I have ever had.

That was followed by the smoked Santa Maria Tri-Tip with smoked chili butter, sea salt, roasted butternut squash and Brussels sprouts with a chili salsa. Dessert was Croissant Bread Pudding with bourbon anglaise sauce. You get why people are willing to wait two hours for a table.

Now, back to that award-winning Tempranillo. You just know that this being Texas, they wouldn’t be satisfied with a mere medal of excellence, and they didn’t have to be. Hill & Vine’s vintage won a saddle (yes, a saddle) at a wine competition during the Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show, and pardner, that beats a medal any day.

Hill & Vine is just the latest addition to a remarkably robust dining scene for a town of 12,000 people. Alas, I didn’t make it to the Granite House or Vaudeville Bistro, two lauded dining spots, but I did do dinner one night at Otto’s German Bistro.

The German influence is strong in the Hill Country as German settlers were the only ones able to forge a tenuous co-existence with the native Comanche Indians who ran off others attempting to put down roots. Today, you’ll see examples of German culture everywhere.

The menu at Otto’s transcends schnitzels and sauerbraten to include dishes such as Steelhead Trout and Deep Sea Prawn with green pea puree, sugar snap peas, snow pea shoots and tomato oil, and veal loin with broccolini, mushrooms, sweet potato puree and almonds.

I did go German and ordered the Wurst Platte (smoked paprika gruyere sausage, German potato salad, house made sauerkraut and house made spicy mustard.) I was glad I did.

The menu changes weekly, and Otto’s gets most of its ingredients from local, organic or sustainable farms, ranches and fisheries.

There’s no dearth of breakfast and lunch options either. Try Caliche Cafe for the former — the Salmon Eggs Benny are to die for. Clear River Ice Cream & Bakery makes a good lunch stop — you don’t have to eat one of their 47 flavors of ice cream for lunch, but you can if you want to.

Finally, don’t miss Das Peach Haus. This multipurpose facility tempts those in search of shopping, sipping, dining and learning.

The general store sells everything from jams and jellies to chipotle and BBQ sauces. Shoppers can sample their peach cobbler or peach cider while browsing.

I had dinner there beside a small lake and under a canopy of pine trees more reminiscent of East Texas than the Hill Country, and those wishing for a full dining experience can reserve a table. They recently opened a distillery where you can sample their gin and whiskey, and if you’re interested in cooking classes, they are happy to oblige. About the only thing you can’t do is pick the peaches.

Don’t fret. At Jenschke Orchards, you can pick all the plump peaches you want from the 3,000 trees in their orchards. You will have to think of a creative way of getting them home as the Orchard doesn’t ship outside of Texas.

As strange as it may seem to those who equate the American wine scene with California and Oregon, Texas is one of the country’s leading wine producers, and Fredericksburg ranks right behind Napa as a destination for lovers of the grape.

As for that grape, because of its hot climate, Texas excels in Mediterranean varietals – those found in sultry, steamy southern Spain and Italy.

During a lunch and tasting at Signor Vineyards, I tasted some of these under the expert tutelage of winery host Andre Boada, whose wine pedigree comes courtesy of his Spanish father and French mother. My favorite of the wines Boada poured was an Albareno white, originating in the Galicia Region of Spain, but utilizing Texas grapes.

Signor is one of the Hill Country’s most beautiful wineries. Open only three years, it has become such a popular stop they are adding 40 casitas in the vineyards for overnight guests. Even if you don’t stay overnight, you can sign up for one of Boada’s food and wine classes (Friday and Sunday, $50).

Two other wineries I highly recommend are Pedernales Cellars and Narrow Path Winery and Vineyards.

At Pedernales, the vineyards overlook the scenic Pedernales River, and their white wines come mainly from its sister winery in the High Plains around Lubbock. Narrow Path has a tasting room in Fredericksburg, but make your way to nearby Stonewall to sip in style in their main tasting room overlooking the vineyard.

If you want to combine wine tasting and shopping, do head for Fredericksburg’s picturesque main street. At Becker Vineyards, sip a Viognier from their vineyard 12 miles outside of town where, in addition to grapes, five acres are given over to lavender fields.

To get your alcoholic intake in a different form, drop by Chocolat, specializing in liquor and wine-infused chocolates. The shop offers some 400 different European-style chocolates rotated throughout the year, with about half on display at any given time. Chocoholics will think they have died and gone to chocolate heaven.

When it comes to quality wine, watch out Napa, Sonoma and Finger Lakes – Fredericksburg is gaining on you.

I was fortunate enough to get some great recommendations from the fellows over at the podcast Cork Talk, which focuses on North Carolina wine.  I also reached out on a whim to Chris Brundrett of William Chris Winery in the Hill Country.   I had learned about him and William Chris winery from the wonderfully produced Texas Winemakers, a docuseries currently available on YouTube that features an amazing array of different Texas winemakers and viticulturalists.  He informed me that the Texas Hill Country Wine Symposium had been planned for the week I was visiting, and so I promptly purchased a ticket, and plan on tasting and meeting with a number of great producers in the AVA.  I’ll be bringing my equipment with me, and plan on reporting on the regions while I’m there.  

I’m excited to report on my findings, and in the meantime, if there is a destination, or a winery that you recommend, drop me a line at viticulturepodcast@gmail.com.  In our next episode, this Thursday, we’re sitting down with Tom Wark, a pro in the wine public relations space, and the author of one of the most influential wine blogs - The Fermentation Blog.  Tom is insightful, opinionated, extremely intelligent, and willing to tackle the tough issues in the wine and culture space.  I think you’re going to love this show.  Thanks, and see you soon.

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube. 

Tom Wark, executive director of the National Association of Wine Retailers, a public relations professional specializing in the wine space with Wark Communications, and publisher of the widely read Fermentation Blog, joins me on this podcast. 

Check out Tom Wark at:

The Fermentation Blog at: https://fermentationwineblog.com/

The National Association of Wine Retailers https://nawr.org/

Wark Communications https://warkcommunications.com/

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

You can watch the interview on our YouTube channel here:

John Martini, together with his wife Ann, have farmed grapes in the Finger Lakes since 1973. It’s been a long journey, and it’s time for the next generation to captain this ship.

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube. 

John Martini, who along with his wife Ann, began planting grapes in the Finger Lakes in 1973 after a move to the region from New Jersey.  John and Ann have managed to build a family run Finger Lakes wine brand on the West side of Seneca Lake with Anthony Road Wine Company, endured hard times and great times, and have crafted a legacy their four children and their spouses have a right to be proud of today.  This interview comes as John has passed the torch to his children, and ensured the winery is in good hands for the next generation. 

Check out Anthony Road Wine Company at:

https://anthonyroadwine.com/

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

You can watch the interview on our YouTube channel here:

We start our discussion on the Yadkin Valley in North Carolina with this great piece from Leisure Group Travel:

https://leisuregrouptravel.com/tasty-discoveries-await-travelers-in-yadkin-valley-wine-country/

Episode 0031:

Wine Reads – January 13, 2022

Winter was delayed here in the Finger Lakes, with a fairly wet but warm fall and early winter, by our standards at least, which lulled us into a sense of complacency. Yesterday, however, we had a high of 10° and we’re looking at a few days next week with lows in the negatives. Fortunately most of the vineyards look to be hilled up. In cold regions like this we have a practice called hilling up, where using our tractor, we take some of the dirt from under the vine and pull it up over the base of the vine in a mound. This is meant to protect the graft union, that portion of the vine where native roots stock is grafted onto vitis vinifera. This little bit of a dirt blanket, helps to protect the vine and that extremely susceptible and tender graft Union.  

As I mentioned in our previous wine reads, for the first time in many, many years, I’ve planned some trips, some expeditions to far-flung wind regions throughout the United States. I return on Friday from the Yadkin Valley, in North Carolina. I had the opportunity to taste with some truly remarkable producers. Farmers growing grapes in North Carolina face additional growing pressures I don’t really need to think about in the Finger Lakes, and are experimenting with varietals on a very wide scale. The sheer number of different vinifera varietals the folks are growing in North Carolina is impressive. A wide range of French grapes, Italian grapes, and even some Spanish grapes, are being successfully produced in this 1.4 million acre AVA. I have a full report that I’m working on that will be up soon.  Our look at North Carolina will start with a travelogue, both on our podcast and on our YouTube channel, which will examine the breadth in the variety that you will find in this particular corner of North Carolina. That report will be followed by several episodes of interviews with producers in the region. These producers are all very different, and all very unique. Each have their own special niche when it comes to the North Carolina wine industry.

Next week, I’m off to Texas Hill Country, and will be attending the Texas Hill Country Wine Symposium.  I’m really looking forward to sharing my thoughts on this region.

As I’ve mentioned countless times, but I’ll do it again for our new listeners, my wife is from Toulouse, in southern France. We visit her family as often as we can, and every time we do we always take several days, more if we can, and visit many of the different wine regions throughout the South of France. Places like Limoux, Madiran, Bergerac, Gaillac, Fronton, and dozens of other small wine regions that don’t necessarily appear on the radar of American wine drinkers. I’ve always loved an underdog story. I also love the authenticity that you find in small, particular places that are proud of their unique situation, and terroir. Likewise with American wine, I’m attracted to these frontiers. From places like Hermann Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Idaho, and Pennsylvania, I simply love to explore what folks in our craft are doing in places that aren’t always top of mind for the average American wine consumer or distributor.

With that said, this week’s wine read is actually an older article, one I found when I wanted to provide a sort of and prologue to our upcoming episode on the Yadkin Valley. It’s a look at the region through the eyes of a journalist, and though it outlines some wineries I didn’t visit, and quite frankly some that weren’t even on my radar for my visit, one of the things that I have found in the aftermath of my visit to North Carolina, is that there is far too much that has not been on my radar in this state. It’s an interesting place, ideally situated to grow as a wine region, and one which I think will enter the larger conversation of American wine in the years to come. As American wine consumption becomes more mature, I think what we will begin to see is a bit of what we see when I visit Europe. People begin to learn the specific regions, the types of wines they produce throughout the continent, And select those wines for the appropriate food pairings. America is a great and large country, with so many different potential outcomes for the styles of wines people choose to make. 

To exploit the very best of what we have to offer in this country, we must dig deeper. I dream and see a time when we look at America for all of its diverse viticultural contributions. The point is this, we need to embrace the idea of what different regions in this country are doing well. We need to support these growers so that they continue to explore and figure out what it is their land can provide us with that best suits their place. Jqn 13, 121

Today’s Wine Reads is entitled “TASTY DISCOVERIES AWAIT TRAVELERS IN YADKIN VALLEY WINE COUNTRY.”  It comes to us via Leisure Group Travel.com, and was written by Randy Mink, Senior Editor.  The link is at the top of the show notes and right before the article below, so check out the article and support this publication.  

https://leisuregrouptravel.com/tasty-discoveries-await-travelers-in-yadkin-valley-wine-country/

Tasty Discoveries Await Travelers in Yadkin Valley Wine Country

CLUSTERED AROUND MOUNT AIRY, DOBSON, ELKIN AND OTHER TOWNS IN NORTHWESTERN NORTH CAROLINA ARE MORE THAN 45 WINERIES, EACH WITH THEIR OWN STORY TO TELL.

From a patio overlooking vineyards and the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, I drank in the scenery while savoring my flight of four craft beers from the tap, beers so tasty that I couldn’t decide which one I liked best.

That’s right, beer. Though my adult son and daughter chose to sample the wines of Round Peak Vineyards, I decided to go rogue and try beers brewed by sister company Skull Camp Brewing.

Touring North Carolina’s Yadkin Valley wine region last fall, we came to learn that each of its 45-plus wineries has its own personality and quirks, its own style of winemaking and a unique story to tell. Most of the wineries are small and family-owned. All offer a relaxing experience enhanced by an easy-going Southern hospitality.

The Yadkin Valley of northwestern North Carolina extends from the Virginia state line to south of Winston-Salem, encompassing both the Blue Ridge foothills and the Piedmont. From its headwaters near the Blue Ridge Parkway’s Thunder Hill Overlook, the Yadkin River flows more than 200 miles southeast into South Carolina, making it one of the longest rivers in North Carolina.

The valley’s terrain and climate are similar to those of France’s Burgundy and Italy’s Piedmont wine regions. Wineries in the federally designated Yadkin Valley American Viticultural Area (AVA), not surprisingly, specialize in French- and Italian-style wines. The dry loam soil is ideal for growing European varietals such as Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Tannat and Riesling.

Yadkin Valley’s wine industry took off in the 1990s and has really blossomed in the last 15 years. New wineries crop up all the time. Many of them occupy old farms that once raised grain, tobacco or cattle.

PAIRING WINES AND BEERS WITH A ROUND OF DISC GOLF

Round Peak Vineyards produces 10 French and Italian varietals, using only grapes grown on the 13-acre property, which is just outside of Mount Airy. It is the Yadkin Valley’s northernmost winery.

Perhaps Round Peak is best known for its Nebbiolo, a red wine made from an Italian grape rich in tannins. Owner Ken Gulaian said, “There’s only two of us that grow that grape in North Carolina because it’s a bit of a challenging grape to grow. It’s probably the grape with the most tannins, which a lot of people know are antioxidants.”

Round Peak Vineyards Wine Tasting on Outdoor Patio

Round Peak Vineyards. Credit: VisitNC.com/Sam Dean

From our perch on the terrace attached to the tasting room, we had views of Round Peak and Skull Camp mountains. Meandering through the vines is an 18-hole disc golf course with baskets constructed of retired wine barrels and recycled bicycle wheels. People can rent discs or bring their own.

At sunset we had a chance to walk around the vineyards before retiring to our four-bedroom house, one of two vacation rentals at Round Peak (available through Airbnb and VRBO). Amenities include a fully equipped kitchen, screened-in back porch, two baths and multiple televisions. The walls are adorned in wine-themed decor.

Both homes (“cabins,” as they’re called) sleep up to eight, an arrangement that works well for families or guys/girls getaways. While the homes certainly would not accommodate a motorcoach tour, Round Peak welcomes bus groups for tastings and tours.

Earlier in the day, we had spent time in Mount Airy, which plays up its claim as the hometown of actor Andy Griffith. Star attraction is the Andy Griffith Museum, and shops on Main Street deal in souvenirs related to “The Andy Griffith Show,” the classic 1960s TV sit-com about a sheriff in the sleepy Southern town of Mayberry. Squad Car Tours takes tourists around Mount Airy in restored vintage Ford Galaxies, the kind Andy and his fumbling deputy, Barney Fife, drove in the show.

A SHADE OF GRAY

Haze Gray Vineyards, on a former corn and tobacco farm near Dobson, pays tribute to America’s military. The tasting room, which opened in December 2019, is painted haze gray, the color of U.S. Navy ships, and the mountains visible from the property have a grayish haze. (The phrase “haze gray and underway” is a reference to Navy surface ships that are actively deployed.)

Haze Gray owners Deane and Becky Muhlenberg planted the vineyard in 2015 and opened the winery three years later. There’s also a cabin to rent.

What’s the military connection all about? Deane spent 30 years as a flight officer in the Navy, and his family’s record of military service dates back to the American Revolution. Becky grew up in an Army family, and their son currently serves in the U.S. Air Force. Deane’s flight helmet, from his days as a Navy pilot, is mounted above the tasting bar. Hanging from the ceiling is a prop from the kind of early de Havilland biplane his grandfather flew. Framed photos of the Muhlenbergs’ relatives in uniform adorn the tasting room’s wall of honor, and visiting veterans are encouraged to share their own. Daughter Ashley, an artist, has conducted wine-and-paint nights in the room.

Haze Gray

Haze Gray Vineyards’ Deane Muhlenberg serves guests in the tasting room. Credit: Sam Dean

In 2020 the winery received an award from the U.S. Department of Labor for recruiting and hiring veterans. The employees enroll in the viticulture and enology program at Surry Community College in Dobson, the seat of Surry County, which lies in the heart of Yadkin Valley wine country. (The Surry County Wine Trail counts 20 wineries.)

Haze Gray wines are primarily French-style, with the one exception the Italian-style Pinot Grigio. The Chambourcin, Pinot Grigio and Boot Camp Red (a combination of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and Chambourcin grapes) have won state and national awards. In addition, the Muhlenbergs make a dry and semisweet Traminette, a Merlot, Chardonnay, Petit Verdot and Rose. They grow nine varieties of grapes in the nine-acre vineyard. Cattle also are raised on the 85-acre farm.

MORE YADKIN VALLEY VINEYARDS

Driving around the Dobson area, we made a brief stop at Shelton Vineyards, the largest family-owned estate winery in the state and winner of more than 450 awards. An impressive entrance drive, a spacious retail shop and the Harvest Grill restaurant lend the estate an upscale feel. Tours follow the winemaking process from growing grapes to bottling wine in the state-of-the-art gravity-flow facility, ending with a tasting of five of Shelton’s 14 wines. (Note: The coronavirus pandemic has halted tours temporarily.)

It was brothers Charlie and Ed Shelton of Shelton Vineyards who in the early 2000s undertook the lengthy process of getting government designation of Yadkin Valley as North Carolina’s first AVA. That set the stage for growth in the valley, particularly in Surry County.

Shelton Vineyards

Shelton Vineyards’ retail shop. Credit: Randy Mink

Next on our agenda on that gorgeous fall day was Grassy Creek Vineyard & Winery, north of Elkin. It occupies 225 acres once known as Klondike Farm, a dairy operation that produced the self-proclaimed “best chocolate milk in the world.” The cavernous red barn that housed horse stables in the 1920s is now a tasting room with a cozy fireplace and an artistic cow-motif decor, while the winery is in the dairy barn where Golden Guernseys resided. The dairy-inspired theme carries over to Grassy Creek’s semisweet wines under the brand Klondike Farm. They are served from glass bottles that resemble old-fashioned milk bottles and bear the image of a cow’s head and the tag “Guernsey Table Wine.”

The farm’s history also includes its use as a corporate retreat and event center when owned by Chatham Manufacturing Company, once a major player in North Carolina’s textile industry and the largest maker of blankets in the world. Four of the property’s original 1920s cabins, just steps from the tasting room, provide overnight accommodations. Several partners in the Grassy Creek venture come from a background in textiles.

Grassy Creek

Wine tasting with chocolates in the Red Barn at Grassy Creek Vineyard & Winery. Credit: Randy Mink

Group tours at Grassy Creek can include a wine tasting with crackers, salami and North Carolina cheeses. With our wine we enjoyed raspberry and sea salt caramel chocolates from the Yadkin Valley General Store in Elkin.

It was a perfect day to be outdoors, so we embarked on the two-mile hiking trail that runs from the winery to Carter Falls. Strewn with leaves and pine needles, the path, managed by the Elkin Valley Trails Association, took us through forests and farmlands on our way to the waterfall on Big Elkin Creek.

EXPLORING THE PILOT MOUNTAIN AREA

To get in more of the region’s natural beauty while it was still daylight, we then drove to Pilot Mountain State Park, whose main peak towers more than 2,000 feet over the Yadkin River Valley. At the top, people can take a short trail to an observation area that looks across to the landmark crag, or they can opt for a fully-accessible viewing platform adjacent to the parking area. From the gleaming new visitor center, shuttle service to the upper portion of the park is available on weekends and prime visitor days. Both Pilot Mountain Vineyards & Winery (which opened a new tasting room last August) and JOLO Winery & Vineyards offer fine views of Pilot Mountain.

JOLO Vineyards

JOLO Winery & Vineyards with Pilot Mountain on the horizon. Credit: Sam Dean

The fictional town of Mount Pilot on “The Andy Griffith Show” is a shout-out to real-life Pilot Mountain (pop. 1,500) at the edge of the park. A new downtown tea shop, Yadkin Valley Tea Trade, offers high-quality loose-leaf and herbal teas in a relaxing setting. Teas can be purchased ready to drink or as tea bags to prepare at home. The teahouse also sells jams and baked goods, plus tea accessories, honey, candles and handcrafted gifts.

EATING IN ELKIN

For dinner in downtown Elkin, we feasted on Southern dishes with an artisan touch at Southern on Main. It was hard to choose because everything was so tempting. Dinner entrees include blackened catfish with cheddar grits, shrimp & grits, fried chicken breast in sweet tea brine and creamy pepper gravy, and pan-grilled pork medallions with port cherry sauce, braised red cabbage and mashed sweet potatoes. For starters, the menu lists small plates like fried green tomatoes, black-eyed pea cake and red-neck salad (fries topped with barbecue pulled pork and cheddar).

Southern on Main is on the Surry Sonker Trail, a collection of five Surry County eateries that serve a dessert called sonker, the regional version of fruit cobbler. Besides the excellent blueberry sonker, we shared the decadent bread pudding.

Skull Camp Brewery & Smokehouse 4167 - CREDIT Andy Jay

Skull Camp Brewery & Smokehouse. Credit: Andy Jay

Down the street from Southern on Main, craft beer fans flock to Skull Camp Brewing’s Taproom & Smokehouse, which occupies the renovated Basin Creek General Store building. Popular brews include Knuckle Dragger Double IPA and Basin Creek Blonde. Skull Camp wines are available as well. House-smoked meats like pulled pork, pulled chicken, beef brisket and burgers highlight the food menu. The restaurant/brewery is a stop on the Surry Sonker Trail.

From premium beverages to lip-smacking eats, Yadkin Valley wine country caters to the discriminating palate and does it with heaping helpings of Southern hospitality.

For more information on the Yadkin Valley, visit www.yadkinvalleync.com.

As I wrap up my report on my exciting adventure to North Carolina, please join me next week as we interview John Martini of Anthony Road Wine Cellars. John has been farming grapes in the Finger Lakes since 1973. Together with his indispensable wife and all-around wonderful person, Ann Martini, they have built an amazing family enterprise. This episode is special, as we highlight a phase in John’s life, as he is in the midst of passing the baton of daily operations in management to his three children, who are now all involved in this family wine business. The future for Anthony Road is extremely bright, and John  and Ann have been great stewards in their quest to leave it that way.

Travelogue Series: I start a multi-episode travelogue exposition in 2022, by visiting North Carolina and the Yadkin Valley. In this multi-part series on North Carolina, we’ll explore the Yadkin Valley, meet with producers, and feature several interviews for the YouTube portion of the show with those producers. We will feature Finger Lakes producers in between, and ultimately also explore The Hill Country in Texas, and the wine-growing regions of Idaho.

* Please excuse errors in the text, this was dictated and gently edited.

North Carolina

When I moved to the Finger Lakes a decade ago, I was hungry to find as much information as possible about the region. I wanted to find books magazine articles, podcasts, and nearly anything that would shed light on the history of the region that I was moving to. At that time, there really weren’t very many publications. At the very least, I couldn’t seem to find a short history of how the finger Lakes and become one of the most discussed emerging regions in the United States. There was of course the wonderful book, Summer in a Glass, by Evan Dawson, in which he follows a number of different winemakers through the growing season 2009 in the Finger Lakes. In the absence of such a book, I set out to write one of my own, with much more of an eye towards content marketing for our new winery, and dug into all of the old journals, periodicals, and textbooks on American wine I could find. I published A Sense of Place in 2014, and have been able to use it as a great tool to help educate customers and even tasting room associates. I wasn’t able to find anything quite like that on North Carolina, and realized a lot of the lessons I would learn would have to be done on the ground.

The Yadkin Valley is vast, covering more than 1,300,000 acres. With such a large span of land, I knew that there was going to have to be variation in the topography, and even the climate to a certain extent, within the AVA. I was a bit surprised flying from my layover in Atlanta into Greensboro, to see a dusting of snow covering the ground. For the cold climate winemaker, I just assumed that North Carolina would be significantly warmer than the finger Lakes I had left behind. I was surprised at the temperature spread on the ground that morning was only about 10°, with a balmy 31°F when I landed. Setting out from the airport, and passing through Winston Salem, more than anything else I just wanted to get a feel for the lay of the land. Whenever I arrive in a new place, in order to get my bearings in a sense for what the place looks and feels like, I’d like to just go for a drive. It gives me a better understanding of where the towns are that get referenced in conversation, what some of the local historical landmarks are, and even where the politics of a place takes place. Knowing that I was in the Yadkin Valley, and heading west from Winston Salem towards Yadkin County, and the Yadkin River, I figured why not plug Yadkinville into my GPS.

I had broken up my trip into visiting the southern portion of the EVA for the first day and a half, and the northern portion of the AVA on the second and third days. Highway 218 seems to cut the AVA in half so it was a good working point to begin to discover some of the different wineries I had a particular interest in tasty.

To choose just a few wineries in an emerging wine region is an extraordinarily difficult job. In a sense it’s kind of a gamble, you rely on reputation, customer reviews, and references from people who are much more expertise in the region and then yourself, but so much of wine still comes down to personal taste, and aesthetics. What I had decided I wanted to do, in pursuing a slightly deeper understanding of the AVA, was to look at oneThat was an anchor in terms of the history of the region, to look at a winery that was relatively new, but small and focused on extraordinary quality, and to look at one of the biggest producers in the AVA with an extraordinary offering of a variety of different ones. I figured I would have a chance to taste several other wineries along the way and include them in this report.

Because in so many ways this was a last minute trip many of the people I reached out to likely hadn’t even opened their inbox by the time I was heading out of town. It was the period just after New Year’s, and often times it’s pretty slow start in the new year in the wine industry. I had however, gotten replies from Shelton, that winery that I referenced as a pioneer in the AVA, and really one of the reasons why there is a Yadkin Valley a View today. I had received word back from Childress, the the winery name and founded by Richard Childress, of NASCAR fame. North Carolina is NASCAR country, and Richard Childress has built one of the largest brands, in fact one of the few I had heard of before traveling to North Carolina, while making wine in New York. I also received word from Diana Jones, of Jones Von Drehle, one of the wineries at the northern end of the AVA, and one that had come extremely highly recommended.  Some of the wineries on my shortlist included Ray Lyn, Raffaldino, Shadow Springs, and a handful of others. I guess from the perspective of somebody who is trying to discover a new wine region, one of my only frustrations was not having more direct links to members of winery staff where I could email or contact them directly. I realize this is a problem on my own website, and after experiencing this, something I’ll be change. Sometimes the ease of having an inbox that serves as a catch-all becomes a crutch for us small business owners, but as someone who is seeking some very specific answers to some very specific questions, it can make sense to ensure that those individuals with deeper questions can reach winemakers directly.

In any event, I arrived in Yadkinville, crossing the Yadkin River, and decided to head to town where I could pick up some bottled water and a couple snacks and see what the town offered. Yadkinville is a small town, there doesn’t seem to be much of a culinary scene, and it really is just the county seat. It’s where you go to get permits, and like we have your county planning board meetings. There wasn’t much by way of a presence of wine in the town, but I did notice when I stopped in to the local grocery store, Food Lion, and realized this was a state that sells wine in grocery stores, and they had a small selection of some of the local producers, with Childress being one of them. The wines on offer were very basic, emphasizing the muscadine production of sweet wines from local producers, but there were a few dry reds and whites included on the shelf. Since Yadkinville marked in the center of the AVA, and it was getting to be towards the middle of the afternoon, I figured I would enter wineries into my GPS to see if any were open, and get back on the road. Leaving the main highway I drove beautiful winding roads and very gentle hills in what was largely agricultural countryside. I drove by a winery called Bradford Hills, which was a very small tasting room and an out-building, a small but well manicured vineyard, and it look like a fantastic place to visit on a beautiful summer day. It didn’t look like it would be open until after my flight was departing on Friday, and I quickly realized that I likely would not have a chance to taste many of the wineries that I hadn’t made contact with, during the middle of the week. This meant that a lot of the small producers, wineries about my own winery’s size and smaller, would have to wait for another trip.

After taking some pictures I set back out onto the road, looking at my GPS and seeing what wineries I would be passing on my way to Lexington, where Childress is located and where my hotel room was booked. I noticed that RayLyn could be reached with a small detour. From my research it was a winery that I really wanted to taste at, and I noticed they were open, so I made my way. Even though it is winter, there’s still more sun and warmth then we get in the finger Lakes. The grass was still green, though the trees were bare, and the bare trees opened up the countryside even more so that you could see the hills and buildings, that were off in the distance.

Making my way from Bradford Hill winery, the landscape became less dramatic, slightly flatter, but retaining the same intrinsic quality. Passing fields that had recently been ploughed, the deep tones of brick and garnet that marked the clay that is found all throughout this region, was everywhere. My GPS led me to RaeLyn Vineyards, and upon entering I was impressed. The site was easily accessible from many of the main highways, and from that perspective, it seems to be ideally situated to attract a steady flow of customers. One of the things I’ve learned as a producer, especially one in an emerging region, is how important it is to be able to attract customers in as convenient of a location as possible. When so much of your business depends on people knocking on that cellar door, you want that door to be easily accessible.

RayLyn was marked with a beautiful gate as an entrance, and a a gentle drive through the vineyards towards the tasting room in winery. I passed a small new planting of strawberries and several young rows of blueberries. I particularly like when wine wineries are able to integrate other forms of agriculture into their farms. Whether they are used for any sort of wine production, I think it encapsulates this idea of our responsibility to the soil and to the earth. It also reminds us of the other forms of agriculture that we can be excited about. I’ve begun integrating more produce at our winery, planting cucumbers and tomatoes, peppers and squash, and hope to grow this out in the future.

Approaching the parking lot at Ray Lynn, there’s a very nice outdoor tent that they seem to be able to use for banquets or weddings, and likely overflow for the tasting room if the weather is inclement. At this point in the afternoon the temperature had risen to about 41°, but with that southern sun shining bright, the fresh air combined with the warmth felt wonderful on my skin. And it wasn’t just me, there were a couple folks sitting out enjoying the day on some picnic tables outside the tasting room with a glass of wine. They were polite and smiled and gave me a small raise of the glass as I walked by. I entered the tasting room was read it immediately. People in North Carolina are friendly. I spoke with the tasting room staff, explained I was a winemaker and operated podcast, and had wanted to feature RayLyn on the shelf. This was one of the emails that had gotten lost in my expedited travel plan, and so without an appointment I took a gamble. It was a great choice. The tasting room staff was excited, informed me that her husband was from Watkins Glen, and eagerly brought up the names of some of my favorite producers in the Finger Lakes, folks that they have close personal relationships with. Being from Watkins Glen, of course the Stamp family at Lakewood, received some of the highest praise. She offered to taste me through the portfolio and I happily agreed, this would be my first taste of North Carolina wine In North Carolina.

This winery offers a full suite of different wines, emphasizing dry veneer for a red and white wines, they also offer a beautiful Charmat style rosé, of course some of the sweet wines that have built this region made from the Muscadine grapes, and canned wine as well. We worked our way through the Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and the dry rosé. Review my notes to include some of the specifics about each wine here. Fortunately, the tasting room also had available detailed notes on the chemistry of the wines, the harvest date, and the components that were in most of the blinds. It’s interesting in the finger Lakes, our growing season doesn’t really kick off until May, and that means that most varietals won’t begin harvest until September. Of course there are some hybrid grapes that are harvested much sooner, but those don’t tend to be any of the bridals that I work with. With harvest starting in September, there have been vintages where we are harvesting all the way through early November, and that doesn’t include wines that we are making as light harvest wines, where we can be harvesting all the way to Thanksgiving, or ice wines which may be picked in January or February of the next year. It seems to me, that much of harvest will begin in August here in North Carolina and be ramping up by the end of September. It also struck me that that works very well for those people who enjoy wine country visits in October, during the fall when the air begins to cool and the excitement of all the dressings of fall are in the air. As a wine maker in the finger Lakes, Columbus Day marks our busiest weekend of the year. It also marks one of those weekends where we are fully in mashed in all of the seller activities, and that means I rarely get a chance to spend time with customers during harvest. It would be great to have the opportunity to spend more time as a wine maker with customers just as harvest is wrapping up and tourism is peeking. 

Though I love both red and white wines, my desert island wine will generally consist of a white. For me white wines offer a transparency into Vineyard practice and seller practice that edge out reds. Consequently I spend a lot more time thinking about white wine, I spend a whole lot more time making white wine in the finger Lakes, and I find that I drink or white wine. All of the whites offered at RayLyn were wonderful, some with a small component of Muscat Canelli, which added some wonderful aromatics.  

Add a little bit of the history from the website of RaeLyn here. While tasting Rachel, one of the owners and daughter of the founder, and the ray of RaeLyn stop by to say hi. She made sure that I was enjoying my tasting, and trying to help me make contact with Steve, their winemaker. He had been in Asheville that day and wouldn’t be arriving until later in the week. She gave me his email address and I hope to have him on in the future in a long distance long-form interview. From everything I’ve heard, he’s one of these towering pioneering figures in the Yadkin Valley and someone who is clearly taking their wines to great heights. The Reds were equally as compelling as the whites, and in someways perhaps even more so. You can get the sense when you’re at a winery, what is the family who makes these wines prefer to drink, and I did get that sense here. One of the bottlings, had what I assumed with some modern art on it, but upon looking closer and receiving the explanation understood That it was actually the Doppler radar of a hurricane. Yes one of my questions has been immediately answered, hurricanes can be a factor here in the Yadkin Valley, though they are nowhere near the factor that people who live closer to the coast have to deal with.  Discuss this wine.

After a really wonderful visit at RaeLyn, I ordered a case of wine, had it shipped back to our winery in New York, and set off for Lexington. Again with no familiarity of any of these towns or cities, I chose Lexington because it is the closest town to Childress vineyards. Lexington is nestled in the far south eastern portion of the AVA and most of the city isn’t included in the AVA itself. The town itself is it fairly nice downtown area, and it does feel like there is a small foodie movement emerging, with some local cafés and a Piedmont cheese shop. But in many ways it remains in agricultural and industrial, southern town that I can picture with time and investment has the potential to grow itself into a hub of Wine and food centrality.

Just outside the fenced in property for Childress Vineyards was the Holiday Inn and adjoining plaza.  There weren’t really any shops in the small but nice strip mall that is next to the Holiday Inn, but it is all designed in a very similar fashion to Childress itself. The hotel has one side that looks out at the vineyards which I imagine would be a wonderful way to wake up. I was booked on the highway facing side, but the room is quiet and clean and a nice place to eat my takeout Mexican dinner for the night.

So much of my philosophy is based on the specifics and the importance of place, and tied up with that philosophy is the notion that small is often better. Most of the time, most of the restaurant and dining options I observed, or chains that work cute in to specializing in any notion of local cuisine. Out here it wasn’t even real common to find a lot of barbecue joints, which I half expected to see almost everywhere. Again maybe I wasn’t looking in the right places, but I do have the sense that restaurant and food entrepreneurs will likely have a huge market to tap into if that’s the direction they would like to go in partnering with this growing wine country.

My appointment with Mark Friszolowski was at nine the next morning, and so after getting a good nights sleep and waking up fairly early, I headed over to Childress Vineyards. I was said to meet him in the lobby and as a military man, who retired as a colonel and between his active and reserve duty spent 37 years in the army, I knew that on time was to be 10 minutes early. Driving into Childress which was literally just around the corner from the parking lot of the hotel in through the gates, you pass through a wonderfully manicured vineyard.  The varietals are all identified by signs with the trademark Richard Childress logo, and varietals like Maulbeck and Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and multiple Ciano I’ll stand out. There were signs marking planned plantings of Chardonnay and Pinot noir, which I’m particularly interested to see how they do with the North Carolina heat.

The tasting room and winery set a top of hill which can be seen from almost any point of the drive into the wineries grounds. It is a beautiful Modern take with an Italian 18. It is the sort of Tuscany inspired building but you’ll find Americans like to build. It sets the tone for the romantic visions that we have of European, and especially Italian, winemaking culture. I know that there are some people who don’t like this form of architecture, they don’t like the sense that it calls out and emotive response that she would find somewhere else in the world but with modern building materials and aesthetics. I’ll be honest, I liked it. I think that they put a lot of effort into creating a beautiful building and grounds with a nice setting that makes you feel like that The winery you’re entering is making some special wines, they put in a lot of effort to set a tone and that tone carries through from the heat and painted murals on the wall of scenes of grape harvest, to the indoor fountain, to the seated tasting room with string lights and doors.

This is not the Olive Garden experience, this is something much nicer and with such warm staff, more personal too. The entire tasting room experience was wonderful, The seller tour, The tour of the grounds in the bonded warehouse, explanations on infrastructure projects, a peek inside the restaurant and banquet facility, were all greatly appreciated. Mark was a wonderful host, who poured some great wines. We focused on their vinifera wines,tasting Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, as well as Montepulciano, and some red blends. Mark’s personal history, from his time helping out at Dry Creek Vineyards in California, managing operations at Pindar on Long Island, and ultimately moving to North Carolina to help found Childress. Mark is one of the first winemakers in the country to collaborate on creating the Meritage Alliance, and therefore creating Bordeaux based blends.  The specific vintage of Meritage we tried, the 2015, is a well aged current release. It carried many of the things I love about older Bordeaux, the hints of cedar, the forest floor. It was it both times bolder than what you’ll find in many offerings in the Finger Lakes, but leaner than what you would find in California. And struck a nice middle ground, and was a sort of sweet spot of bold but not overly dramatic red blends that I personally like, and that I think complement food quite well. I’ll be spending an entire feature in an episode with Mark on Childress, so for now we’re going to continue with our travelogue and look at the rest of us the experience here in the Yadkin Valley.

_____ 

In crafting the short travel log, I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t strictly about wine. Most of the time when we travel, there are other things on our quotation mark to do quotation mark list. There are a couple of really interesting tourist activities here in the Yadkin Valley, but deal both with history, pop-culture, and the wonderful natural surroundings. Mark was so generous with his time, but I found myself leaving the winery later than I had expected. I certainly wasn’t disappointed and I had made sure to leave a good window of time to spend at this landmark property. I figured I would spend the rest of the afternoon exploring some of those other offerings, and found my way to highway, and I headed up for the town of Mount Airy.

Mount Airy sits on the North Carolina Virginia border. It is like so many other hill and mountain towns in America, a quintessential snapshot of life in both modern and past American societies. Mountains and hills can I think we people to be a bit more hearty sometimes a bit tougher but always genuinely very nice. The town itself is built around its historic Main Street. And coming in to Mount airy do you understand what that history is all about.  The name of the highway even changes and becomes the Andy Griffith Parkway, and that of course is named after the famous television show an actor that for seven seasons captured the aspirational qualities of American small-town life. With its classic whistling introduction, it’s sensitive skipping Stones and safety and security, of good old fashion morals and values and being raised in small-town life, Mount Airy was the inspiration for the Andy Griffith show fictional town of Mayberry. Mayberry is the corner stone upon which so much of the towns character now rests. You see signs for Aunt Bee’s café, you see the Mayberry antique shops, the Mayberry museum, ice cream shops meant to look like they were preserved from the 1930s, and a sense of pride that their town was once the basis for this dreamscape of Americana. Some of that dreamscape feels a little rough around the edges now, who knows if it was then if that’s what it’s always been, or if the changing times or loss of industrial base, of structural changes to our economy, and even the opioid epidemic that we face in this country, have added a touch of tarnish to the shine. In all, it’s a great place to be, a wonderful old historic town and I’m happy I made a detour.

As you leave Mount Airy and head south on the highway back towards a more central location of the AVA you pass a geological wonder, an outcropping called Pine Mountain. It dominates the skyline and can be seen from many many miles away when you’re on top of hills. Driving past it, and without enough time to drive to the park and visit the mountain personally, I realize that this will be on the top of my list when I have a chance to return with my family and my children. I used to love walks through areas like this when I was a child and I can’t wait for Andrew And Audrey to have that experience with me. I found out, it isn’t the only fascinating geological wonder to explore, as there’s also Stone Mountain, which figured prominently in my second visit on my third day on the ground in the Yadkin Valley.

For that evening I had made reservations in a small town called Elkin, or rather just outside of it, in the adjoining town of Jonesville. Jonesville is the classic sort of truckstop town, that offers some heavy industry, but largely consists of some gas stations, hotels, a Cracker Barrel, fast food restaurants, and a grocery store that serves the locals. It did have a Mexican restaurant, this one called Margaritas, which I took advantage of both nights of my stay in the Hampton Inn.

Arriving at the hotel, it was a little older, but the staff was exceptionally accommodative, the room was perfectly clean, and the setting itself was quiet. When you were on the road there are very few other things that you actually need. Warm cookies were waiting for us as we checked in, and I unloaded my bags and all of our equipment in my room before I set out for the town to see what was available.

Before I set my sights on dinner, I wanted to see Elkin itself. For my own personal aesthetic tastes, this portion of the AVA felt like it matched my desires more closely than the south eastern portion of the AVA. Elkin was quaint but beautiful. As the sun was coming down, the Yadkin River roared not too far away, the train tracks cross run adjacent to the main street, and the town itself seems well put together. Large murals adorn some of the older brick buildings, many featuring grapevines, and the town features a wonderfully restored old theater.

Elkin felt nicer than Mount Airy in someways, not to denigrate Mount Airy at all, but it struck me that Elkin is the sort of town that could deal with in Oakville grocers type of concept, some interesting fine dining that features many of the local wineries strongest efforts, and some other cultural activities. Again it’s the off-season and perhaps there is that sort of activity that is going on that I’m simply not aware of, but I feel like the future for Elkin is bright. There aren’t a lot of accommodations right around downtown, but with all of the hotel options in Jonesville, Elkin will be able to maximize the heads in beds that is so important for wine country tourism.

Interestingly Elkin and Jonesville, where you reach Jonesville by crossing the Yadkin River, are in different counties. I’m not sure if any of the development has anything to do with that, but in my own experience, especially when you’re dealing with the county and town level, so many of the decisions on what can happen and how well a town or region grows, are based on the local politics and the bureaucratic decisions that are made. I’d have to be there for a lot longer to know if any of this is in play.

I picked up some carnitas and pollo asado street tacos, and headed back to my room for another great night sleep. The next morning I had appointments with two different wineries, Shelton Vineyards, and Johns Von Drehle.

I woke up early the next morning, spent some time on my computer making sure that I had transferred all of my photos and videos, refreshing some of my notes from my previous day’s visit, and set out for Shelton Vineyards. Any of my initial skepticism‘s on the beauty of the countryside, how this wine region will grow and what its potential is, we’re set aside as I visited Shelton. Shelton is located in the town of Dobson.

The exit from the highway for Shelton Vineyards also leads you to Surrey Community College. Surrey Community College was constantly a subject of discussion with most of the people in the wine industry that I met. It is a community college with a vineyard and enology program, and one that was largely initiated and funded by the Shelton Brothers the founders a Shelton Vineyards.  Similar to my emphasis in the finger Lakes on the finger Lakes community college Viticulture program, the Surrey community College program helps to introduce and train up the next generation of viticulture lists knickers. The college itself has a program and a 10 acre Vineyard where students can learn. Against that backdrop of both philanthropy and history, I was excited to have the chance to meet with Ethan Brown, winemaker in Shelton in Vineyards. Ethan had been there for four years, and in a way that completes the circle of the importance of programs like the one at Surrey community college, he attended the program many years ago. Ethan was a young organized dynamic guy, and he wasted no time in showing me around the winery tasting room, and providing a little bit of context for the history of the place. 

Currently the largest vinifera vineyard in the state of North Carolina, Shelton farms 80 acres of grapes with plans to plant a lot more. Exceptionally manicured, with beautiful old fashion light posts lining the long driveway from the highway to the winery, Shelton truly transports you to a different world. The gentle rolling hills adorn with a backdrop of the mountains, which on clear warm days, I can imagine, inspires you to find your own piece of beautiful grass, and enjoy a glass and some cheese with someone you laugh. For those wine club members who want the best of views, you can climb up to the gazebo that rests surrounding vineyards and truly has the best features of the entire valley.

Built in 1999, Shelton Vineyards really isn’t showing it’s age that much. It speaks to the efforts of the staff to ensure maintenance is done regularly and things are taken care of. The cellar itself is built into a hillside which means most of it is underground. The barrel rooms are probably 20 feet high but at least 2/3 of that being underground meaning temperature control from both cold and heat is a lot easier and done with much less energy.  Producing around 25,000 cases a year, this is a Winery that has seen the baton passed from the founding Shelton brothers to the next generation. With that transition is an intention to grow their programs and initiate new ones. With the recent purchase of a break tank and a small hand bottling counter pressure system the winery seeking to do more charmat style sparklings. Ethan also talked about expanding cock and re-instituting their traditional methods Sparkling Wine program.

I tasted a Sauvignon Blanc, a dry rosé based on Merlot, Petit Verdot, and a Petit Verdot/Cabernet Sauvignon blend.. All of the wines were exceptionally crafted, showing what I had begun to discern as something that speaks to the North Carolina fine wines that I tried. The whites and the reds are both fuller bodied than what we find in the Finger Lakes, they have generous acid ,but lower than what we have in truly cool climate winemaking; and the reds weren’t overly extracted. They spoke of great fruit, they were well balanced, and their alcohols were generally about 13%. I also tasted a great Tannat. My wife and I have visited Madiran in southern France, I’ve had a lot of experience with the French version of the varietal. We visited a number of producers large and small in Madiran, and I love those wines, there just aren’t that many American Tannat’s that I have fallen in love with. Of course the wines of Jenny McCloud of Chrysalis have been wonderful, and I’ve been lucky enough to cellar those for many years. This North Carolina Tannat, my first experience with a varietal in the terroir, makes sense for the region. There are some very strong Virginia Tannats that are growing, and with this particular vineyard in North Carolina, I renewed my love of the varietal. As with Childress, and the winery I’ll be talking about next, Jones Von Drehle, Shelton will have its own feature in the podcast, as I sat down with Ethan Brown to discuss his own experience, Shelton Vineyards, and where the region and the winery is going.

As Ethan and I wrapped up, and he was generous enough to spend several hours and taste a lot of wines with me, I headed off for my last visit of the day to Jones Von Drehle. The roads grew less crowded, the bends and winds and hills became more dramatic, and I started to wonder where in the heck was this place. I arrived early, about an hour or so, and took advantage of the opportunity to do just a little bit of driving and perhaps find something to eat. I typed in food nearby and the nearest place was the Stone Mountain General store. It wasn’t too far from the Stone Mountain State Park entrance, and so I figured I’d head over there and see what was available. The general store itself feels plucked from time. An old rustic wooden building, but offers inside a few knickknacks, necessities for campers such as para chord, fire starters, and offers a few small food items for the weary traveler camper. Simple offerings like a hamburger or cheeseburger, or a housemaid turkey or ham sandwich were available. The turkey sandwich tasted like home, although it was on white bread. Turkey, American cheese, lettuce, tomato: all for $2.95. It wasn’t the most glamorous meal I’ve ever had in wine country, but it filled me up, tasted just fine, and was certainly marked as my cheapest option I’ve ever had on the road. I took advantage and drove around the park a bit, didn’t have a chance to see Stone Mountain itself but just like Pine Mountain, this will be on my itinerary for the next visit, one I hope to take with the family.

Heading back down the hill I arrived at my appointment just on time at Jones Von Drehle, and boy was I impressed. The Vineyard itself has two entrances, a service entrance and a guest entrance. I can tell it was an extremely quiet day but I wanted to have the standard customer experience, and so I entered the other guest entrance. Driving down the crusher run you are snaked through the vineyards, pass the retention ponds, as the tasting room and winery, and brand new amphitheater open up before you. It is an impressive and beautiful experience. The slope of the hills hug you to your right as you wind your way around the vineyards on one side nature on the other and approach your final destination. The hills jumped in different directions the vines bear open up the view to see row after row in this well-kept vineyard. The amphitheater itself is gorgeous. Recently finished it’s part of the philosophy of the owners to incorporate wine music in food into living a good life. 

The tasting room is not extraordinarily elaborate in it’s design, but it’s well thought out and well appointed inside. The most impressive feature, is the immersive feeling you get when you walk in turn to your right and look out the windows in the back of what is the tasting room. The slopes feel even more dramatic here from the vineyards, and with the trees bare of their foliage you can peer through the trunks to see the steep incline of the Granache and the Malbec and other varietals.  Well lit, and open, without any sense of clutter, the tasting room invite you to a horse shoe shaped bar in the middle were the tasting room attendant who was very nice and gracious, and the new to the wine industry expressed an amazing thirst for knowledge, that is extremely inviting.

Diana Jones was waiting for me, and informed me that her husband Chuck was on his way back from Charlotte where they had been delivering some wine. This 6000 case winery is centered around 30 acres of a estate vineyard. They do not have a distributor, and unfortunately don’t ship to New York state right now, but when they get that license, I can assure you I’ll be ordering more wines. Everything was wonderful and unique. From their Grenache rosé, to their Chardonnay - both stainless steel and barrel fermented, to the real interesting Petit Manseng, which carries a fairly heavy alcohol, but is it so well balanced on the pallet that it is neither distracting nor over the top. It is well balanced and full bodied, and a wine that they described as being extremely popular at restaurants who have received James Beard‘s nominees and nods, as a “buy the glass” pour.

Tasting through their Grenache rosé, this dry rosé echoed Provence with its own North Carolina flair. It was a wonderful wine and one I decided I had to take one home. Their red offerings were equally as compelling. Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignon blend - all were well-crafted, clearly brilliantly grown, and offered everything I could hope for. Their winemaker, cut his teeth in California, spending decades in the industry until he finally decided he wanted to have a small farm himself and, with land prices in California being what they are, realized the East Coast offered his best opportunity to become a farmer himself. He took over the reins at Château Morissette in Virginia, and this large production oriented winery did well for him for sometime.

As he sought to become more ingrained in a small production oriented facility, he had heard about the efforts of these two crazy couples from Atlanta Georgia with original roots in North Carolina, that had planted an estate vineyard in the middle of the hills just south of Stone Mountain. It’s been a match made in heaven and with Dan’s experience, and the attention to detail in Vineyard, the wines are truly top-notch.

The way the Vineyard is set up, many of the worst things that you deal with in the Yadkin Valley AVA, are ameliorated naturally. Water naturally runs down the clay hill slopes, with the help of some drain tile. The intense humidity and moisture that you deal with in North Carolina, is marginalized by the fact that the steep hills along with the fact that the mountains are in the distance, create an almost constant airflow which helps to dry the canopy and the fruit during crucial periods of the year. Additional measures such as the first cordon being 42 inches high instead of 36 inches from the ground help reduce ground moisture from impacting the fruit. The whole property is fenced to keep our critters. The wind also helps to protect the vines from early-season frosts, which often compromise buds, particularly the primary buds where the majority of the fruit is located, and get them through very treacherous periods where the temperatures will impact that year‘s harvest. And overall just the amount of effort that the team here puts into their vineyards, the philosophy that fine wine comes from extraordinary vineyards rings true.

We go even deeper into Jones Von Drehle in our long-form interview, which is slightly shorter than the long form interviews I do from the studio, but nonetheless will give you a much deeper picture of this winery it’s history and it’s increasingly prominent role in the North Carolina wine industry.

Returning to Elkin for the evening, I had wished I brought an extra bottle to enjoy that evening. Instead I did what we winemakers often do and grabbed some local beers, picked up another to go order of Mexican food from Margaritas, and spent some time recapping the visits with my wife, enjoying the shrimp chipotle that I filled into some fresh corn tortillas, and then headed to bed. The next morning I would be leaving the Yadkin Valley, and any initial apprehension that I had as to where this wine region was, was disappearing. When it came to food, Diana Jones had mentioned that Asheville and Raleigh were truly astounding foodie towns. With that as a basis, it won’t take long for some enterprising young chef or cook who wants to do their own project, to find their way to one of the small towns and make it work during the busy tourist seasons.

Yet again, I woke up early worked on my computer for a bit, and double checked my itinerary checking in to my Delta flight. I realized at this pace, I may not have time to taste at any other wineries, but I could at least take a peek at the landscapes in the settings that the region had to offer. I took a drive out to a winery that I had really wanted to visit, but in this trip just couldn’t make it work.  Raffaldini is widely regarded as not just an important landmark in North Carolina wines, but a house that is making some truly stellar North Carolina wines.  From all my research, it is the sort of aspirational wine story that is bred in a man who worked hard and made a great deal of money in another field. Using those resources, he has poured them in to building a truly astounding estate. You can look at pictures on the Internet, you can watch videos on YouTube, but with some properties you don’t understand just how special they are until you actually visit them. And so setting Raffaldini in my iPhone map, I headed in the direction of the winery.  

Driving down the highway, North Carolina has done such an excellent job in featuring the different wineries throughout the state with these large highway adjacent signs, that I quickly realized this was a pocket of the AVA I should’ve explored right away. Instead of one or two wineries indicated there were multiple. And not only were there multiple, they were all wineries that in my research into the region, come vaguely familiar with. Wineries like Laurel Gray, Shadow Springs, Raffaldini Vineyards, Piccione, and several others. That last winery was one that I heard mentioned multiple times when I was tasting in different tasting rooms and talking with local proprietors of every sort.  If there is a small pocket of fine wines, with multiple wineries working towards the same goal, emerging in North Carolina, this may be the place.

There are of course a lot of people doing a lot of great work throughout the entire region. But one thing I have understood in my research of, particularly American wine, is that like the person who wants to start a gas station, the very best place you can locate a new gas station is across the street from an existing gas station. The logic may seem counterintuitive, but if people start to think of that intersection as a place to get gas, then that is where they will get gas. Likewise in wine, tourists often don’t take the extraordinary measures of researching soil types, property histories, winemakers, and all of the other factors that lead to a specific winery making great wines. They look for the clusters where numerous proprietors are working on their own, sometimes in concert with their community, to pull the best fruit from their land and produce the best wines from their grapes. If there is an early nucleus that we can expect the North Carolina wine country in the Yadkin Valley to flourish from, my sense was, this might be it. With that said, I did not have an opportunity to taste any of these wines.

For those listening who are interested in exploring North Carolina wines, I would certainly say that visiting any of the wineries I have mentioned is a prerequisite. But I think that in my next visit, I will certainly start in this particular part of the AVA. I will likely visit Raffaldini, Piccione ,and many of the other surrounding wineries. I would not miss out on visiting either Shelton or on Jones Von Drehle Vineyards Winery or Childress. But I think that this particular corner of the AVA is fostering a sort of spirit that seems to be building upon itself. There are no restaurants nearby, there are no hotels within a 1 mile drive most of these places. For the entrepreneurs listening, I would expect that to change, because this seems to be where some of the energy for the AVA seems to be admitting from.

I guess as a closing retrospective, there is an immense amount of differentiation within the Yadkin Valley AVA. From topography, to culture, to wine styles produced by the different wineries. When I landed, and first began to explore the very core of this viticultural area, I will admit to feeling a little underwhelmed. That feeling began to dissipate upon visiting RayLyn, and after tasting at Childress I was excited. The entire focal point of the trip changed as a ventured outside of the south east quadrant and moved into areas that, admittedly, felt a little bit more familiar. Call it a personal bias, call it a personal preference.

My conclusion is this… The Yadkin Valley AVA is vast, it includes so many different specific tear wars, that it’s difficult to call it one region. From the wind and hills at Jones Von Drehle, to the gentle slope‘s just south west of the northern reaches of the AVA, to the flatter more populated areas in the south east corner of the viticultural area.  What I can say is this, each producer I visited produced all level of quality that far surpassed any of my expectations. Too many regions I visit , Or rather have visited in my life, think of themselves as Napa in the 1970s. This is not Napa in the 1970s, because this is not America in the 1970s. This is North Carolina in 2022, and it is full of surprises, and beauty, and wines that will surprise at every turn. Is this a region worth visiting question?  If you are an American who loves wine, this is a region you must visit. You will fall in love with many of these wines. I don’t know what your personal preferences, I don’t know if you like red or white, or lean or bold, or salty whites or tannic reds, but you will love it. You will find wines you love and you will want to taste these wines the rest of your life. In vino Veritas, and in North Carolina, there is indeed, great wine.

________

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

You can watch the interview on our YouTube channel here:

As we explore North Carolina wine, this winemaking veteran crafts a dizzying array of beautiful wines in the Yadkin Valley.

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube. 

Check out Childress Vineyards at:

https://childressvineyards.com

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

We continue our Yadkin Valley, North Carolina wine series with Diana Jones, of the remarkable 35 acre estate vineyard, Jones von Drehle Vineyards and Winery.

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube. 

Check out Jones Von Drehle at:

https://www.jonesvondrehle.com/

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

In this interview, I share my conversation with Diana Jones, one of the proprietors of Jones Von  Drehle, located in Thurmond, North Carolina.  I have visited hundreds of vineyards throughout the world in my life, but there is magic in the air at Jones Von Drehle.  Its isolated location, the serendipitous even fateful beginnings for this property and this vineyard, the working relationship between two sisters and their husbands in growing this winery, and their philosophy, of place, of authenticity, and of excellence, combine to make this one of the most memorable visits to a vineyard in my life.  There is no pretension here, just slow and steady dedication to an ancient craft, one that requires hard work, but that promises a delightful reward.  Diana and her husband Chuck discussed the history of the winery with me, tasted me through whatever I was interested in from their portfolio, and showed me around the winery.  It was a  taste of home as the tanks were all manufactured  by Vance Fabricators, a metal engineering firm located in Geneva, New York, just down the road from the podcast studio.  Their wine tanks adorn my own cellar, and their quality is second to none.  

The property itself is dedicated to 30 acres of grapes, and we’ll discuss the varietals in the interview.  The  banquet room is now complete where they will host wine dinners and special events, the commercial kitchen is small, but can handle everything a chef needs, and the new amphitheater is ready to entertain.  Set in a location that  abuts the vineyards, this location will feel like magic for both musicians and entertainers, and the guests visiting the winery.  As we were speaking throughout my tasting, the song “It’s a Great Day to be Alive,” came on over head.   The Travis Tritt classic always brings a smile to my face, and I could tell Chuck noticed it.  Although not in the interview,  Chuck shared a story with me that I wanted to relay.  His father, who had been a small business owner,  had told him years ago about a delivery driver he had, a hard worker, but a guy with an amazing voice and a pretty good guitar player too.  Travis was a great worker, but eventually went on to other things.  It was until after his father  passed away, until Chuck and his brother were sharing old stories about their dad.  As Chuck was recounting the story, his brother interrupted - you know that was Travis Tritt, right?  Chuck was aghast, and excited.  He’s made it a priority to try and book Travis Tritt for an upcoming show, and quite frankly, listening to his songs, sipping on Jones Von Drehle, and enjoying a North Carolina evening, truly sounds like it would be a great day to be alive.   

We conclude our Yadkin Valley, North Carolina wine series with Ethan Brown, a member of the next generation of Yadkin Valley winemakers, and winemaker at Shelton Vineyards - a pioneer in North Carolina fine wine.

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube. 

Check out Shelton Vineyards at:

https://sheltonvineyards.com/

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

In this interview, we’re speaking with Ethan Brown, winemaker at Shelton Vineyards in Dobson North Carolina.  As pioneers of the Yadkin Valley AVA, Shelton Vineyards is the largest estate vinifera winery in the state of North Carolina, and one of the oldest in this young wine region. 

Ethan carries a heavy responsibility for building on a tradition of winemaking excellence, and charting a new path with new product lines for Shelton.  Ethan was kind enough to take me around the  tasting room, the winemaking facility,  and the impressive grounds of this vineyard.  With the Blue Ridge mountains an ever present shadow on the horizon, the gentle rolling hills of Shelton inspire a sense of awe at the beauty of the place.  The winery is built into a hillside, allowing much of the production and aging areas to be entirely underground.  This impressive feature was compounded by exceedingly high ceilings, and a first rate design for the placement of everything from tanks to the bottling line. 

This winery is in a transition, as the baton has been passed from the founders to their children.  This, combined with Ethan’s youth and professionalism, have set the stage for a renaissance at Shelton Vineyards, which I have the sense is about to explode with life and an even further elevation of their reputation.  

I return to the Finger Lakes for an interview with Gene Pierce, the pioneering founder of Glenora Wine Cellars on Seneca Lake in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of New York.  Gene’s experience in vineyards spans more than 50 years, and his leadership in the Finger Lakes wine industry spans more than four decades.  Founding Glenora as the first winery on the west side of Seneca Lake, he blazed a trail for the region shortly after the passage of the 1976 Farm Winery Act. 

If you like this podcast, please be sure to rate us 5 stars in Apple podcasts and like our videos on YouTube. 

Due to the extraordinary amount of time video editing has taken, I have put the YouTube portion of the show on hold for a little while. The podcast will continue, and we will continue to deliver great audio content. Stay tuned for more!

Check out Glenora Wine Cellars at:

https://www.glenora.com/

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

The Texas wine scene is growing by leaps and bounds, and Hill Country as a destination continues its growth at a record pace. In this episode, we change up our format to introduce you to some of the leaders of the Texas wine industry. You’ll meet the Executive Director of the Hill Country Wineries Association, Cliff Bingham of Bingham Vineyards, and Michael McClendon, a winemaker/owner at the custom crush facility, Sage’s Vintage.

Check out our guests and some other great links at:

* Texas Hill Country Wineries: https://texaswinetrail.com/

* Bingham Family Vineyards: https://binghamfamilyvineyards.com/

* Michael McClendon and Sage’s Vintage: https://www.sagesvintage.com/

* Texas Winemakers Docu-Series: https://www.youtube.com/c/TexasWinemakers

* Shelley Wilfong’s “This is Texas Wine” Podcast:

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

My first taste of wine from Texas, was actually a little more than seven years ago. One of the things many people don’t know, is the Finger Lakes international wine competition is largely a fundraiser for a place called Camp Good Days and Special Times, which serves as a retreat for children that are fighting cancer. An additional fundraising stream for Camp Good Days through the competition, is a large banquet that follows the end of the competition.  A component of that banquet is a silent auction of many of the remaining wines.  In 2015, I was invited by Scott and Ruth Osborne, owners of Fox Run Winery, to be their guest for the dinner. Scott, if you recall from our first show, the subject of our very first viticulture interview nearly a year ago, has been called the Robert Mondavi of the Finger Lakes.

The Finger Lakes International Wine Competition is one of the largest in the country, and entrants come from all over the world.  Texas wines have done well in that competition, and one of the lots I had bid on was a case of Gold medal winning reds.  Fortunately for me, many of them came from Texas producers.  Within this box were several Texas producers, one of which I had heard of at the time, but many of which were still new names for me. The Pedernales Tempranillo was a wine I had some vague acquaintance within my mind, probably from reading about it in a magazine or seeing something online. 

In the weeks after winning that auction in 2015, I tasted two of the Texas wines that were in that lot. I enjoyed them, and at the time, if I recall correctly, they were of the 2013 and 2014 vintage, and I remember thinking that these wines simply needed a bit more time. Periodically, throughout the years, I would enjoy a bottle or two, to see how they had come along and each time I was impressed. It was sometime around Thanksgiving in 2021, that I discovered a YouTube series called Texas winemakers. This 11 part series of shorts was impressively produced, and followed a handful of Texas producers from throughout the state as they tended their vineyards, made their wines, and discussed their philosophy and their tasting room experiences. The docu-series, produced in 2020-21, captures what was a very difficult period for the Texas wine industry. Inclement weather including freezes, a pandemic, and a difficult business environment throughout the entire country was a headwind. Despite the challenges, the community of Texas winemakers seemed optimistic, tight-knit, and focused on making Texas one of the premier wine states in this country. Between the high quality of production of the series, and the larger than life characters that were featured, there was a sense that there is a momentum and energy to Texas wine that reminded me of what I first felt in the Finger Lakes in 2009.  It convinced me that I needed to visit. I also headed down to my own cellar after watching the series, where I pulled out a 2013 Hye Meadow Winery Malbec.  Eight years in, that wine was tasting delicious.

My trip to North Carolina, was planned sometime between Christmas and New Year’s of 2021, and before I knew it I was on a plane visiting the Yadkin Valley. I had a little bit more time when it came to planning for Texas, as I figured I would visit in the third week of January. I had contacted one of the winemakers from the Texas winemakers docu-series, Chris Brundrett of William Chris Vineyards. Within a day of telling him I was planning on visiting the region, he had responded that it was actually going to be an excellent time to visit if I wanted to meet many of the folks in the community. He told me that the Texas Hill Country Wine Symposium, an event that you’ll find in many winemaking regions around the world where local producers come together to discuss their challenges, achievements, and generally just build their local winemaking community, was scheduled to take place the first three days of my planned visit. It seemed fortuitous, and got me really energized at the opportunity to meet many of the folks behind the wines I had seen, and by this point, read so much about. For anyone who has never been to a symposium like this, it is also one of the very best opportunities to taste a wide range of wines produced. These symposiums always offer opportunities to engage in deep dive tastings, generally with between four and six wines, while the winemaker is on stage discussing everything about the vineyards, and the vinification. In addition to that, there are almost always social hours, where you have the chance to share your own wine while tasting many of the wines the members of your community have made.  Since most symposiums happen at a convention center with a hotel attached, the evening social tasting is usually a great time where people don’t have to worry about driving home. Upon hearing about the symposium, and booking my ticket that day, I decided I would need to extend my trip by a few more days if I was going to enjoy the symposium, but also have a chance to see what the Texas Hill country was all about.

Before I go too far, I have to make sure that of a big shout out to Shelly Wilfong and her podcast This Is Texas Wine. With a catalog of nearly a year of shows, Shelley is meticulously documenting the Texas wine scene as it grows and develops, and does an amazing job exploring the lines and the businesses of producers in the state of Texas. I had the chance to meet her at the conference, and she is just as pleasant in person as she is on the show. You’ll learn a lot about Texas wine with every episode.

Texas is a huge state. And winemaking in Texas is not quite as simple as picking a region and understanding that the grapes that you’ll be tasting in that region or from that region. 80% of the fruit grown for fine wine making in Texas is actually grown in the High Plains, up near Lubbock Texas. The High Plains is a vast flat area, but one whose elevation helps to promote a diurnal shift in temperatures, and to grow some exceptionally good fruit.  

The High Plains is far enough inland so that hurricanes from the Gulf are no longer a worry, and the range of temperatures means there is an enormous variety of different grape varietals that can be grown. In the early days, the focus was on Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Sauvignon, and in more recent times the focus has shifted to varietals that are more associated with southern France, Spain, and Portugal. That is not to say there aren’t some growers that can grow Riesling - they can.  And yet others, are able to grow Rhone varietals that reach a peak of ripeness similar to the Rhone.  Here, it is about elevation, and planting varietals that match the site.  Unlike state like New York and California, where you go to taste wine where the grapes are grown, Texas wine tourism isn’t actually located around the core of its viticulture country.  The states premier wine tourism destination is within the AVA known as the Texas Hill country. For those who think of Texas, and think of vast desert planes and tumbleweeds, this is a totally different concept of what Texas geography has to offer. Gentle Rolling hills, beautiful winding roads, lined with her insert the type of trees here, offer a rugged back country feel that reminded me i’m visiting Provence. My wife is from Toulouse, but much of her family is spread out throughout southern France. From the seaside village of La Teste de Buch, near Arcachon on the Atlantic, and clear through Provence, I’ve had the opportunity to see most of this South of France through the eyes of locals. Driving through Texas Hill country, brought was an otherworldly reminiscence of Provence.

The Texas Hill country itself is a vast AVA, with nearly 9,000,000 acres. It has a major advantage in that the Hill country starts as you exit Austin to the east and San Antonio to the south. It is a beautiful region, but has a Normas population centers just outside of its smaller towns. These populations create a massive pool of potential visitors for tasting rooms. In all, Texas Hill country has a population of nearly 28,000,000 people within about a 3 Hour Dr. of wine country.  When you combine that fact, with the fiercely loyal nature of Texans to all things Texas, you have the potential for growth unlike almost any region I’ve ever visited.

With my cameras and my recording equipment in hand, I was prepared to tackle many more interviews than I was actually able to complete. I was in Texas in January, just as the omicron variant of Covid was spreading quickly throughout the country. During my last three days I felt like I was coming down with a little something, but thought that it could have just been allergies as the Hill Country cedars were in the midst of their pollination cycle.  In any event, I opted to stay away from going to too many public places, and meeting with any more interviewee‘s. I had my at home test kits with me, and they continued to show I was testing negative. It wasn’t until I returned home to the Finger Lakes region, that I eventually tested positive. 

What that means is, there are a lot of personalities and winemakers I didn’t have the opportunity to interview while I was visiting Hill Country. This series will be a little shorter than I had anticipated, but I have plans to make sure we hear from many of those outstanding folks in the future.  Some of them will include Seth Urbanik of Wedding Oak Winery, Sam Jensen of Bingham Vineyards, Ron Yates of Spicewood and Ron Yates Winery, Regan Meador of South+Hold, the good folks at Turtle Creek, Bénédicte Rhyne at Kuhlman Estates, and so, so many others.  Wineries like Lost Draw, Hye Meadow, Grape Creek, Farmhouse, Becker, Crawson, Kerrville Hills, and Bending Branch, also have so much to offer - and I haven’t even scratched the surface of wines in Texas you need to taste.  

Our abbreviated Texas series will consist of two episodes and four interviews. In this first episode, we will be talking with January Wiese, Cliff Bingham, and Michael McClendon. There is a logic to this series of interviews.  I wanted to spend this first episode exploring Texas Hill Country through the eyes of the executive Director of Hill Country Wineries, the member-funded marketing association in the Hill Country, headed up by January. Next, I wanted to talk with a grower, and a grower with a winery and tasting rooms throughout the entire state, including one in Fredericksburg in the heart of Hill Country. Cliff Bingham brings an amazing amount of insight to growing grapes in Texas.  And finally I wanted to talk with a winemaker, and showcase the work of Michael McClendon. Michael is one of the cofounders of Sage’s Vintage, a custom crush facility that operates out of Nacogdoches in eastern Texas. Michael has built up an excellent reputation with growers throughout the state, and his custom crush operation helps new wineries get off the ground, and existing wineries maintain their current inventories. Working with fruit from all over the state, means Michael has a broad view of what is happening with Texas. He’s a great winemaker too, as I tasted many of his wines and they were absolutely delicious. As I mentioned in the interview, he may have found the secret spot in winemaking, as you get to do what you love in making wine, but can maintain relatively low overhead and not have to deal with any of the additional stresses this industry can bring.

I really can’t say enough positive things about my Hill Country experience. Although the state of Texas has a wonderful history in wine grape growing, I don’t think it is unfair or uncharitable (even to the pioneers that have been at work here for decades) to describe Hill Country as a new region. That is not to take anything away from the pioneers like Dr. Becker, at Becker Vineyards, who many decades ago witnessed Robert Mondavi tasting in his tasting room.  Mondavi was effusive as to the quality of the wines, and himself realized that the future of Texas wine was incredibly bright.  In fact, I think that thee still hidden aspect of Hill Country, and Texas, for those outside of the state, is a blessing for Hill Country producers.  

There is just so much energy, and so many new pockets of landscape and terroir to discover.  I think that we may be on the cusp of entering one of the most exciting times for this region. That is not to say that there aren’t some enormous headwinds off in the distance.  I allude in my conversation with Cliff Bingham, to the major issues that are impacting vineyards in the High Plains due to the use of dicamba, an herbicide that is applied on genetically modified cotton to kill the weeds, but not the plant. They farm nearly 3 million acres of cotton in the High Plains, so you can only imagine what that impact may be.  

I’m hoping to do a deeper show in the future on the topic, as I think that it is an extremely important issue in the context of discussing how we should be properly farming in this country.  Out of nearly 40 shows, I’ve probably talked about my emphasis on respecting, honoring, and building soil in nearly half of them.  The health of our communities from volatilized particles, and how that may harm not just our plants but ourselves and our children, can not be ignored.   

As a final note, time constraints have prevented me from having the chance to edit and produce the video versions for the last few shows.  For the time being, we will continue to move forward with the audio podcast, and temporarily suspend the video version of the show.  We will continue to film interviews, and hopefully, when time permits, complete the editing and release them on the channel.

And now, without further delay, here’s the show.

Chris Brundrett, co-founder of William Chris Vineyards, is a force to be reckoned with in the Texas wine scene. His winery, its growth, and his vision for Texas wines are as big as the state itself.

Check out our William Chris Vineyards at: http://www.WilliamChrisWines.com

Visit our website at www.VitiCulturePodcast.com, and don’t forget to share with your friends via all major social media platforms @VitiCULTUREPod

Visit Bellangelo Winery and Missick Cellars at www.Bellangelo.com and www.MissickCellars.com.

Our show today was recorded in the gorgeous Wine Club tasting room at William Chris Vineyards, along the 290 Wine Trail in Texas Hill Country.  Chris Brundrett, co-founder of William Chris Vineyards, is ubiquitous in the Texas wine industry.  From his personal and political push to ensure wine labeled as Texas contains 100% Texas fruit, to his efforts to promote elevated service and wine education amongst industry members, to his charitable and philanthropic efforts to aid communities in Texas.  Chris seems to be everywhere at once.  He’s also done a great job presenting the many faces of Mourvèdre that are grown in Texas, via his numerous single vineyard and cuvee bottlings of the varietal.  

He’s an affable man, who at the same time feels part evangelist, part farmer, part winemaker, and part CEO of one of Texas’ most recognizable wine brands.  More importantly, he seems to be the kind of person you just want to be friends with, the kind of person who would be happy to help if you needed something, and the kind of person you’d be happy to lend a hand to if he asked.  He’s the picture of the budding Texas wine scene, and I’m happy to share our conversation with you.

With that said, the Texas wine industry is bursting with wonderful, big personalities.  From Sil over at Saint Tryphon, to Dr. Bob at Bending Branch.  And from the picpoul blanc at Lost Draw, to the Roussanne at Kuhlman - fascinating, and wonderful wines await you at the most unlikely of locations and visits.  

And as a final word, there is a lot of good food to be had in Hill Country.  We loved Hill and Vine and Otto’s in Fredericksburg, I even grabbed a great panini at a roadside gas station that echoed the quality of Oakville Grocery, but the best combo of food, a relaxed and comfortable environment, a predominantly and not pretentiously dominant Texas wine list, and my favorite overall Hill Country restaurant, was 259 Brantley’s Bistro and Bar in downtown Boerne - spelled BOERNE.  Boerne isn’t a wine town, at least not yet, but this beautiful Hill Country, riverside village offered an array of wonderful regular menu options and original specials.  If you’ve visited and dined in the Finger Lakes, it was like a marriage between Ports, Kindred Fair, and Vonney’s roadside biker bar.  I enjoyed the wild hog schnitzel, the mussels were the best I’ve had outside of Belgium, and the service staff always donned a pleasant smile and ensured your glass was full.  The mussels were especially good with the Muscat Pet Nat by Saint Tryphon, and may have been one of the best Pet Nats I’ve ever had.  Life was good in this place.  

This may be the end of this short series on Texas Hill Country, but it is not the end of my coverage of Texas wines.  I love this place - the people, the spirit, the service, and the sense that the best is yet to come.  As a cool climate winemaker, the alcohol levels in some of the wines do take a bit of getting used to. I’ve produced Cab Franc with alcohol levels ranging from 10.8 to 12.9, but generally simply seek balance and a representation of what the vintage represented. Then again, Texas not only has a longer growing season than the Finger Lakes, it has a lot more sun and a lot more heat. The balanced wines though, are really something - and when paired with local cuisine and a cool night by the Guadalupe River, are the stuff dreams are made of.  Chris Brundrett is another man who knows something about dreams - he knows a little something about making dreams come true.  So without further ado, here’s the show.