Climatic suitability, not marketing, should decide what grapes we grow

I've written about this before, but certain trends continue to show that building a wine industry from the grape up needs greater attention.

When the market is said to desire a specific type of wine, a wine region may be compelled to focus on grape varieties that aren't wholly suitable to its climate in order to satisfy the perceived consumer taste. That, then, begs a different question: Why not build the local wine industry around grape varieties that are the "best fit" climatically? This isn't to say that other, more difficult-to-grow varieties shouldn't be planted at all, but rather that they shouldn't be the main grapes for which a region becomes known at the expense of those that are a better natural fit.

Let's take some of the so-called "old-line French hybrids" - e.g. Marechal Foch, Baco Noir, Seyval Blanc and Vidal. All these grapes are excellent candidates for viticulture in southern Ontario. They remain players to some extent to this day (especially Vidal, one of the icewine grapes par excellence). But the VQA system denies their table wines - even the best, cleanest, ripest table wines made from them - geographic specificity of origin: the wines cannot be labeled "VQA Niagara Peninsula" or "VQA Lake Erie North Shore"; they can only bear a "VQA Ontario" designation. This strange practice would seem to suggest that terroir only works on vinifera grapes, which is an intuitively absurd notion.

In the late 1990s, estate-grown wines from Marechal Foch and Seyval, even De Chaunac (this last one is unrecognized by VQA for varietal wine purposes) were easily available throughout the Peninsula. Since that time, though, more and more wineries have eliminated those well made, enjoyable table wines with all-vinifera "portfolios". Even the sound of the word "portfolio" makes me uneasy: it's as if we are talking stocks and bonds, not grape and wine farming.

Kudos to Henry of Pelham for keeping the Baco Noir torch going. But I miss Lakeview Cellars' Foch and De Chaunac; I miss Inniskillin's Old Vines Foch; I miss Stoney Ridge Cellars' oaked Seyval.

There should be a re-think in the way wineries conceptualize wines from our region. When you have grape varieties that grow well in our climate, take our winters well, need little chemical input to keep them healthy and produce reliable crops each year, those grapes should be treated as prized material to be elevated with caring hands into clean, crisp, palate-invigorating wines of value. The emphasis should be not on their displacement by what's fashionable - because fashion is fickle and mindless often times. What sort of legacy is built around constant shifting?

We need to want to develop our own long-standing traditions based on cultivars naturally suited to the growing conditions in our region - both vinifera (e.g. Zweigelt, Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir) and hybrid (traditional hybrids or new-generation hybrids) - and to do so without constantly deferring to some unspecified mythical wine authority that will confer upon our efforts that much-coveted nod of approval.

Marketing Decides, Not Climate

The fact that climatically suitable grapes such as Baco Noir, Marechal Foch, Dechaunac, Vidal, etc. have a harder time selling in Ontario's wine market really speaks to the fact that we have, in essence, a marketing-driven culture.

We go for things whose names appear over and over again in the media: we do not, as a rule, take our cues from the connections that exist between our native environment and climatically suitable plants. That just doesn't interest us for some reason.

One result is that marginally suitable grapes, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Shiraz, are more in demand - and wineries are compelled to plant them - than are those grapes whose innate characteristics and evolutionary history actually make them a more harmonious fit.

Strange, isn't it?

What will have to happen before our culture matures past its addiction to marketing slogans and flashy images that deliver allusions to grandeur? When will grape varieties that are in proper tune with our climate start forming the basis of new regional wine identities?

2007 Colio Estate Baco Noir (Ontario VQA)

12.8% alc./vol.; $9.35 at the Colio retail outlet. 2,200 cases made. Synthetic cork closure.

Beautiful, deep dark garnet colour throughout; fully transparent with a magenta-garnet tinge at the meniscus. Fantastic, complex Baco nose of brine and peppercorns, with secondary plum and cherry fruit. Properly rustic with tell-tale hickory notes chiming in. Tart entry balanced by 2 g/l residual sugar (they could have left it at 0 and I'd have been happy); overall, a substantial texture. I expect the wine to open up and integrate to a much greater degree on day two - it always does. Very balanced on the mid-palate, where diminutive tannins - proper to the variety - mingle alongside flavour replays that are consistent with the nose. Warm, balanced, pleasant finish. A tiny hint of something brett-like remains in the empty glass.

This wine, labeled under "Colio Estate", is essentially the evolution of Carlo Negri's former Harrow Estates label. The new winemaker is Tim Reilly.

As with the Harrow Estates line, which no longer exists, this Baco shows tremendous value for the money and solid winemaking. This has always been one of the best Ontario Bacos for the money. It's a restrained, balanced wine that works extremely well at the table: pork roast, ribs, pizza and lasagna are but a few favourites with which I enjoy matching it.

There is just one thing that I wish the new line had included: oak ageing! When Carlo Negri was in charge of these wines, they always featured a dash of American oak - something that I thought made them all the better. Now, the wines are simply finished in stainless steel and bottled. I have written to the winery and hope that they will reconsider this new policy of omitting the oak nuance.

America's Classic Grape: The Catawba

The 2008 grape harvest is approaching in Ontario. I get a sense of excitement this time of year, anticipating the first ripe bunches. Even if the grapes I'm waiting for happen to be ones I've known all my life (like Concord and Niagara) it nevertheless remains an exciting moment the first time I pop one of those ripe juicy berries into my mouth and re-live that awesome bold flavour all over again. You might liken the anticipation to that which accompanies France's annual Beaujolais Nouveau release!

There's a grape that I feel is far too overlooked in our day, especially in the province of Ontario: Catawba. This is without doubt a classic American grape.

Just the other day a friend picked some bunches of backyard Catawba, and I was simply amazed at the beautiful aromatic and flavour complexity of this much-overlooked variety. The grapes could probably hang a bit more and ripen more evenly, but because it was a backyard vine and not properly pruned that's to be expected. Still, the awesome flavour must have lasted a good 15 minutes after I ate the last grape (they were tangy but quite sweet as well): rosewater, Muscat-like spice and some wild-strawberry musk all danced on my palate. What a great flavour profile, and what a perfect classic wine grape that should be a household name in our day and age all across Eastern North America.

Here in Ontario, I know of no vineyards growing Catawba - even though it could easily ripen in the Niagara Peninsula. Commercial wineries moved away from labruscana-type grapes because their wines are not recognized under the VQA (Vintners' Quality Alliance) scheme. This, however, seems more about conforming to what the rest of the world is doing (i.e. growing grapes with famous, marketable names!) than judging the grape for what sort of wine it can yield when given strict hands-on management in the vineyard and winery. The fact is that labrusca grapes can be used for quality aromatic wines; it's just that previous to their large-scale removal from Ontario's vineyards, they weren't used to make such wines: it was the manufacturing process and kitschy marketing applied to them, and not the grapes themselves, that deserve unfettered scorn. This fact is easily seen when one contrasts the poor wines labrusca used to be associated with with quality estate-grown labrusca wines, such as Chaddsford's very fine Niagara from Pennsylvania.

Catawba is of course still grown in the eastern United States, though I believe that it deserves an image makeover for our times. The grape shouldn't simply be associated with overly sweetened kitschy touristy wines; given a flavour profile as complex and lively as it has, it could be used for some very powerful, concentrated dry table wines, dry sparklers or even slightly off-dry table wines that speak of pure-fruit aromas and lively, unencumbered acidity. That's the style that would resonate with wine lovers today: it's a style that simply isn't being dared, yet should be.

Let's get away from plonk and focus on small-lot production of hands-on artisanal wine from our North American heritage grapes.

On acquired tastes and acquiring new tastes

Having read Sandra Silfven's article in the Detroit News titled "3 tales from the front lines: Making wine in Michigan and Indiana" in which she discusses Oliver Winery's double-gold winning Catawba, I am once again buoyed by the welcome news that at least some winemakers in Eastern America are trying new things with our continent's heirloom labruscana grape varieties. Catawba, in particular, has a long history in the Eastern U.S. and varietal Catawba wine really deserves a complete re-invention of its image to suit our modern times. Today, winemaking techology and knowledge are more precise perhaps than ever before ... why not make use of the excellent vineyard practices and cellar know-how that have been applied to vinifera wines - quality being a key objective in their production! - and apply that same quality-driven vision to wines made from the grapes that grow best in the challenging Eastern North American climate? Here we read about Catawba specifically, but there are other grapes that stand to benefit from a similar approach: Delaware, Niagara, (Moore's) Diamond, Steuben ... and let's not discount Concord.

My experience as a home winemaker specializing in dry labrusca wines has shown me the importance of acquired tastes in shaping public reaction to a given type of wine. Most people who have tried my crisp, floral, musky Niagara wine have been pleased with it. They do not instinctively react with negativity as they were never taught to think any particular way about the strong musky/floral aromatics in the wine: their reactions are completely natural ones. This should be something that wineries keep in mind when thinking about whether to plant climatically suitable native grapes in our times. This is sorely out of vogue but it deserves a reasoned approach from entirely new, untried angles. Why does it deserve that new look? Because chances are good that consumers without pre-formed notions of what native grape wines are all about will actually enjoye well made, native grape wines. That's good for local wineries, and good for our viticultural heritage.

Steuben, for example, makes a fruity, rosewater-scented wine that has some similarities to varietal Catawba. Catawba, in its own right, makes a beautifully spicy golden (sometimes pink) wine redolent of pears, roses and wild strawberries that has a fine streak of healthy acidity. Niagara, too, has an oily, floral nose with pineapple-like musk on the finish - e.g. Chaddsford's in Pennsylvania makes an extremely fine example with minimal residual sugar.

May these times be good times for our heritage American grapes and their rebirth onto the local wine stage in new and worthy forms!

2007 Dry Oaked Concord

It's not likely to be a wine you'd find at very many North American wineries - and that's precisely my reason for making dry, oaked varietal Concord.

In an earlier post I went into detail about how I first made dry Concord in 2002 from scratch using the best Concords I could get. With each vintage it has become clear to me that to make fine wine from labrusca grapes it's necessary to avoid all manner of "bad advice" that's been standard practise for too long - dilution of the must and copious sweetening with cane sugar in particular. Those methods will not produce quality wine; at best they will make a passable wine from overcropped fruit. The unspoken premise seems to be exactly that: Concord is deemed to be so acidic as to require such adulteration. Like sound bytes, these views get repeated ad infinitum and develop a certain inertia - yet if one cares enough to look beneath the surface, there is more to the story than meets the palate.

Since so much of wine quality depends on what happens in the vineyard, it follows that just as with any other grape variety, Concord too will benefit from common-sense techniques like maintaining an open canopy and partial green-harvesting after fruit set. These techniques require a hands-on approach, just as one would expect at a meticulously managed estate winery: the problem is that labrusca grapes, generally, are simply not grown in that manner.

That said, I did manage to find an impressively well tended labrusca vineyard in the western Niagara Peninsula. The vines had an open canopy with fruit well exposed to the sun; the sugar/acid balance was impressive, and the flavour was ripe and vinous; there was no sourness or other harshness that in any way hinted at a need for "amelioration" - a hydrometer reading of the must simply confirmed that the sugar needed to be bumped up prior to fermentation to get the desired alcohol level of 12-13% by volume. But this is normal with Concord: it's not a high sugar accumulator, though many of its labrusca hybrid brethren like Steuben, Delaware and Valiant certainly are.

Manual sorting and de-stemming were followed by crush and a 24-hour pectic enzyme soak on the skins; this was then followed by pressing, retention of a portion of the skins, innoculation with Lalvin EC-1118 "Prise de Mousse" yeast and a measured addition of yeast nutrient. Fermentation ran to completion with no problems and the wine was pressed off the skins and racked into sterilized carboys. Once clear, the wine was again racked into gallon jugs - some with medium-toast French oak shavings, some without any oak at all. The wine was left like this at basement temperature for four weeks and then was transferred to the garage for cold stabilization. Once the tartrate deposit formed, coating the oak shavings which had earlier fallen to the bottom, the wine was carefully siphoned into sterilized 750-ml bottles and the bottles were closed with natural cork.

In the glass, the wine shows a deep, translucent scarlet-ruby hue with a slight blue-garnet tinge. The nose is vinous Concord grape juice coupled with wild strawberry and hints of acacia flowers. There isn't a lot of muskiness on the nose here, something I think might be explained by the good sun exposure that these particular grapes received. The oaked version of the wine had all the same aromas framed by sweet toasty oak - an unusual, but ultimately harmonious combination. On the palate the wines are crisp and light-bodied with tart but not sour acidity; flavour replays follow from the nose. Both wines show some grape tannins too: they're short and the acidity carries the structure. In the oaked version, however, toasty oak flavours not only round out the finish but also add a kind of cohesive astringency.

The final conclusion? Wood tannins do work well in dry Concord!

Should an indigenous wine culture start with home viticulture?

I put this question out for general contemplation and discussion. Most of us who are interested in growing wine using grape varieties suited to the continental-climate areas of North America think in commercial terms - and while this is certainly necessary, I frequently ask whether to actually get a "wine consciousness" rooted in our wider culture it might in fact be necessary to plant the seed, as it were, at a more fundamental level: the family garden / homestead.

Obviously, a great many people do not have the right kind of yardspace, or even enough space, to plant a family vineyard ... but no doubt many others do. When you think of how ingrained wine is throughout Italy, for example, where even small vineyard plots are such a regular motif across the landscape and therefore have a place in the wider culture, the question becomes obvious for us in North America: how to replicate that here?

The great challenge has until now been the unavailability of wine grapes that can thrive in our overall continental climate: vinifera is just too tender and disease-prone to serve as the main material for a North American wine culture outside of dedicated zones of production where the necessary complications are taken in stride - e.g. grafting to rootstock, spraying, applying winter protection, etc. What is really needed here in our continent are vines that will tough it out with minimal fuss: vines that your average family can stick in the ground, prune, have fun watching them grow, and then harvest the fruit and, one would imagine, make wine for their own use.

And so the question, therefore, is whether the popularization of wine as a cultural motif - something that really hasn't happened in our continent on a wide scale the way other things have been popularized in the wider culture - could take place given the right focus ... Suitable new-generation grape varieties are becoming an ever more real option, and present exciting possibilities for the identity wine in modern North America.