Marechal Foch - Rose' ?

One thing that you immediately see when you crush and press Marechal Foch grapes is the juice is already dark red. Many other varieties of red wine grape, like Pinot Noir, have clear juice so that when you crush and press those grapes there is virtually no red tints. Often to make a rose' with those grapes you need to soak the grapes on the skins for a day or so to extract a bit of red color to make the rose' wine. To get red wine from Pinot Noir you need to ferment Pinot Noir on the skins for several days after which the red colour is slowly extracted from the skins. This is not the case with Foch.

Sibling grape of Marechal Foch is Leon Millot and the juice from Leon Millot looks the same as Foch. No wonder Leon Millot was called "the wine medicine" by French wine makers who use to blend Leon Millot with Pinot Noir to enhance the red wine colour of the Pinot Noir.

So here is Marechal Foch grapes, cluster 1 and 2 from a shoot and the very dark red juice that presses from this variety. Ive made Rose' from Foch before and well, its hard to call it Rose', its juice is just naturally too dark in colour...but it can be made in the Rose' style and makes amazing wine in this style.

Grape Harvest 2019

Was a good year overall with average heat but above average rain. The grapes and clusters were big and heavy. Some cracking on a few varieties due to the water in the soil. Sugars are about 1 brix lower on most varieties but grape size and bunch weight is much higher than usual. Foch clusters were in the 75 to 125 gram range where 70 grams is more usual.

Marchal Foch pictured

Here are some of the brix numbers for Red grapes;

Castel   21

Pinot Noir  17

Colmar    21

Triompe D'Alsace 20

Marechal Foch 20

Marquette 20

Leon Millot 20

St Croix 18

Here is brix numbers for some of the White grapes

Evangeline 21

Petite Milo 20

Cayuga 18

L'Acadie Blanc 20

Ravat 34 17

Vandal Cliche 20

Sovereign Ruby 19