Bud Break 2020

Bud break is a bit late this year, we havent had a stretch of really hot weather to push those buds out. But its comming and the Marechal Foch is comming out fast.

The Castel and Leon Millot are comming on too and in the next week all the varieties will be out with the Triompe and Evangeline the last to leaf out.

Most of the varieties are looking good, even with the heavy snow we had.

Spring Pruning and Hanging Curtains

Beautiful time of year and its always a surprise to find what has happened under the snow over the winter. It reveals so many questions...what is the bud survival rate, is there any damage to vines, what trellis wires need tightening etc. etc.

This year we had 5 feet of snow on the ground in mid winter. This is the most we've ever had and with this much snow it builds up and compacts and becomes dense and heavy (ice like) and freezes to the trunk and cordons of the vine. As the snow melts at ground level and more falls on top, the trunk and cordons get pulled with the snow and ice and ripped off the fruit wires. The photo below shows a cordon arm (right side) that was pulled from the vine trunk.

So we are moving all varieties that can be trained to a top wire to the hanging curtain method. This includes Marechal Foch, Leon Millot, and Petite Millot. This will keep the canes above the snow in winter especially when we do the November preliminary pruning.  But the L'Acadie Blanc and Evangeline are not suited to a top wire, hanging curtain training style, so we will have to keep those vines as vertical shoot position style (VSP). Pruning itself doesn't take too long but pruning and retraining vines does. The photo below shows the row on the right is VSP trained and not pruned and the row on the left is now pruned and retrained to hanging curtain.

Hanging curtain is supposed to give better fruit sun exposure and is supposed to be easier to manage vine training and tucking over the summer. But in very hot areas the fruit may be prone to sun burn..We'll see how it works out this year.

Valley of the Springs Winery

So a few years back (well about 10) I blogged about Sunset Ridge Vineyard and the fantastic grapes they were growing in the west Kootnays region of British Columbia. See previous blog link here.

The vineyard has now become a winery and my friend Jody Scott and family in Nakusp, B.C,  opened Valley of the Springs Winery this year. I ordered a case of wine and so far sampled the Marechal Foch and Vista. The Foch is about the best Ive ever tasted across Canada, and the Vista, a blend of Seigerrebe, Ortega and Madeline Angevine is outstanding. These are absolutely top quality wines - grown, hand picked and vinified in small batches by the owners. Just wow....

If your a wine lover this is the wine to buy
https://valleyofthespringswinery.com/

Marechal Foch Rose' Wine

In an earlier blog I talked about how dark red the juice of the Marechal Foch grape is (see link).

We just bottled the rose' wine and you can see how coloured the wine is. This is just the juice fermented right after crush and press with no skin contact.

Often people try this wine they think its a red wine and by colour alone its easily taken as such. But the flavour and aroma is so rich in cherry, plum fruit, and melon to some degree its at odds with what most know as a red wine flavour profile, even for light fruity red wines - virtually no tannin and no oak.

Slightly acidic and perfectly in balance to the residual sugar, few wines have as fruity profiles as those in the Kuhlman family of grapes (Marechal Foch, Leon Millot, Luch Kuhlman, Triompe D'Alsace and others) and his one is dangerously tasty. 

Warm Winter - Big Snow

Its been a really warm winter so far and up until end of December not too much snow. The coldest temperature to January 7, 2020 is about -10c, do not cold at all. That said there was abour 2 feet of snow on the ground at the end of December but nearly 3 feet of snow has fallen in the last week.

We dont want much more to fall as if the snow gets too deep it becomes destructive to the vines and tellises. What happens is the deeper the snow gets the more like ice it becomes near the base as it compacts from the weight of snow on top. As more snow accumulates, the snow column becomes more wet, dense and ice like the closer it gets to the soil surface. It melts at the bottom due to ground heat and the height of the column of snow slowly drops. As new snow falls this becomes a slow movements of the column of snow like a conveyor belt from top of snow dropping to the soil surface over time.

As the snow begins to turn to ice it locks on to what ever is around it, such as trellis supports, fencing, or the trunk of the vines. Then as that snow continues to drop towards to soil surface it pulls what ever it has attached to with it. It will pull the vines right off the trellis wires and collapse the vines right to the ground. If the vines are not ripped off the trellis wires it can actually collapse the trellises and end posts as we experienced 2 years ago.

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

Vandal Cliche Grape

We have been experimenting with Vandal Cliche for several years and it has proven itself at our vineyard time and again.

This grape was created in Quebec by Joseph Vandal and Mario Cliche to match the harsh winter climate and relatively short growing season there. It definately has winter hardiness and does well even to -30 to -35 celcius. Like the cold Quebec climate I have seen it proven to be grown in climates such as Edmonton, Alberta as well. It is also pretty good at with standing fungal pressure and we have never experience fungus on this grape. Its a pretty big producer at about 100 grams/clusters and 2 per shoot. We crop this one at 5-6 shoots per trellis foot.

It can ripen to 20-21 brix and easily does so at our site at 1000+ degree days celcius and 150 frost free days and it has high malic acid so ML fermentation is usually needed.  Those who have produced this grape for years and make wine from it commercially suggest it is best harvested early, around 16-17 brix. Apparently this grape accumulates more labruska notes as it matures.

So if one were to harvest this grape at 16-17 brix, for our location, this is at about 130 frost free days and about 900 degree days growing. On September 14, 2019 at the vineyard it was already showing 16 brix. In 2018, it was 17 brix by September 10th.  It may be a really good white grape for shorter season locations with harsher winter climates. 

Ive tasted a few of these wines made from Vandal Cliche and they are very nice, crisp, citrus and neutral, but again - nice. Thank you Mr. Vandal and Mr. Cliche.  See link for more info on this variety.

Grape Splitting

One of the things that can happen with some grape varieties is that they are prone to splitting. For those varieties that experience this it happens during the ripening stage and often after a big rain.

As the grapes ripen there are a number of things that happen that collectively can converge in disaster for grapes prone to splitting. First off as the grapes ripen they swell with juice and the skin softens. This is also the same time of sugar accumulation and acids drop in the juice.

The biggest issue is the on-set of bunch rot or sour rot from fungal pressure that a avails itself from the split in the grape skin. This often occurs after a big rain as the vine takes up the moisture and transfers it to already swollen grapes...the result is some of the grapes on the bunch can split open.

Ravat 34 with split grape in centre of the bunch

So this is where the problems start as the same conditions that contribute to the grapes splitting..that is the rain and associated high humidity and cooler weather are the same conditions that spur on the growth of bunch rot and sour rot.

Once the grape splits open, the opening invites the mold spores to grow in the low acid high sugar environment in the ripening grape.

Hard to stop without fungal spray but some cultural practices like shoot thining and bunch area leaf removal are known to help by allowing better air flow and sunlight around the bunches.

Ravat 34 is prone to this, and Colmar a bit as well but less so. So we pull the leaves ftom around the clusters when they start to ripen.

Ravat 34 with leaf removal around clusters

September 2019 Grape Ripeness

So far so good, as of September 13 the grapes are ripening well and on par with most years. As usual we could just about be harvesting the Evangeline and Seyval Blanc as both are looking good. The Marquette is not far behind followed by Triompe D'Alsace, Leon Millot and Marechal Foch. Here is what the sugar numbers look like so far...with z few photos as well

Leon Millot - 17 brix
Marechal Foch - 17 brix
Ravat 34 - 14 brix
L'Acadie Blanc - 17 brix
Marquette - 19 brix
Petite Milo - 18 brix
Evangeline - 20 brix
Colmar - 18 brix
Triompe D'Alsace - 17 brix
Lucy Kuhlman - 19 brix
Cayuga - 14 brix
Pinot Noir - 15 brix
Castel - 18 brix
Sovereign Ruby - 16 brix
St. Croix - 16 brix
Vandal Cliche - 16 brix
Seyval Blanc - 19 brix

L'Acadie Blanc

Leon Millot