Arrow Lakes wine - Kuhlman Blend 2014

Ok so we uncorked the first bottle of Kuhlman Blend from the 2014 vintage. We call it the Kuhlman blend as it combines Leon Millot at 65%, Triompe D'lsace at 15%, and Marechal Foch and Castel at 10% each.  The wine is approximately 12.5 - 13% A/Vol with ph of 3.3.

Leon Millot, Triompe, and Marechal Foch are all hybrids developed by Eugene Kuhlman in France - hence the name.  All the Kuhlman varieties blend well and have similarities although as varietals there are distinct differences.  The Kuhlman varieties generally have cherry and plum flavours.  The addition of the Castel gives the wine a complex earthy quality and some added tannin.

This wine blend is excellent and very gamay like (but a very little bit fruitier and in general a bit  more complex - really depends on the gamay you compare it with) and the colour is garnet red.  It is still a bit acidic but is very drinkable now.  It will be excellent in a year as the acid subsides and the subtle flavours and earthiness become more pronounced and the time laps will likely tone back and balance off the fruit forward nature.

We had very limited skin contact this year as we wanted more light fruity mid-weight wine so we only had 2 days of skin contact.  The result was lower colour, less tannin, less astringency, but higher fruit flavour dominating.  Very slightly off balance in that regard and if I could turn back time would have gone with 4-5 days skin contact for a perfect wine.

Evangeline (Kw96-2) Wine 2014

Evangeline (Kw96-2) was the perfect grape for the growing conditions in 2014 (see previous blog evangeline wine making).  We had a hot summer which brought the grapes to ripeness early but we also had a really early frost, 2-3 weeks early.  The frost came on the 15th of September and that ended the growing season.  Having said that most of the varieties had already hardened off quite nice by then although three more weeks would have been great.

The evangeline was picked at 20 brix and was 21 brix once crushed.  The ph was 3.3.  We mixed the evangeline and petite millot together as they have some similarities.  The petitie millot is more subtle in aroma and flavour than the evangeline and more reisling like while the evangeline is more muscat fruity.

The blend is 70% evangeline and 30% petite milot and the grapes were crushed and pressed and left overnight for sediment and pulp to settle out.  The juice was then syphoned off into a fresh carboy and yeast added and fermented to dryness.  The resulting wine was cold stabilized, fined, then back sweetened with 15g/ltr of sugar.

The wine finished with 12.5% A/vol and ph of 3.4 and has strong aromas of tropical fruit - it is very nice.

Cold Stabilizing the Wine

Cold stabilization involves putting the wine that has finished fermenting into an environment  that has a temperature between +4 celcius and -4 celcius.  The cold temperature chills the wine and the tartaric acid begin to form into crystals and collects on the walls and bottom of the carboy.  The photo shows the crystals that have formed and stuck to the wall of the carboy.  We will stir the wine a few days before siphoning it off and the crystals will fall to the bottom and settle out.

These crystals are sometimes referred to as wine diamonds and even commercial wines will have the crystals in the bottom of a bottle if the wine hasn't been cold stabilized.  What this means is that the wine was not initially cold stabilized but somewhere along the way it got exposed to cold temperatures and as a result the crystals formed and settled at the bottom of the bottle.  When you pour out that last bit of wine from the bottle its followed by these grainy crystals that you really don't want to drink. So we cold stabilize to lower the acid but also I don't want these crystals forming sometime later.

Next we will siphon the wine into a new carboy and add a bit of sulphite and sorbate.  We also take a bit out to sweeten with sugar.  We will add that sweetened wine back in with the rest of the wine and the sorbate inhibits it from fermenting.  Were pretty much done after that, just need to bottle and lable.

Edgewood BC - Historical Fruit Region

So a friend of mine presented me with some great histroical fruit crates the other day.  They are furit crates from the West Kootenay and Okanagan regions of BC.  These are great histroical markers of the fruit growing area that exists today in the Okanagan in British Columbia and what was once a thriving fruit growing region in the interior west Kootenay region of British Columbia.

I wrote about the west kootenay fruit growing history in our very first blog in 2009 see link but these fruit crates are a great connection to the fruit growing histroy of the area.  The first is from the Associated Growers of British Columbia and of special interest is that this box was packed and shipped by the Needles Co-op Union.  Needles was an old settlement across the Arrow Lakes from the town of Fauquier but was flooded with the development of the Keenlyside dam in 1968.  Needles  is still a point on the map today as it is the west side ferry stop for the Needles-Fauquier ferry across the Arrow lake.

Hear is another one, "Old Gold" brand apples packed by Unity Fruit Limited from the Vernon area,

Here is a grape packing box also from "Pioneer Ranch" and the name "N.P. Casorso" of Kelowna, B.C. and "Established 1905".....lots of fruit growing history in the region.

Planting Grape Vines in the Fall

I wanted to follow up on a previous blog about planting grape vines in the fall because I get alot of emails about this.

So we plant grape vines in the fall and spring, but for fall planting there are a few things that are important to remember, watch for and do.

We often grow our vines in pots during the year as they are very easy to manage that way, you can move them in from inclement weather (cold/hail etc), and you can manage the inputs very easily.

This year we planted a new variety this year.  We grew them in pots throughout the year and now it is time to plant them out to the vineyard.

First you have to prepare the soil where they will grow.  Ideally it will be weed free, nicely tilled and ready to accept the vine.

Next as this is the fall make sure you have added some fall type fertilizer that does not have any nitrogen or very little nitrogen, something like a 5-15-15.  This way the soil will begin to disperse the nutients over the winter with water seepage but in the even of an extra long warm fall period you will not have to worry about nitrogen invigorating the vine.

Now dig a hole about 3 times the diameter of the pot that the vine is in.  I also use a post hole auger and dig a 10 inch diameter hole in the middle of all of this and sink it to about 2 feet deep.  Fill the deep hole back and then transfer the plant from pot to the wide hole.  This gives unfettered growth for the roots to grow down and to grow wide.  Water the vine in and ensure the roots have a bit extra soil over them, like a bit of a mound.

One thing to look for is that your vine is hardening off for the winter. You can see this at the base of the stem as that part has turned brown but further up it is still green.  If you vine is hardening off well before winter hits then you have good chance for bud survival.

In the spring let only 1 or 2 buds grow. I actually let 2-3 buds grow till danger of frost has past then let the strongest grow and trim back the others.  Then train that one up a pole over the rest of the summer.

Evangeline (KW96-2) Wine in the Making

So we are making a small batch of evangeline wine this year (see previous blog about evangeline grape).  We mixed the petite milo grapes in with them to make the batch.  I usually dont make wine like this unless the grapes are very similar - like the kuhlman family (foch, leon millot, lucy kuhlman, and marechal joffre).  I prefer to make varietal batches then blend afterwards but were just shy of enough grapes for a small batch so we have added the petite milo. The ratio is 80% evangeline and 20% petite milo.
Here is a picture of us pressing the grapes after crushing them.

One thing we do during the pressing is we always have the same side down for white grapes and the other side down for reds.  You can see the top of the basket press is red so the bottom is the white side - where the juice will be pouring out from this time. We do this because the red colouring leaches into the wood and if you press the white grapes where the red colour has leached into the wood it can extract some of this colour and tint the colour of the wine.

The grapes in the field were about 20-21 brix but as usual after the crush and press they are higher at 22 brix. So we are looking for a finished wine in the 12 to 12.5 A/vol range.

We add sulphite and let the juice sit for 24hours so that any obvious pulp and heavy sediment settled out.  Then we siphoned the juice off into a new carboy added some bentonite, EC1118 yeast, and after a few days its been fermenting well and has a very nice tropical fruit aroma coming through.

Evangeline Grape for 2014

So we have been growing the evangeline grape (KW96-2) for four seasons now and we have three years of ripening data.  This grape did very well again this year and the size of clusters and amount of clusters has increased this year. 

This variety produces 1-2 clusters per shoot at our location and could easily have 2 on every shoot on more fertile ground.  The clusters are in the 175 grm to 125 grm weigth and they are long and loose and good cultural growth to limit the potential for rot or fungus.  The cluster below is about 8-9 inches long.

We are blending the evangeline and petite milo this year - the evangeline has a fruity muscat aroma and flavour and the petite milo is reisling like.

see the link to next blog as we turn the grapes into wine

Early Frost Ends Season 2014

Yes, we had an unseasonably cold second week of September that brought nigh time cold of -2 to -3.  What was really unfortunate is that we were unable to get to fixing our wind fence that had been damaged earlier. The wind fence helps deflect the cold air that comes down the mountain and would otherwise enter the vineyard.  With it having been damaged by high winds the coldest air was allowed to come into the vineyard and freeze the vines.

This cold snap is 3-4 weeks earlier than usual and had we been able to see this year through to the normal harvest period at the beginning of October we would have had about 1040 degree days and about 159 frost free days.  Instead, we were lucky to have such a hot summer because up till Sept 14th we still accumulated 960 degree days growing (celcius) and 137 frost free days and most of the grapes were able to ripen to workable levels and some quite nicely.  It is also interesting to see similarities to the summer temperature pattern we had this year to the last time we had an early frost which was in 2009 when we had a hard frost on Sept 21st.  That year was a hot year like this one but with the early frost we ended up with 138 frost free days.

I've posted the new climate data.

Arrow Lakes Vineyard grape update Aug 2

So we are about a month since flowering and the fruit set was better on some varieties than others and the month of July was very hot averaging about 21.3c which is the hottest July we have recorded.  We have also had very little rain only recording about 2cm since the first week of July so the berries are not growing as big as they should.  Unfortunately there is not rain in sight for the next 2 weeks.  More and more we are leaning towards irrigation as we have consistently recorded a dry spell each summer from about the 2nd week of July until early September and this is when the grapes need the moisture to put on the weight and for proper development.

In any event the grapes are comming along and each season presents its challenges.  here are photos of some of the varieties as of August 2nd.
Ravat 34

 Acadie

 Castel (thin)

 Evangeline

 Foch

 Leon Millot

 Petite Millot

Bloom Time at Arrow Lakes Vineyard

So despite the average temperatures of 12.5 for May and 15.5c for June by June 30th most the the varieties were well into bloom.  We are a few days ahead than usual given the temperature and this could be the above normal heat we had in the last week of June or the we've added soil amendments this year and last fall (fertilizer).  What ever the case the grapes are looking good and the castel is producing nice clusters this year and we have good clusters on the pinot noir and the zweigelt which we haven't had before...this has got to be the fertilizer working.  Not much else to report but I have a bunch of photos of the varieties in bloom - took these photos June 30th.

Castel (responding very well to fertilizer, excelelnt growth and clusters this year)

Colmar Precoce Noir (tentative but getting stronger - similar to Lucy Kuhlman)

Evangeline (huge clusters of 1-2 clusters per shoot, almost as big as Seyval clusters)

L'Acadie (Acadie) (2-3 large clusters per shoot, looking good)

Leon Millot (good growth and consistent producer)

Lucy Kuhlman (good growth this year, more clusters)

Marechal Foch (nice strong growth)

Petite Milo (excellent consistent production again, very small clusters)

Pinot Noir 115 (finally some decent flower clusters, likes the fertilizer)

Ravat 34 (excellent production, overbearing)

St. Croix (comming along, second year now)

Triompe d'alsace (strong, healthy, good producer)

Zweigeltrebe (Zweigelt) (finally some good clusters this year, likes the fertilizer)