Grapes Way Ahead in 2015

We have had way more heat this year than normal in both May and June this year.  Normal average for May and June is 12.5c and 15.5 respectively.  This year we have had 14c and 18.5c respectively.  As such the grapes as of July 4th are way ahead and already pea size (compare the pictures below to last year at July 1st  link here .  Hear are some pictures from this year;
Marechal Foch

Petite Milo

Evangeline

Really Early Bloom for 2015

More indications that bloom is going to be early.  Here is a Lucy Kuhlman cluster  that is already into bloom as of June 6th - this is 3 weeks early.  Not too surprising as May was about 14c average and normal is usually about 12.5c. 

Now this flower cluster is close to the soil level and receives more heat that the usual ones at the 3-4 foot level but still this is really early.  Overall the Lucy Kuhlman looks good this year and came through the winter quite well. 

Fast Growth for Spring 2015

In April I wrote about how warm the winter had been and later how early the vines had budded out this year.  Well that trend continues and I'd say we are forsure a week ahead of normal and could even see flowering in a few weeks perhaps as early as June 20-25th for some varieties.

We had hardly any precipitation since the end of April and the soil had been really dry but we just got about 4 inches of rain this past week and that has helped.  The addition of the drip irrigation system is helping alot and if this year ends up being the hot and dry year its predicted to be then it should help alot.

The Marechal Foch looks fantastic with 2-3 clusters on each shoot and virtually no die back on the canes.  Marquette is the same and is really impressing me this year - I think as it goes into its third year and giveen the soil ammendments provided in past 2 years, this vine is really responding well.  Like the Foch pretty much 2 clusters per shoot.  Both these are stand outs this year after the winter we had.  Lucy Kuhlman surprised me as well and like Marquette is responding to the soil ammendment and survived the winter well (given the harsh freeze/thaw cycles we had). All the whites look great and the Vandal Cliche is impressive for 3 year vines.
See the Marechal Foch photo

 

See the Marquette Photo

The Ravat 34 is looking excellent AGAIN - can not say enough about this grape. photo below

Huge Evangeline clusters

L'Acadie Blanc is also looking well; 2-3 clusters per shoot

Vineyard Expansion 2015

So we have been experimenting with about 25 different varieties of grapes since 2008 and some have shown to do quite well in our climate and conditions and others not.  Some of the red varieites that have done well are Leon Millot, Marechal Foch, Triompe D'Alsace, Lucy Kuhlman, Marquette, and the Castel is improving every year.  Whites that have done well are Ravat 34, Petite Milo, Vandal Cliche, and Evangeline, and L'Acadie Blance.

Red or Whites that have not done well include Regent, Cabernet-Foch, Cabernet-Libre, Agria, and Ortega.  Zwegelt and Pinot Noir have not been doing well but in the last year have shown strong improvements - we have only started adding soil amendments in the past few years.

So we are now expanding the vineyard and are adding new rows of Leon Millot and Marechal Foch.We have also added drip irrigation system and will evaluate the same row comparison of vines irrigated and unirrigated for the next few years. 

Bud Break - 2015

So spring is a bit early for the vines and this is reflected in the bud break this year which is about 3-5 days early.  This is pretty dramatic as until now bud break has usually occurred between May 18 and 21st but this year its started around the 15th and most varieties are now out as of the 21st.

The winter was hard on a few varieties and this was not evident until bud break as the canes showed decent winter survival but no live buds or few week buds emerged.  Particularly hard hit was the Leon Millot and Triompe - both these vines are quite similar and have some similar pedigree.  With the freeze thaw temperature swings we had in late winter the vines got hammered.  They have experienced this before but not as severe and some show cane and trunk damage.  It is noteworthy here that at our location you need to be growing renual trunks on millot and triompe every few years.  Interesting was that the sister vine to Leon Millot is Marechal Foch and while the millot was really hard hit, the foch looks great.  See Leon Millot pictured below, followed by Marechal Foch

Again the Ravat 34 is excellent and there are some monster flower clusters poking out. See below

Another stand out is the Vandal Cliche and for three year old vines they are producing very well - see below.

The L'Acadie Blanc is doing well also with dual clusters visible on every bud. - see below.

The Castel is also doing alright and is slowly improving each year.  Same for the Evangeline, Petite Milo and Marquette. The Regent died back to the ground again.  Castel Pictured Below

Spring Pruning 2015

So it has been way warmer than normal moving into spring of 2015 so I bumped up the pruning schedule a month.  We usually prun towards the middle/end of April and leave extra buds incase of a late frost and then do a final prune around mid may when we know the last frost has come and gone.

March this year was about 3 degrees celcius above normal and the vines are already bleeding at the pruning points.  That is the roots are already moving moisture and carbohydrates up the canes.  When you prune the canes back you can see the moisture literally drip out of the ends where the canes where cut.

The warm winter and the freeze that action that came with the warm winter has resulting in some interesting survival rates of the vines.  For instance Castel and Marechal Foch looks excellent and Acadie and Joffre was not.  Marquette, St. Croix and Vandal Cliche were all very good but again they are all very hardy vines.  The Evangeline, Ravat, Triompe, Lucy Kuhlman, Seyval and Leon Millot were not bad.

Baltica was not good and for such a reportedly hardy vine it died back significantly this year....but I suspect it is subject to the freeze thaw activity in a warm winter.  Will be interesting to see how they all bud out.

The worry is that they will begin to bud out way to early and we could receive a late frost and then that would all but erase the crop for this year.  We do leave extra buds in case of this scenerio but if they all bud out really early then it really wont matter that much.  We will know by mid-May.

Really Warm Winter 2014/2015

So we have had a great winter in terms of temperature. The table below shows how warm it has been.

	Winter Average 1970-2010	Winter  Lows  2014/2015
Nov	+1.6c	-0.3c
Dec	-2.6c	-2.1c
Jan	-2.5c	-0.5c
Feb	-0.9c	+2.8c

Coldest Temperature so far was -19c in November.

So based on these temperatures we should have decent bud survival.  We'll check on this towards the end of March.

The biggest threat to the bud survival has been the freezing and thawing that comes with the warmeer winter temperatures.  When the temperature warms up the vines and buds can come out of dormancy and loose the natural protection against the cold when it gets cold again.

Some varieties are more suseptable to the swings in winter temperature.  That is, when it warms up a bit they are quicker to come out of dormancy.  We wont know until bud break if there is any damage from the freeze thaw action, but in past, warm winter years we have had some damage and others hardly any.

There are lots of variables at play including the condition of the vines at dormancy, the nutrient levels, water levels. 

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.