Vineyard Update ...

We had a very unusual winter this year. Snow drifted as high as 16 feet in the vineyard/orchard (heavy snows and winds were blowing 50 mph for days!!). As a result, the "cute" little bunnies (we have a lot of them) sat on top of the snow and ate the tender shoots off the top of the peach trees then as the snow melted they continued to eat but changed over to the vines. Yes, they sat on top of 6 feet of snow and ate the tender shoots (and as the snow continued to melt) all the way down to the cordons and in some cases chewed away at the younger cordons. So,.... I have a spotty northern vineyard this year with some vines that will produce very few clusters. I will use new base shoots to replace trunks and cordons as needed for next year's crop. Those that did not get eaten are doing extremely well.

We had a very early warming this spring and the vines popped their buds into leaves early. But, luckily we did not have a severe late frost to kill them off. It did get down to 29*F one night but that was still a degree over the critical temp for major damage. I found almost no damage.

As of today (June 12th) some shoots are already 2 feet over the top wires (top wires are 6.5 feet). The cluster pollination went well and I will need to do a LOT of cluster thinning (it really hurts to cut off all those beautiful excess clusters and throw them away!!). If we don't get damaged by hail or tornadoes this year, the crop should still be about the same or greater than last year.

The southern vineyard is going well. I continue to add new vines but lost some when I got a bit careless with a Roundup spray under the vines to kill the weeds. I will let some of the more established vines have a small crop this year.

Marquette Wine Chemistry

Here’s a recap of my first real experience with my Marquette grapes. I had a small harvest the previous year (2008) but I did a field-blend the Marquette and St Croix grapes.

As I indicated in my harvest post, I picked my Marquettes a bit early due to an oncoming rain storm. So, I started with TA of 12.5 g/l (1.25%) and a pH of 3.43 and a 22 Brix. This was close to the average harvest numbers that I read about from test sites.

I added a bit of sugar to get the Brix up to 23 and added 20PPM of SO2. Then I added Lallzyme EX, Opti-Red, 30g of oak chips, 6 grams of Tartaric Acid, some DAP, and some Fermaid. This raised the TA to 13.3 g/l but got the pH down to 3.30 Although I wanted to use D-254 yeast, I forgot to order it so I used RC-212 instead which I had on hand.

I fermented rather warm and pressed the skins after 5 days. The thin skins had given up all they had. The wine was almost fully fermented after 7 days. I added my mlf culture and some Biolees and kept it in the75 temp range for 6 weeks giving it a good stir every few days (and purging the headspace with Nitrogen). My Chromotography test showed that all the malic had converted to lactic as hoped for. As expected, these cold-weather grapes had a lot of malic (due to our shortage of sunshine and long hot summers) so the TA dropped drastically to 7.5 g/l and unfortunately (but also expected) the pH jumped up to 3.85 I added 40 PPM of SO2.

I did not want to go into cold-stabilization with a pH that high (fear of the pH raising further during the process). So, I added 2 g/l of Tartaric Acid (46 grams for a 6 gallon carboy). This got the pH down to 3.54 but as expected the TA rose to 8.4 g/l After cold stabilization, the TA dropped to 7.2 g/l and the pH also dropped down to 3.33 which I is what I had hoped for.

Although the 7.2 TA would be fine and would mellow with time, I decided to try some modifications. I decided to split into 4 batches. Batch “A” was to blend with some Italian wine (a nice Vino-de-Casa) I made the previous year that had a pH of 3.1 and a 6.0 g/l TA. I did a 40% Italian wine to 60% Marquette and ended up with a 3.24 pH and a 6.7 g/l TA. This should be a really nice wine after a bit of ageing.

Batch “B” was a 10% amelioration (RO water). This resulted in a wine of 3.33 pH (no change of course) and 6.5 g/l for TA. The color did not suffer and the taste was still strong so the 10% dilution did not have much of an effect except to lower the TA a bit.

Batch “C” was to add some Potassium bi-Carbonate. This resulted in a wine of 3.5 pH (still okay) and 6.2 g/l of TA. Again, this is a very nice wine.

Batch “D” was no change at all. I left this batch untouched with a pH of 3.33 and 7.2 g/l of TA. With a bit of ageing this too should be a very nice wine.

Now, for the really hard part….. waiting for another 6 to 18 months to see how these taste !!!!

Update re: Winery and new "Mini-Brewery"

Wow! It has been about 6 months since my last post. Time really flies.....

Winemaking activities over the winter are always rather slow and hands-off while waiting for the new wines to "do-their-thing". I hope to post soon with the numbers and actions I've taken over the last 6 months with both the St Croix and Marquette wines. They are really tasting good!!

With all the snow and drifting I have not been able to start any of the winter pruning. Many of my vines are still under several feet of snow.

It's now been about one full year since I started my mini-brewery. I jumped in with both feet and skipped the usual "extract" brewing (from concentrates) and got right into "all-grain" brewing. I have a couple of mash lauter tuns, a couple of propane burners, several pots and a Keggle, a 14lb grain mill, 6 corney-kegs, CO2 tank, beer fridge, etc. I've brewed 16 batches of beer in the past year and am finding this new hobby (obsession?) to be a lot of fun. Now, friends and visitors can enjoy not only a wide variety of wines but can also enjoy up to 6 beers on tap with others available in bottles.

St Croix harvest

As I indicated in my post, we had strong winds and rain for the entire week of pollination for the St Croix grapes so we had a very poor set of berries. However, some of the clusters got filled fairly well. Here's a picture of a few clusters. The berries are a bit bigger than the Marquettes.

Harvest was on Monday (8/24) and was rather small (only 7 vines). I'm still not sure I want to keep this grape variety. I may replace these few vines with something else in the future.

Harvest numbers were fairly good. Brix came in at 18 (norm I'm told is 18-20), pH was 3.18, and TA came in at 11.9g/l (1.19%). I brought up the Brix to 23 and started to process.

Marquette Harvest

I was just about ready to harvest my Marquette grapes when all of a sudden we got about a half inch of rain unexpectedly. That messed up the numbers a bit so I decided to wait a bit longer.


On Saturday (Aug 22) the numbers looked good again and rain was being predicted starting on Tues for 3 days straight. So, I decided to harvest on Saturday.


The numbers were not perfect but close enough considering the upcoming rains. Brix was 23, pH was 3.3 and TA at 13 g/l (1.30%). Being cold weather grapes, the TA will come down a lot during Malolactic Fermentation and cold stabilization so I should be okay.


I left the Brix alone at 23 (12.7% abv), added 20 ppm of SO2, opti-red, Lallzyme EX, tannins (enological and chips), nutrients, etc. and got it going. I didn't have the yeast I wanted to use so I used RC-212.

Here's a picture of the grapes on the vine on Harvest day.


























Here's a Picture of a Marquette cluster on harvest day. Berries are about the size of large blueberries. Clusters were about 5 ounces.

Here's a picture of a bucket full of my Marquettes.

Veraison and vineyards

Well, I've been very busy all summer and haven't posted to this Blog in quite a while.

I got bit by the "beer-bug" and started brewing beer. I now have all my equipment and have been doing "All-Grain" brewing and have 6 kegs to hold/dispense them. I may start another Blog for my beer activities when I have some spare time (this winter?).

Over the next week or so I'll try to get caught up.

I'm still bottling last year's 66 gallons (330 bottles) of Italian wine and my small harvest wines. This should fill my wine cellar up again to its 800+/- level.

Here is a picture of the "established" northern vineyard (30 vines) and a picture of the "In-progess" southern vineyard which will have another 25 vines when done.

The Marquettes did really well this year.

The St Croix did not do as well due to high winds and rain all throughout the pollination week... they ended up with less than full clusters but the grapes still look good.

The Marqettes are now in year 3 so I let them have a partial crop. I shoot thinned and cluster thinned so they would have only about 20 clusters per vine (about 7 lbs). Next year, I should be able to let them have twice as many and maybe more in future years.

Here's pictures of the vines at the beginning of veraison (about August 1st). I put up the electric fence to keep the raccoons out now that the grapes are starting to develop sugar. Those rascals can smell the sugar !!!

I also put up the netting. I bought a 500 foot roll of "heavy Duty" netting this winter and it is much better than the lightweight netting I used last year. A bit more expensive but well worth it.

Nebraska Wineries & Grape Growers Association Mtg

Well, this year's conference was again a big success. Lots of displays at the trade show, lots of great presentations (including a 4 hour presentation by Scott Labs on yeast, etc.) and of course a great wine tasting by the wineries.

I usually attend some of the viticulture presentations and some of the enology presentation because I both grow grapes and make wines.

Here's some pictures......