I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to make wine in Virginia. My thinking always rambles along several roads at the same time; the challenge of making quality wine, the reputation that Virginia has as a wine producing region and what it is that Virginia wineries do to promote our product and make a living.
I will address quality first. I am sure that everyone is aware that great wine is made in the vineyard, that you need good fruit to make good wine. This is the challenge facing winemakers in Virginia. Our weather and the varieties of grapes that we grow (the ones customers buy) are often incompatible, so winegrowers must work harder in the vineyard to bring in good fruit. If fruit comes in compromised, winemakers work harder to clean it up to avoid problems later. We spent many, many hours sorting grapes on the crush pad-pulling out sour rot, botrytis, bugs and unripe fruit.
Along with the issues of disease, there is also the challenge of getting red grapes ripe enough to make balanced, unflawed wines. Many times the red grape seeds are not ripe, and by allowing extended seed contact we get bitter, astringent tannins. Equally as challenging is that the stems are not ripe either, they are green, not brown. Green stems in red wines (and in whites such as Sauvignon Blanc, but that is a completely different tangent than the one I am on now) contribute, to varying degrees, negative characteristics to red wines. So how do you avoid adding green stem characteristics to wine? Make it in California. Or, spend hours at a conveyor belt pulling out stems, leaves and jacks (the small stems that hold the bunch to the vine). Tedious barely describes doing this during a 14 hour workday, soaking wet and covered with juice and dying for a cold beer and a cigarette. But this is one of the givens of winemaking in Virginia, and is absolutely a necessity to create a balanced glass of quality red wine. It is an exercise in endurance and stamina at harvest time here. Believe me when I tell you that I can taste that work in a glass.
And I wonder why I can say things like wine makes me cry. Because it is not just the toil, it is the toil that gives rise to the closest thing that I can do artistically. I feel another tangent rolling in….
Add that all the decisions that are made along the way, to cold soak or not, to bleed off juice, to whole cluster press or not, the yeast selection, the barrels to use…….
One decision, the one that I meant to address when I started this, is the fruit. One decision that I think as a wine maker in Virginia that has become a quite contentious issue of late is to use fruit from states other than Virginia, or to use concentrate made from grapes grown elsewhere.
Personally, I want the wine I make to be as honest as I am. I am originally from Pennsylvania, but consider myself to be a Virginian. The wine Sharon and I make is made in Virginia, and labeled Virginia wine. Simply put, if people want to make wine from grapes or concentrates from California, no problem. Just don’t label it Virginia wine.
I will address quality first. I am sure that everyone is aware that great wine is made in the vineyard, that you need good fruit to make good wine. This is the challenge facing winemakers in Virginia. Our weather and the varieties of grapes that we grow (the ones customers buy) are often incompatible, so winegrowers must work harder in the vineyard to bring in good fruit. If fruit comes in compromised, winemakers work harder to clean it up to avoid problems later. We spent many, many hours sorting grapes on the crush pad-pulling out sour rot, botrytis, bugs and unripe fruit.
Along with the issues of disease, there is also the challenge of getting red grapes ripe enough to make balanced, unflawed wines. Many times the red grape seeds are not ripe, and by allowing extended seed contact we get bitter, astringent tannins. Equally as challenging is that the stems are not ripe either, they are green, not brown. Green stems in red wines (and in whites such as Sauvignon Blanc, but that is a completely different tangent than the one I am on now) contribute, to varying degrees, negative characteristics to red wines. So how do you avoid adding green stem characteristics to wine? Make it in California. Or, spend hours at a conveyor belt pulling out stems, leaves and jacks (the small stems that hold the bunch to the vine). Tedious barely describes doing this during a 14 hour workday, soaking wet and covered with juice and dying for a cold beer and a cigarette. But this is one of the givens of winemaking in Virginia, and is absolutely a necessity to create a balanced glass of quality red wine. It is an exercise in endurance and stamina at harvest time here. Believe me when I tell you that I can taste that work in a glass.
And I wonder why I can say things like wine makes me cry. Because it is not just the toil, it is the toil that gives rise to the closest thing that I can do artistically. I feel another tangent rolling in….
Add that all the decisions that are made along the way, to cold soak or not, to bleed off juice, to whole cluster press or not, the yeast selection, the barrels to use…….
One decision, the one that I meant to address when I started this, is the fruit. One decision that I think as a wine maker in Virginia that has become a quite contentious issue of late is to use fruit from states other than Virginia, or to use concentrate made from grapes grown elsewhere.
Personally, I want the wine I make to be as honest as I am. I am originally from Pennsylvania, but consider myself to be a Virginian. The wine Sharon and I make is made in Virginia, and labeled Virginia wine. Simply put, if people want to make wine from grapes or concentrates from California, no problem. Just don’t label it Virginia wine.
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