New Video: Grapevine Pruning II -Double Guyot

I've finally finished the video on cane pruning. It's only about a year  late. I actually planned on doing a cane pruning video first but the footage  was lost somehow so I just put the spur pruning video out there anyway. So I hope you enjoy the video. It shows me cane-pruning two vines using the French Double Guyot method. As always comments and questions are welcome. Enjoy!

The Regent Wine Grape

Four years ago I began searching for a red grape variety to replace the Frontenac vines in my vineyard. I had chosen Frontenac when I originally planted my vineyard along with three other varieties for trial. The reason I had decided on this University of Minnesota variety had to do with a lot of unknown variables. There was and is literally no one other than me who is growing fine wine grapes within a 50 mile radius of my house. Oh there are plenty of people growing grapes and making wine, but by and large they are Italian immigrants who have planted what would "grow with little effort" in the USDA zone 5b climate of New York State's Capital Region. That is to say, vitis labrusca grape varieties like Concord, Niagara and the like. They grow well, make delicious jelly, pies and juice, but terrible wine in my opinion. So when I planned my vineyard with nothing to go on, I had to take into consideration the all-time record low temperature of -28F and the more regularly occurring low of -10F. After a lot of research, Frontenac seemed to be a good choice. It is very hardy, to -30F or better. I also read many claims of very good "Pinot Noir like" wines being produced with it. I planted it figuring that it would guarantee me a crop despite winter lows and hey, if I could produce "Pinot Noir like" wine with it, I was all set.

As a grower, this is how you begin understand what that ambiguous French word "terroir" (pronounced "ter-wah") means. This word has been used to denote the special characteristics that geography has bestowed upon grapes. It can be very loosely translated as "a sense of place" which is embodied in certain qualities, and the sum of the effects that the local environment has had on the grapes which contributes to the quality and distinctiveness of the finished wine. In layman's terms: those Frontenac grapes did not like the terroir of my backyard. The vine was overly vigorous, prone to bunch stem necrosis (rot that killed the stems and prevented many grapes from ripening) and the wine was just plain bad. I made three vintages and it always tasted like funky, bitter grape juice with tongue-burning acidity. It was full of off-flavors and not pleasant at all. I know there are growers out there who are making pleasant wines with this grape even enjoying commercial success with it due to their terroir and wine making techniques, but not me. Thus began my quest for the perfect grape to replace it.


Replacing a variety is actually exciting when you have a bit of experience under your belt. You begin to imagine a new variety ripening perfectly and the wonderful wines you will make with it. As I searched around taking into consideration my climate, site and other factors, I narrowed it down to a few varieties. One of them I stumbled across was a German red variety called Regent. The information out there is scarce but it is described as being bred in 1967 by Professor Gerhardt Alleweldt at the Geilweirlerhof Institute for Grape Breeding in Germany. It is a cross of the vitis vinifera variety Diana (Silvaner x Muller-Thurgau) with the interspecific hybrid Chambourcin. Thus it is still considered an interspecific hybrid. Since it has such a great percentage of vitis vinifera in it's parentage though, in Germany it has been declared vitis vinifera. I read that it makes deeply colored wines with good tannins and red fruit components, as well as being able to handle oak well. The wines have been described as "Southern Rhone" in character. Possibly one of it's best qualities is that it is very resistant to fungal diseases. All of this sounded great so I began to search for Regent vines and Regent wines, to no avail. No one had the vines, and the wine!? Nowhere to be found in the U.S.A. They seem to be available in the UK but not here. I also couldn't find any information on it's hardiness, which was a concern to me.

I finally got in contact with some growers who were familiar with it in some grape growing groups and found a source for the vines as well as "unofficial" claims of hardiness down to -14F. It seems to be gaining some popularity in the Puget Sound area of Washington. It appears there will even be a commercially available Regent this year from a Washington grower. Here in the Northeast I have yet to find anyone growing it amature or pro. I decided to give it a try and planted about 25 vines three years ago. I harvested my first small crop, eneough for a stand alone varietal this year. I'm going to give my assessment of the vine after three years of growing it (which is not a lot of experience) in Upstate New York:

1. Regent has very controlled upright growth with low to moderate vigor. I have my vines grafted on 101-14 for my heavy soils and phylloxera resistance. It is easy to manage so far which is interesting because every other variety I grow is quite vigorous for me.

2. It is very disease resistant, I spray it every other time I spray Cab Franc and Riesling and have had NO problems with disease.

3. It ripens in early October for me, just after Marechal Foch and well before Cabernet Franc.

4. So far I have had no winter damage on it with low temps around -5F. I hill up the graft union and blow as much snow as I can on them but no other protection.

5. I harvested about a week before I would have liked to this year at 21 brix and 6.1 T.A. I would have liked to let the grapes hang to about 23brix but the bees were destroying my crop so I had to get them in.

6. So far the wine seems good, but I'm thinking the extra week would have been beneficial. It has excellent color, an earthy nose with spicy hints. The flavor is a bit too young to judge yet but seems pleasant. I'll keep up posting on it as it develops.

So did I make the right decision? I'll know in a few more years, but that's how you find the perfect grape. There are no shortcuts. I'm pleased so far but only time will tell. I hope this information helps others who may be interested in this grape. Please feel free to ask any other questions you may have about it.

Vineyard in Glass

Here are some pictures of my vineyard and surroundings after the recent ice storm that hit the Northeast US. The ice sure put a beautiful twist on things. Enjoy...

Hilling Up The Vines and Winter Protection

Growing vinifera wine grapes in the Northeast United States or any other cold-climate growing region, requires special effort. Vinifera grapes include the classic wine grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Merlot and Riesling to name just a few. Many people feel that these grapes make the best wine, including me. They are however, very susceptible to disease and cold temperatures. Although cold tolerance varies from variety to variety, as a general rule if your winter temperatures flirt with anything below zero Fahrenheit, you will need to protect your vines for winter. If your temperatures regularly get below -15 F, you may not want to attempt to grow vinifera grapes and choose French-American hybrids or other Hybrid varieties of wine grapes. They don't make as high quality wines as vinifera(in my opinion), but some of them can and do make excellent wine. In my vineyard the risk for temperatures well below -15 F  exists. Fortunately it doesn't happen with any regularity. As a matter of fact I cringe as I write this because I feel like I'm "due" for some very cold weather since it hasn't happened in a few years now. Since the risk of these low temperatures is there I have to take precautions to protect my vineyard if I want to produce grapes every year. 

The first precaution is the varieties I have chosen to grow. When I planted my vineyard eight years ago, I did a lot of research to try and determine what I could plant. I've detailed that  research in previous posts like this one: 

  http://www.backyardvineyardandwinery.com/2008/01/2007-villa-ruzzo-cabernet-franc.html

In my vineyard I have chosen to grow two vinifera varieties; Cabernet Franc and Riesling as well as two hybrid varieties; Marechal Foch and Regent. If I do experience very cold winter lows and it kills the buds on my vinifera, these two hybrids will likely survive and I won't go a vintage without making some "estate wine".

The second precaution I take is protecting my my vines during winter. The vinifera varieties I've chosen to grow, Cabernet Franc and Riesling are the most hardy vinifera that I am aware of. They are both hardy to -5 F or a little colder and they will not be killed until the temperature drops below -16 F. Being "hardy" means that the temperature can drop to -5 F without the grower having to protect the vines in any way. Temperatures lower than that will begin to kill buds, wood and eventually the vine itself as it gets progressively colder. As the previous post I referred to details, I used to completely bury my vinifera vines each year. Burying vines will ensure their survival even in very cold climates where temperatures drop below what the vine can normally tolerate. It is also a lot of work! I would prune each vine to 4 or 5 canes in late November after thanksgiving. Then I'd bundle each vine using wire ties. I have my vines planted at about 45 degree angles using a "j" type training so that after bundling, I could carefully lay them down. I'd then dig a little trench so that the whole vine could lay flat on the ground. Then I would pin the vine to the ground using pins made from trellis wire. Next I would take dirt and mound up the graft union with about 4-6" of soil, burying the lower portion of the trunk and the graft union. After burying I would cover the whole vine with straw, canes and all. Like I said, it was a lot of work and I had to do that with more than 50 vines! Some vineyards in Minnesota do this for vineyards of thousands of vines, wow! It works though and it will protect your vines from winter injury if you want to grow vinifera in a cold climate.

I have since changed my methods to a simpler, albeit riskier method of winter protection called "hilling up". This is commonly used in places like the Finger Lakes of New York and some Mid-Atlantic state vineyards. It's easier because all you are doing is mounding soil up around the graft union or scion of the vine. By protecting this part of the vine, the grafted vinifera wood, you ensure that a new shoot will grow even if the rest of the vine is killed by cold temperatures. This method works if there are many years between extremely cold low temps like in my vineyard. The nice thing here is that even by hand it only takes a few minutes to hill up a single vine. I can hill up all my vines in an hour or two.

The third precaution I take is growing multiple trunks. Again, a technique used in the Finger Lakes and other areas. By allowing a new shoot to grow from the base of the vine each year you are basically upping the chances that one of these trunks will survive if very cold temps do occur. I have also taken it a step further. The shoot that has grown during the previous growing season is still very thin and flexible in the fall. It is easy to bend it down to the ground, lay it flat and pin it in place. A shovel full of dirt or two and it's covered. This provides a little form of insurance so that if perhaps, the rest of the exposed parts of the vine are killed, I have some one year old buds that will produce at least a small crop. 

The fourth precaution I take is kind of site-specific. Since I have a small backyard vineyard and we generally receive a good amount of winter snow, I use it as insulation. By blowing as much of it as possible onto my vines, it acts as extra protection for the trunk and graft union. It rarely gets high enough to cover canes and cordons though, and you can't always count on it to be there when cold temps arrive, but it helps when it does come.

So there you have it, that's how we "crazy" cold-climate growers fight old man winter. I'm sure anyone in California or other moderate growing regions who reads this is probably very appreciative that they don't have to deal with this stuff. It does take a lot of effort but I think it makes you appreciate the finished product even more. I think of it like the rich kid who has everything "handed to him from daddy" versus the poor kid who has to fight and claw his way to success. Which one appreciates what he has more? I know that when I pour a glass of Villa Ruzzo Cab Franc or Riesling, I can taste the work, effort and love that went into making it along with delicious fruit, earth, pears, petrol, blue stone and vanilla oak. But who knows,  maybe it's just in my mind. 

Backyard Vineyard & Winery In Winemaker Magazine!

I'm very excited to announce that Backyard Vineyard & Winery is in the December 2008/January 2009 issue of Winemaker Magazine. I'm an avid reader of WInemaker and you'll find a link to it here in the "Helpful & Interesting Links" section.

You'll notice right away that the introduction is lifted from the first post I ever made here. There's also a lot of other info too. The article is on the last page of the magazine in the "Dry Finish" feature. Hope you enjoy it!

I will also be gettimg this years harvest details up soon as well as some pictures from the vineyard. Stay tuned....




(Click on article to enlarge)

Good Intentions Will Not Make Good Wine!

I began this year's growing season with good intentions, no, make that great intentions. Coming off 2007 which was the best year of my vineyard to date. It was a year with great weather producing fantastic grapes and thus wines with great potential. Needless to say, I was all geared up for a repeat performance and then it happened,...LIFE!

Back in March I started planning and preparing for a 300 square foot addition to my house which of course includes a new 300 square foot wine cellar beneath it. Sounds great I know, but the problem is I am doing part of the work myself. I had to do the foundation/basement, the electrical wiring, the chimney/fireplace and the painting. When I planned all of this out back in March, it seemed very feasible and reasonable for me. Well it's almost done, two months behind schedule and a good few thousand over budget. To say that it has been tough would be an understatement. I know these types of projects never go as planned but I never though it would take up all of my spare time. Spare time that is usually set aside for my vineyard and winemaking. I did the best I could under the circumstances to keep up with sprays and canopy management. The weather this year was a challenge with frost starting the year off and two damaging hail events (first time in 7 years!). All of this and a whole lot of rain in August caused me to almost write this years crop off as a loss.

Almost, I said. I hung in there, never gave up and was rewarded with beautiful weather in September and October. The harvest numbers, while not coming in quite as nice as last year, were surprisingly good! I'll be posting info on each variety in the next week or so. Well, the addition is nearly done and I'm just so relieved to have the grapes in the cellar and processed. As a matter of fact I just crushed the final variety, Cabernet Franc, last night. Whew! I was amazed though at how many perfect clusters there were despite my negligence. I think maybe they knew what was happening and decided to help me out a bit. Thanks guys.

Warm Spring, Early Budbreak and...FROST!

Warm weather never seems to come fast enough in the vineyard. You finish pruning, get the vines tied, perform any needed trellis repairs and then it's all about waiting. It always seems like the warm weather will never come. It takes aboout a week of temperatures around 50-60F to bring on budbreak. It's like watching paint dry! This year there was no waiting, the warm weather came on quick. From around the 10th of April the daytime temperatures began rising into the mid 70's. Within a few days the low 80's were here, and it lasted more than two weeks straight. With temperatures running 15-20 degrees above normal, it was a beautiful start to the growing season.

Nevertheless, I was concerned. You see, these warm temperatures brought budbreak to my vines a solid two weeks earlier than normal. Great you say? Well in some ways it is great, but in one particular way it's not. Around these parts, the average last frost is somewhere around May 5th-10th. What this all means is that as long as any threat of frost (temperatures below 32F) exists, any green growing tissue is at risk of being killed. The first things a grapevine bud produces is a couple of leaves and then this years fruit clusters, albeit embryonic. Now if those infantillic clusters are hit by frost, they will likely die and dramatically reduce or eliminate this years crop. So what do you do when early budbreak or late frosts threaten your vintage?

In France they set out metal drums to burn fires in the vineyard all night long when frost threatens. In California, large fans which keep the cold air from settling in, are run through the night. Still other growers run sprinklers through the night causing water on the vines to freeze over the tender growth. That's what I do. Yes, you did read that correctly; to protect my grapevines from frost I coat them with a layer of ice. It works because as the water freezes it releases latent heat. Not much mind you, but enough to get traped between the green tissue and the ice and keep the vines protected as long as it doesn't get too cold (below 28F on average) or stay cold for too long (more than a few hours). I was surprised to learn that this would work, but I tried it and it has worked every time I've used it in the past 7 years.

This year's early budbreak put me in a frost threat situation last Wednesday, April 30th. So I set up my sprinklers and turned them on at about 11:30PM. It's always an anxious night with little sleep when there's af rost threat. I find myself getting up to look out at the vines and checking the temperature often. There have been a couple of nights over the years where I've run the sprinklers but the temperature never dropped below 32F. Not this time. By morning my vines were coated with a gleaming layer of ice. The vineyard looks so strange like this, almost eerie. Then all you can do is wait for the sun to melt the ice away and assess any frost damage. As usual, there was near none. Only a very few shoots were damaged and that's because the sprinklers didn't get them wet enough so ice could form on them. By far a successful frost intervention!

It might seem a bit too much stress and effort to the average person, but this is the norm for grape growers. Most people would think that I'm crazy to have chosen a hobby that involves challenges such as this, but I love it. When you work, worry and nurture your vines through a year and you see that crop hanging as it ripens, then you know why you do it. Then when harvest comes and you crush the grapes and taste the sweet, succulent juice that will become this years vintage, you even begin to look forward to the next growing season. Of all plants, only grapevines and their mysterious power over humans can coax such loving attention from us. It's really amazing that we do it, but we do. I guess it must have just a little something to do with the finished product, you think?