Pa. association president: Numbers pointing up

Caught up to Bob Mazza, the owner of Lake Erie's Mazza Vineyards and president of the state winery association the other day and picked his brain on a couple of issues. One dealt with what he sees coming up for wine producers in the state this year. In a bad economy, he sees many reasons to be bullish.

"We’ve got a pretty aggressive marketing program that we are working on," he said by phone. "We received some funding through the wine marketing and research program. We received some decent funding from PDA [the Pa. Department of Agriculture] in terms of our winery association. It started out at about $240,000, but that been whittled away by the 4.25 percent decrease and will probably take another little hit here very soon. But, you know, that’s still significantly more money than we've ever received before. So we’re doing some pretty aggressive, first of all, some good research to see what our audience is and what we want it to be and basically market to that. So I think we have a pretty good concerted effort right now to help market Pennsylvania wines.

"We also have a very stable industry. I’ll call it recession-proof. In talking to our members, there's nobody out there wringing their hands and crying the blues, you know, they’re pretty much saying, 'We’re doing OK. We hit a gas crisis in terms of prices and that didn’t seem to affect us adversely, and now the recession just hasn’t hit the wine industry so we’re hopeful that we are a fairly recession-proof business and people will realize that going to a winery and buying some good, local wines is a cheap date, in a sense. At least they’re closer to home and continue to buy local products and we’re wll positioned to take advantage of that.

"In the meantime our industry contiues to grow. We have another 4, 5, 6 wineries coming on board. We're sitting at about 15, 136 wineries right now. We’re still experiencing growth. People are still looking at this industry as a good viable industry to park some money and make an investment in, and that’s good."

Told that the investments new owners are making seem to be growing, Mazza replied, "You got kind of a mixture. You have people getting into it and . . . we'll call them very small, boutique operations, maybe out of the cellar of their homes, maybe out of their garage. Not literally, but very limited operations. But I found that a number of wineries that started that way and have grown successfully, and then you've got guys who put up a million dollars . . . and put up a nice facility. They want to do it Napa Valley style, and, you know, unless they're very well-heeled financially, those are the ones who usually tend to struggle. They make a big splash in the beginning and they kind of peter out later on when they run out of money. I'll take the little guy starting out slowly, cautiously, and growing as the business expands as opposed to someone coming in with a lot of dollars. But we need both and we have both [in our state] and it’s up to the individuals how they want to enter the business. I'm not going to dictate that to anyone.”

Twin Brook scheduled Souper weekend

As I mentioned last week, January seems to be soups and wines month. Here's another event that just got on the schedule at Twin Brook Winery in The Gap, Pa.

Souper Saturday/Sunday
Jan. 24 & 25
Football playoffs are over & you need to reenergize before the Super Bowl!

Take a break from your busy schedule. We’ll have tempting soups & stew in fresh bread bowls available for sale. Taste our wines. Enjoy a glass of wine with you soup or stew.
Pick up your favorite wines for the Super Bowl.

Eyes turn to Md. legislature later this month

We reported already on some of the news that appeared in the January e-letter of the
Maryland Wine Association. Here are a couple of other items that were included.

Budgets. Maryland wine/grape industry suffered a blow in late 2008 when funds in the Wine & Grape Promotion Fund were eliminated due to State budget cuts. The funds were to be granted to farmers to plant vineyards throughout the state.

The Maryland General Assembly's 2009 legislative session begins on January 14. Each year, the two committees that hear alcohol bills are asked by industry groups and citizens to revise Maryland's antiquated alcohol laws. We'll keep you updated on the issues that affect the Maryland wine industry and how you can help support Maryland's growing vineyards and wineries.

Chien: A lot of progress, a ways to go

Mark Chien might laugh reading the suggestion that he's the rock star of the regional wine industry.

Still, it's not far from the truth. He's well known. Respected. And his audience continues to grow as the membership expands and seeks out his advice. These days Chien carries a wine barrel's size cachet as he continues his work as the wine grape extension agent for Penn State Cooperative Extension, a job he has held since 1999. Of all the names that pop up during chats with winemakers across the central and eastern part of the state, none matches the frequency that his spills into the conversation.

I probably should have called him months ago, but the attention has been spent primarily on the individual wineries and wine trails rather than those who are part of the bigger picture. Appropriately, Chien will be the primary speaker when the Pennsylvania Wine Society holds its Wine Excellence Awards on Sunday, Jan. 18, at the Harrisburg Hilton on 2nd Street. That mid-afternoon event, which is $40 for non-members, will include tastings of the state's top 10 wines and a chance to meet and hear those winemakers.

You talk to someone as knowledgeable as Chien and try to figure out where to begin the questioning. With a limited amount of time, and much of that spent on introductions, I tossed one question his way: How good can this region be?

"There are only now people who are starting to press the region for quality," he said, "and I would say that I usually approach it from a viticultural standpoint, so viticulturally I think it can probably be the best region in the eastern North America just because we're sort of, how should I say it, we’re not as cold as the Finger Lakes and we’re not as warm as Charlottesville [Va.].

"It's just a matter of finding the best sites, which I think are down in Adams and York County. I don't pretend to hide the fact that I think those are the best areas to grow grapes. Hauser Estate will be probably the first example of what that area can do. Allegro certainly has demonstated that York County has great potential. And we have some new places like Galer, like Karamoor Estate. I think we have great potential if we find out where the best sites are and we apply the viticulture technology that produces great wines elsewhere. It’s jst no big secret that all the knowledge and ideas are out there, we just have to find the best places to apply them. So I think all those south slopes that are currently covered unfortunately with apples and peaches . . . and that’s to take nothing away from the Finger Lakes. We’ll never grow Riesling as well as the Finger Lakes. I think we can probably grow Bordeaux varieties better than Long Island. But we haven't put it to the test yet.

"It’s been 10 years since I’ve been here and we’ve made tremendous progress, but we’re still nowhere near. It will be another 10 years at least before the best wines pop out. I think Black Ankle, is right now, as far as the eastern United States, is probably the best example outside of Long Island of serious wine growing, of trying to test where the outer limits are of quality. And they’re so new that it’s impossible to use them as an example."

Sugarloaf celebrating tasting room, inauguration

A lot of folks will be toasting Brack Obama and his new administration over the coming days, including several wineries in Maryland. Saw an e-letter come out from Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard in southern Maryland yesterday promoting its planned activities around the event.

Next weekend, Jan. 17-20, it's planning a tasting room grand-opening dedication and presidential inauguration from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. During that celebration, they’ll feature wine tastings and tours of the winery, sales on selected wines, hot soup, cheese platters, hors d'oeuvres, bottle engraving and entertainment.

Visitors are invited Tuesday, Jan. 20, to watch the presidential inauguration on the winery's big-screen TV while enjoying a glass of wine. Commemorative inauguration flags will be available for sale.

Here's a scoop: Md. wine ice cream out by spring

One event that got lost in the holiday and my job change was a press invitation to sample Maryland wine ice cream. Hey, if they had held the event on sundae ... ha ha, I would have been there, too. Samples were given out on Monday, Dec. 15, at the Maryland Department of Agriculture building in Annapolis.

Winery association executive director Kevin Atticks said yesterday that the event drew a big crowd, mostly from those curious what this wine ice cream was all about.

Kilby Cream, located in Cecil County, has developed a line of Maryland wine ice cream to be available this spring. This innovation is a culmination of Maryland's diverse forms of agriculture, as both the dairy products as well as the grapes are exclusively from Maryland, according to a mid-December release.

"We've developed four flavors, all made from our ice cream and Maryland wines," said Phyllis Kilby of Kilby Cream. "We think they're delicious!" Kilby Cream is using Traminette, Vidal Blanc, as well as Chambourcin, in addition to other flavors.

Karen Fedor, agricultural marketing specialist at the Maryland Department of Agriculture, added, "It's exciting to see two of our state's value-added agricultures joining together to develop a new product."

'Down time' for winemaker is short-lived

Sent a note to winemaker Jason Price at Twin Brook Winery in Gap, Pa., asking how he'll spend the next month to month and a half and whether it's too soon to get out into the vineyard. I also asked the importance of getting any type of a snow cover.

Price: Yes, too soon for the vineyard as far as pruning is concerned. Weather depending, we will start concentrating on the vineyard in late Feb/March. Until then, I’m in the cellar doing everything from QCs to blending as well as other wine processing steps. It is true that winter months offer a “down time,” but aside from allowing the winemaker a much needed 2 week vacation away from the farm there is no extended time off. Winemaking and viticulture are as much a full time all year around job here in Pennsylvania as in other grape growing regions. As far as snow … bring it. If [there is going to be precipitation], it might as well be now when the vineyard is dormant . . . Putting Chard and Grigio in bottle this month as well as Vignoles."