Woodhall challenge heads to Gertrudes

Among the number of items covered in the Woodhall Wine Cellars newsletter for September was this one on the Eat In Season challenge:

Next up, the Eat In Season challenge moves to Gertrudes at the BMA, located in the Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Museum Drive, Baltimore, where Woodhall has Gunpowder Falls White and Gunpowder Falls Red on the wine list. A special Farmstead Dinner menu will be featured Sept. 16-21. The main ingredient of each course is sourced locally. Experience it – we will! For reservations, call 410.889.3399.

Hanna's path starting to look ominous

While the country's eyes today follow the path of Hurricane Gustav, another tropical system is beginning to catch the attention of grape growers throughout this entire region. Hanna was upgraded to a hurricane earlier today and seems bound for the East Coast, with its eventual destination being somewhere in the mid-Atlantic region. It's still five to six days and hundreds of miles from here, but just the fact that the National Weather Service is showing a projected track that takes it in this direction is worrisome for winery proprietors and winemakers who who are girding for the three to five weeks of harvesting that will start this week.

It's been a fine growing season to date; not perfect, perhaps a bit cooler than last year. But it has remained fairly dry throughout the region and a continuation of that pattern for another few weeks would have capped another better than average vintage.

In some cases you can spot the vintages that fell short by the harvests waylaid by a tropical system that had long since blown itself out but remained laden with rain. One recent year that won't be forgotten anytime soon was 2003, when Henri and Isabel dumped torrents of rain across the region in early and mid September. In general, that harvest was a disaster.

I sent a note earlier this afternoon to several wineries asking how much attention they were giving Hanna. So far, I heard from Brad Knapp at Pinnacle Ridge Winery in Kutstown, Pa. I'll post his comment, and any others that follow tonight and tomorrow.

Knapp
"I'm checking projected paths of both hurricans about 4-5 times daily trying to figure out where their going to head. Hannah looks like it has a reasonable probability of hitting us towards the begining to middle of next week. We may try and grab some of our fruit for sparkling wine prior to the rain hitting.

"Heavy rains at this point in the season obviously dilute the fruit but cause splitting and rots and mildews. We really would like for these storms to miss us. As of right now the harvest looks fantastic for us. We're dry and hot and the fruit is beautiful."

Anthony Vietri, Va La Vineyards, Avondale, Pa.
"I'll keep an eye on it to be sure, but tend to see fall tropical systems and three day rain events as just par for the course in these parts. We don't really have anything ready enough to strip off before the weekend, so not much for me to think about."

Rob Deford, Boordy Vineyards, Hydes, Md.
"We watch the weather very closely this time of year, but do not pull the harvest trigger unless there is an absolute threat like a hurricane or severe hail, which might destroy the crop. Heavy rains can dilute the sugars and acids, so we would need to wait for the fruit to recover before picking."

Carl Helrich, Allegro Vineyards, The Brogue, Pa.
"I am paying close attention to it. I have a couple hybrid varieties close to being ready to pick, and may need to back them off till after the water works its way back out of them. Most vinifera are still a ways off, although our Pinot is at 19 Brix already. I am watching the tendency this year is going to have for spawning more hurricanes than normal. Keeping my fingers crossed and saying the standard prayers. We're on a dynamite year so far, and if we can just get these hurricanes to miss us this next month, we have a year to rival 2007 and 1995 and 1991. The grapes right now have really advanced flavorand sugar levels while still retaining acid. Amazing stuff. We'll just hope for the best and plan accordingly."

Chris Carroll, Crossing Vineyards and Winery, Washington Crossing, Pa.
"We always have our eyes riveted on the weather forecasts at this time of the year. The effects are so unpredictable. The rain is one thing. Winds are another.
"We will be starting to check the sugar levels of the whites this week and will be weighing risk vs ripeness. We will also be in close contact with our growers and making these same decisions.
"Winemakers have a tendency to push the risk part a bit more, always hoping for better grape quality. Growers only are more likely to pull the fruit short of optimal ripeness in order not to jeopardize their crops.
"The storm names may be different each year, but the balancing act is the same."

At Buckingham Valley, it's all hands on deck

Catching up to winery proprietors is about to get a whole lot more difficult. Harvest season will begin, in general, next weekend and continue until around the middle of October. It’s not quite that they’re setting up cots in the vineyards, but some days it might feel like that.

Jerry Forest and his family at Buckingham Valley Vineyards in Buckingham, Pa., have been going through this ritual longer than just about anyone in the region. They planted five acres in 1966. A few years later, the winery was in operation. Today, they have 12 varieties of grapes planted over 20 acres of the 40-acre farm. So, go ahead, figure out how many bunches of grapes they’ve taken off the vine since their dream became a reality.

“Sure, its exciting,” he said a few days ago, responding to a question about the harvest. “It’s a lot of fun. And well, it’s damn hard work physically, but it’s just so rewarding that we enjoy it.”

The length of the season, he said, depends on a variety of factors, including “the year, the grapes the whole bit. It can be very variable. Nut what happens is, we have 150, 200 tons of grapes out there. And when they come ripe, when the PH and the acid and the color and the sugar are all in balance, we run out and pick ‘em. So we have to be ready almost any day for that five-week period. And in our case we also buy a lot of grapes from other vineyards, so a guy will show up here on a Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening with 10 tons of grapes and we’ve got to be ready to process them. Most of the other vineyards pick with volunteer labor, bicycle clubs and Boy Scouts and whatever they can find. In our case, we machine harvest. . . . We’re able to pick four to six tons an hour with one person picking, and that’s usually my son Jon, and we bring them in from the vineyard within minutes; sometime within five minutes of being picked the grapes are being processed because the vineyards are all around our house. We don’t take any machine-picked fruit from anywhere other than our place.”

Their harvest push really starts in July and August, as they bottle much of last year’s harvest to make room for this year. “That’s what we’re doing right now. We just bottled 2500 gallons of wine yesterday and today because we have to empty the tanks and make room for the new harvest. So everything we picked last year and even the year before, some of the reds, are now being put in bottles over the next couple of days or weeks. We have about 80,000 gallons in stainless storage tanks and by next week mot of them will be emptied, cleaned and readied for the new harvest.”

Forest noted that during the first decade or two of operation “we used to have 30 or 40 pickers out there, and they would pick all days long and we would gather up the grapes in the afternoon and we’d press way into the night.” Advancements in the process, and he said they’re using their sixth generation of a wine press, have considerably shortened the day. “Now we pick from 8 a.m. until 10 or 11, we press from noon to 3, and then we clean up and have dinner and we’re all done,” he said. “It’s totally different, a much more relaxed way of harvesting.”

Getting through harvest doesn’t necessarily mean that the work ends for Jerry, wife Kathy, and sons Jon, Kevin and Chris. Jerry said they’re spending time moving the wine from tank to tank, then making the Nouveau (a young, semi-dry red) and Nouvelle (a young, semi-dry white) that are bottled right before Thanksgiving and continue to be sold through what’s always a busy holiday season. “So January first or January second, we take a deep breath and we lay back a little,” Jerry said. “We traditionally over many years used to close in January and February, but we can’t do that anymore because [our clientele nowadays] expect us to be here. So now we’re open 12 months a year. We take off Mondays only. We go out to lunch on Monday.”

Nissley hit the mark with its finale

We like to sit far from the stage and just people watch. Two of these pictures show a long view of the wooded vista at around 6:30, an hour before the concert. The 30th anniversary Seyval Blanc, generally one we'll pass over in favor of the Vidal Blanc, went perfect with the snacks that we brought along. And we also opened a bottled of the Vidal, which never disappoints for two drinkers who much prefer their wine dry. Finally, a look at the stage once the sun fled the scene.

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The concert that wasn't originally scheduled did all right for itself. Nissley Vineyards & Winery has originally planned just eight concerts as part of the 26th annual Music in the Vineyards series, but what owner Judy Nissley called popular demand prompted her to added a ninth event last night.

The weather, humid and cloudy all day, broke as if on cue, clearing and cooling by the time the band Flashback With Donna Mark made its Nissley debut ay 7:30. Not sure what others thought, but I'd bring them back in a heartbeat and the large crowd dancing on stage and out on the grounds would seem to support that view. They played a mix of music before the break, then stuck with the '70s for the second part of their show.

It was a small crowd compared to, say, last week. But Nissley, who hadn't planned the normal amount of advertising for this one, had said she would be happy with a more intimate group, the smaller numbers allowing for more room to dance. And that's pretty much how it unfolded. Now, it's on to harvest.

East Coast eateries generally ignore local wines

Wrote Terry Sullivan of Wine Trail Traveler recently and asked how much he and his wife Kathy were finding regional wineries carried on local restaurant wine lists during their trips across the country. He responded this way:

We are in the Niagara-on-the-Lake region of the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario, Canada, and the restaurants here do a good job carrying wines fromthe local wineries. I'd say at least half of the wine list. The restaurants in Colorado, also do a good job, with three to sometimes more than ten Colorado wines on the list.

The East Coast of the United States is a disappointment though. We did find a restaurant in Skaneateles, New York, that had a couple of wines from the Finger Lakes, but it was only two, and there are near a hundred wineries there. We did stumble into an Applebees in Front Royal, Virginia, that had local wines in display casesas well as at the bar.

I think that the closer you are to big cities the less chance you'll see local wine. Outside the cities in the country you'll have a better chance.

The Event Grapevine: Aug. 29-31, Sept. 1

Labor Day Weekend Jazz Festival
Chaddsford Winery, Chaddsford, Pa.
Noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sunday and Monday
Admission: $20/person, includes wine tastings, souvenir wine glass, and concerts.
Foods available from Pace One Restaurant, or bring your own picnic. No other alcoholic beverages permitted on grounds.
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Lee Miller was driving when I reached her by phone last night, so she wasn’t certain how many years this event has been held. Might be 14, maybe 15 years. What she did know is that it’s an event that has become a tradition for a lot of people.

“They’ve got it on their calendars; they know it’s going on and they [know that they] are going to come out,” said Miller, co-owner of Chaddsford Winery. “Some people come out for a couple days. It’s a great event, provided we get the weather.”

That seems likely for the assortment of end-of-the-summer events at wineries throughout the region, from Naylor to Nissley and Boordy to Twin Brook. Well, once we get through today and tomorrow morning anyhow, as a cold front is forecast to sweep through by midafternoon Saturday.

While Labor Day is accepted as the final weekend to head to the beach, Miller said that’s not necessarily on everyone’s agenda, particularly now that gas is parked well above $3 a gallon and seemingly headed higher over the next couple of days because of bad weather forecast for the Gulf of Mexico.

“You know, one of the things we found over the years is that the people who comes are the ones who kind of want to stay away from the shore,” she said. “Maybe it’s too long a drive, too many people, too many teenagers, and they’re really happy just to have something entertaining to do where they don’t have to drive. Now with everyone worried about gas, we’re in kind of that ‘staycation’ mode where people just kind of stay home and say, ‘Let’s go out to the winery for the day, it’ll be a nice day off.’”

Bands are scheduled there all three days from 12:30 to 6 p.m. Miller said they’re expecting between 1,000 and 1,500 attendees per day. “That’s really all we can handle,” she added, noting they limit the amount of publicity they do “because we couldn’t handle 5,000 people. Fifteen hundred for us is a lot. We can do it well and we can do it comfortably. So it makes it kind of a big event, but it’s not like the Maryland Jazz Festival.

“And I think what people like about it is the low-key nature. You come, you find a spot on the grass. You put your blanket out. You can park for the day and you can bring your own food, so people can do it pretty inexpensively. We do provide a food tent, but it doesn’t matter to us if people go there or not. We’re just as happy if they bring their own stuff.”
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PENNSYLVANIA WINERIES
Adams County Winery, Ortanna: Free summer concert, Saturday. 1 to 5 p.m., food and wine available, bring along a lawn chair and blanket, music by the Skyla Burrell Blues Band, http://www.adamscountywinery.com

Blue Mountain Vineyards, New Tripoli: Sangria Sunday wine tasting ($$), Sunday, 2 to 5 p.m., http://www.bluemountainwine.com

Chaddsford Winery, Chaddsford: Labor Day Jazz Festival ($$), noon to 6 p.m., Saturday, Sunday and Monday; reserve tastings ($$), Saturday, sittings at 1, 2:30 and 4 p.m., http://www.chaddsford.com

Country Creek Winery, Telford: Barn and yard sale, Saturday and Sunday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., http://www.countrycreekwinery.com/

Moon Dancer Vineyards & Winery, Wrightsville: Music Friday (6 to 9 p.m.) and Saturday (noon to 3 p.m.); second annual Moon Dancer Folk Festival ($$), Saturday, 4 to 10 p.m. and Sunday, 3 to 9 p.m., http://www.moondancerwinery.com

Naylor Wine Cellars, Stewartstown: “Summer Sounds” outdoor concert series ($$), Friday, 8 to 11 p.m., music by Big Wheeley & The Whitewalls; Saturday, 7 to 10 p.m., music by Sentimental Journey, http://www.naylorwine.com

Nissley Vineyard & Winery Estate, Bainbridge: Music in the Vineyards 2008 ($$), Saturday, 7:30 to 10 p.m., music by Flashback with Donna Mark, http://www.nissleywine.com/lawn_concerts.htm

Twin Brook Winery, Gap: Gazebo Concert Series ($$), Saturday evening, 6:30 to 9:30; music by Mr. Z & The Nightshift, http://www.twinbrookwinery.com/

Vynecrest Vineyards & Winery, Breinigsville: Summer Tours With the Winemaker ($$), Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m., about 1 ½ hours long,http://www.vynecrest.com/whatsnew.htm

MARYLAND WINERIES

Boordy Vineyards, Hydes: Summer Concert Series ($$), Saturday, 7 to 9:30 p.m.; gates open at 5:30 and there’s a dance instruction session at 6:30, http://www.boordy.com/events.html

Other MARYLAND winery events can be found at this link and VIRGINIA events at this link.


FESTIVALS

43rd annual Polish American Festival, The National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, Saturday and Sunday, noon to 8 p.m., click on this link

($$) – Admission charge

Wine Spectator updates on Pa. legislation

We've reported on the current legislation in Pennsylvania regarding direct shipping, which would allow the state's Liquor Control Board to become the middleman, at a fee, of course. Other papers around the state have done the same. A friend of the blog sent me this story out of Wine Spectator that includes comments from the head of the Pennsylvania Winery Association and from the sponsor of the bill, state Rep. Paul Costa.