Champlain Valley - Grapemans' vineyard - Planting to small winery

[Wade E]

Looking great Rich!

 

[grapeman]

My winemaking equipement keeps growing. Last year I had the blue 20 gallon barrels for primaries with lots of room. This year they are for small batches and the 32 gallon brutes aren't even big enough. I have 4 of them so far. Once I move on to other varieties that have a higher amount of yield I will be filling them up fast. A good thing I will be selling a bunch of them.... I will soon need to use some barrels or the plastic barrels that Al got. They look promising for a small winery like mine. The little 6 gallon carboys are getting a bit small.

 

[grapeman]

Here are a few more pictures of some grapes as harvested. These are Leon Millot grapes - a French-American Hybrid. It makes a nice wine and is lower in acid and higher in sugar than a lot of newer varieties. I really enjoyed the five bottles from last year. This year it will make more like 50 gallons. I trained them two different ways. On one I used a four-arm kniffen system which gave a higher yield and lower vigor(in this case good). They required no in season pruning.It was harvested at 24 brix. Average harvest quantity 17 pounds per vine.

The vines here are starting to show fall colors.

The other method was using Verticle Shoot Positioning. VSP. Brix was 22 and average weight was 12 pounds per vine. I had to prune heavily 3 times taking off feet of growth at a time. It also requires constant attention keeping the shoots in the wires.

Here is a bit of the final product. We call them hand grenade clusters- small tight clusters.

Based on one years growing - the 4-Arm Kniffen method works better in my soil and climate than does the VSP with Leon Millot Vines. Another couple years should begin to show a trend.

Here is the extent of Frost damage here at the vineyard when it hit 32 degrees a couple days ago. Just the tip of a very vigorous shoot laying on the ground got hit.

Edited by: appleman

 

[AlFulchino]

fascinating pictures...thanks for sharing


question.....the vsp leaves look better than the kniffen...what would you attribute this to?


also, i have a favor to ask.....could you take a picture of both trellis trained styles when the leaves are gone so that i could just take a look at the *bones* when the leaves are gone?

 

[grapeman]

I agree Al the leaves look better on the VSP. They continued to pump out shoots all year and were loaded with chlorophyl while the 4 arm kniffen had shoots about 3 feet long. The leaves matured and put their nutrients into ripening the fruit not renewed growth. I would rather have riper fruit and a manageable vine with higher yield than a pretty vine that is a pain to take care of. Next year may be different, who knows.

 

[NorthernWinos]

Beautiful grapes.....

Thanks for sharing your photos and your knowledge.

Some photos of your winemaking will be nice too...Hint...Hint!!!

 

[grapeman]

Don't worry NW, they are coming. I need to set up for the TV station for Burlington Vt tomorrow with a bit of crushing and maybe a fake press(don't need to do one right now) so it will be time to take a few pictures.


Coming soon...........

 

[Joanie]

The Leon's are just beautiful, Appleman!! I am so impressed! I left one little cluster on mine so I could taste them. They were delish!

 

[Wade E]

Looks awesome and I see why they call it hand grenades clusters!

 

[grapeman]

I finished up the Leon Millot vines yesterday getting another 300 plus pounds - enough to fill another 32 gallon Brute almost to the top- just about 6 inches for a cap to rise. I may need to take a bit out tomorrow and put in the other one. I will probaly then put a couple small containers worth back in it because the yeast has started working that one well.


Too bad you can't see the Brutes of white wines working- quite impressive but I know it wouldn't show on a picture. You can actually see it boiling the must around in the container. The small chunks of stuff are rolling from bottom upward in it at a pretty good pace.


I picked about 500 pounds of Frontenac today for some customers- with their help. It took longer than normal with help- lots of talking, questions and mini-tours. I had a two hour interview with the TV station folks. They enjoyed having a personnal vineyard and mini-winery tour.


Sorry no pictures yet. I will try to post them tomorrow.

 

[Wade E]

Sounds great Rich, do you still have more customers coming?

 

[grapeman]

I have more lined up for tomorrow. Monday I will take part of the day off to go out and try to do a bit of thinning in the vineyard and orchard. If lucky enough I will be filling the freezer up a bit at the same time. My thinning tool of choice is .50 cal black powder. Season began today and I was so busy that I didn't even remember.

 

[Wade E]

After you shoot them you smoke them out huh!

 

[grapeman]

Yeah, I keep a few oak spirals handy and use them for a ramrod. Just leave that sucker in there and when you discharge that smoke breathing dragon, you smoke the meat with oak. I would use Hickory, but then I would have to buy it instead of reused oak spirals!

 

[Wade E]

All I can say to that is YUMMMMM!

 

[grapeman]

Just a few pictures since I am short on time.
NW wanted some pictures of wine in the making. The first is just a shot of some of the primary fermenters going.

Frontenac Grapes
The clusters are average 8-12 inches long and about 5-6 inches wide. They are bigger than the pictures make them look so they add up quickly.

Leon Millot in the Brutes

Edited by: appleman

 

[AlFulchino]

outstanding pictures


Rich who is the maker of the netting in the pictures? how did the sutton net work out?

 

[Wade E]

What are those other blue containers or what was their primary purpose?

 

[grapeman]

The white netting is Spec Tresllis netting. It works great for VSP and the material is like a knit nylon type netting with about 3/8 inch holes in a bell shape. They also make a 14 foot over the top out of the same material. I may try it next year.


The Sutton Ag net worksed well with no loss to animals, but it does seem a bit flimsy compared to the net we got from the Ag Experiment Station in Geneva. For the price of it, I am very satisfied.

 

[grapeman]

Wade the blue containers are 20 gallon containers that are food safe plastic. They have a seal on the lid and handles. I wish I had bought more of them. I use them for primaries that will hold about 150 pounds of grapes each. I am going to try drilling one lid and see if I can fit an airlock on it. I will try bulk aging in one to see how it goes. I will bring the wine level up to about a half inch below the lip, fill the headspace with gas and put the airlock in. I will try it with a white that won't need to be in it too long. Next year I will get some of the tubes like Al got- a few 50's and a few 100's.


I know the area isn't fancy, but it is functional. There is a sloped concrete floor and drain and a concrete stub wall all around. Cleanup is a breeze. I will eventually fancy it up some more and get the electricity going in there again, but I disconnected it years ago. For now I just run a heavy leadcord in for small amounts of power.