Maine vineyard

[bilbo-in-maine]

Ha-ha... Thank you both, Richard and Waldo! This has got to be one of the better hobbies around.

 

[OilnH2O]

Geee... I can't WAIT until next year to see MY results!!!

 

[bilbo-in-maine]

Dave - I sure hope you will get even bigger harvests than I did this year!

Here are a few progress shots of my Frontenac fermentation. My primary was a one quart Pyrex bowl with a lid. I can only guess that fermentation started with native yeast, although I added several tablespoons of my kit wine I had at the time that had just been racked off gross lees. Unfortunately I had already added kmeta to the kit without thinking. At any rate, fermentation started after about 48 hours and lasted maybe 4 days. I "pressed" by squeezing the must through a strainer bag and put the wine into my "carboy" to settle.

Here's the carboy:

Tonight I racked it off the gross lees into a new "carboy". The wine has good color and a sharp taste. The acid is pretty high, I can tell. I'm not sure how to get MLF going on this. Guess I'll wait for George to ship my fresh juice Amarone in early November. I ordered mlfb along with it and can probably borrow some at that time to add to my little carboy.

Racking tonight:

In the new "carboy" and ready to put away for awhile:

Boy, this is fun. Hope it's been "instructive".

 

[grapeman]

Do you feel like Thom Thumb there Bill? You're killing me here. ROFLMAO! I think that must be a lot harder than making a regular batch! Where wereyou able to find such a small what looks like regular wine bottle? It's smaller than even the airlock! Be careful with samples every step of the way with that one. There won't be anything left!

 

[Bert]

Way to go bilbo....let nothing go to waste.....but that is kind of cute

 

[scotty]

hose are great pics

 

[OilnH2O]

I think if you submit your "instructional" series to George for a feature in the next newsletter, he might think it's worth...oh, maybe $5-6 bucks in credit!

 

[NorthernWinos]

Anxious to see the size of the bottles at bottling time....
How many bottles do you expect to get out of this batch?????

 

[bilbo-in-maine]

I opened the one bottle (375 ml split) of Steuben wine on Thanksgiving that I made two summers ago. I again had a very small crop from a young vine. It has remained on the fine lees all that time until I opened it and racked into a small decanter. It was light bodied with medium color and good acid, not great by any means but worth the doing. Next year should see a major departure from these tiny batches since the vineyard will be in its third year. It was warm enough on Thanksgiving day to do a dormant spray of everything with lime sulfur and Stylet oil. All the dropped leaves and petioles have been removed too. Here's hoping next summer's disease pressure won't be too bad.

 

[grapeman]

Did you have more Steuben this year for a bigger batch?


I'm hoping for a mild winter and low disease pressure next year...........
It's called wishful thinking and doesn't usually work for me

Will the lime/sufur and oil spray be enough for disease suprssion or will you need to follow up next spring with a pre-budswell spraying?

 

[bilbo-in-maine]

I'll follow up in the spring with a second lime sulfur treatment. The Steuben vine (only one planted) died all the way back to ground level last spring so, no, there was no second harvest. I put in a small Vanessa to replace the Steuben, which then promptly regrew from several buds in the ground. It then grew to the top of the arbor about eight feet high and let me train several canes out horizontally. What a flip flop.

 

[grapeman]

My B-I-L has a few Steuben and they bear very well with lots of flavor- but watch them. He did minimal spraying this year and his were covered with PM. The grapes were so bad they didn't even pick them.

 

[Wade E]

They were covered with Personnel messages

, what did they say on them?

 

[NorthernWinos]

Powdery Mildew...it's a fungus type problem....It a gardener's PM

 

[bilbo-in-maine]

Taking a cue from Rich, I figured maybe some forum members would like to see some early winter photos from the Maine vineyard. As NW said, now is a good time to appreciate just the bones of our vines, the architecture that underlies the summer fullness. I really enjoy the look of the vineyard in snow, no matter if it is sunny like today or in subdued light - the forms are just so pleasing - but they are so equally pleasing in mid-summer under full sail too! I imagine others feel the same way.

 

[NorthernWinos]

Your bare-bones look great...very nicely manicured.


I leave more than one trunk....One winter I lost all but one vine...[and these are very hardy vines] Then I had to wait for them to regrow or be replanted....so now mine don't look so nice and manicured. Hope to have good enough roots now to prune more vigorously next summer.


Thanks for wading out though the snow and sharing your photos.

 

[grapeman]

Your vines are looking great there Bill. The last picture really demonstrates Verticle Shoot Positioning for all those guys wanting to know what different types of pruning look like. I bet it will be hard to clip off the upright shoots to the cordon in the spring, but take heart that they will then send up replacements for those that will be fruitful. I can picture those nice big clusters hanging down from that fruiting wire now!


I have spent the day racking and moving whites out into the garage for cold stabilization. That will throw off excess acids as crystals and leave a more stable wine. After I moved them out there in the 32 degree garage, I realized I had just water in the airlocks. I made a trip to the store and picked up a bottle of vodka(didn't have any left at home). I filled nine airlocks and only used about 2 shots out of a 1.75 liter bottle of Fleishman's cheap vodka($12.99). My oldest boy(28) said, "Oh boy. I like that stuff!". I guess I know where the extra will go!

 

[JWMINNESOTA]

Good move on getting the bigger bottle to fill the little airlocks!

 

[Wade E]

Bilbo that looks so professional with the vertical shoots! Great job!

 

[grapeman]

Bill I found a press for you to use on your grape crop this coming year. Last year you could get away with doing it by hand, but this year you will need a bit bigger press. So here it is......