That girl is poison

Well last week we had bud break, a bit earlier than expected and a bit unnerving since the threat of frost in the FLX still looms. But still, it is exciting since it means that soon we will have new growth. We're preparing the vineyards for flowering, and lucky me, I took home a little poison ivy as a souvenir. Since at Wiemer we don't use herbicides it can get a little wild out there, but I didn't think anything was really sprouting yet since nothing is green. Silly me - the poison ivy is red; I should have noticed it. Oh well - now I know. It's not so bad, just on my forearms since the rest of me was pretty covered and I was wearing gloves. I saw a snake too, but I'm way over that already.

Back in the FLX

I'm back at Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard in the Finger Lakes, with a promotion from harvest intern to full-time assistant and the dirty, raw hands to go with it! This past week we were grafting - European Vinifera buds on American rootstock - which involved a fun machine that makes an Omega cut to hold the pieces together and an even more fun vat of hot red wax that we dip the new plants in to keep them together. Also this week we started moving the first of what will be many tanks that have finished fermentation so the wine can clear.  It was fascinating to see the tartrate crystals that had formed (although not as much fun to clean them since I didn't realize how harsh they are and my hands are now thoroughly cut up) and to see how fast the wine cleared once it was moved off the fermentation gunk (by the next day). I'm learning how to sulfur the wine to stabilize it and how to measure residual sugar and alcohol.  It was very exciting to taste what has been made from the grapes we picked and crushed last fall.

Spring in the FLX is pretty nice so far - as long as it doesn't snow tomorrow like they are saying - and I get to see this waterfall every day:

Pink Wine

This post is dedicated to my mom, lover of White Zinfandel, in celebration of her birthday this month.

Note: I am no longer referring to pink wines as "rose" wines, since this is a French word and not all wines are French. So these types of wines will from now on be labeled "pink."



During my travels in Argentina and Chile I learned about how some pink wines are made. To further concentrate red wines, some of the free run juice is bled off the skins after a short amount of contact, resulting in a pink by-product wine that is usually vinified dry. The remaining red wine has a higher ratio of skins to juice, resulting in more concentrated flavor, color and structural components.

This method is not new. In fact, when Bob Trinchero of Sutter Home Winery in California released the first White Zinfandel in 1973, he had made it for the same reason. It was a by-product of his red Zin that he wanted to get more concentrated. He fermented the pink stuff dry and sold it as White Zinfandel. A few years later, while making this wine, the fermentation got stuck and not all of the sugar was converted to alcohol. Bob tried it, liked it, and decided to bottle it that way. The sweet White Zin was a hit with Americans who thought they didn't like wine. And now you know the rest of the story.

Like it or not, and even though my mom prefers Beringer to Sutter Home, we still owe thanks to Sutter Home for starting the White Zin craze and getting more Americans to drink wine. I am happy to report that my mom's evolving palate now enjoys many Rieslings and sometimes a Gewurztraminer :) Happy Birthday, Mom!