Newsletter Volume I, Issue 6 (December 2003)

September 9, 2006 @ 3:57 pm · Filed under Grape Growing, Winemaking

Newsletter Contents
In this issue of the newsletter we discuss the following topics:   

  • Elmer Swenson
  • New Vines in 2004
  • Question of the Month
  • Vineyard Status
  • Winemaking

    • Tell your friends about our newsletter!

  • Greetings
    It’s beginning to look a lot like WINTER in the vineyard. This week we received 6+” of snow which should help tremendously in insulating our more tender vines from the cold days ahead. Check out the website in coming weeks for some new winter pictures.

     

    We have undertaken a new venture - winemaking! Although our first batch is just a kit wine, we have been very excited to try it. Read more about it below.

    		•
    Elmer Swenson
    Like many of you out there, we owe much of our ability to grow grapes in the north to Elmer Swenson. He has made it his personal quest to breed the ‘perfect’ grape for cold climate areas. The work he has done during his lifetime (Elmer turns 90 this month) has been truly amazing. If you have ever been out to Elmer’s place and caught a glimpse of the thousands of vines growing there you begin to get an idea of what he has been up to…Swenson Red, Edelweiss, Prairie Star, Sabrevois…the list goes on and on.   

    As a small way of highlighting Elmer’s work, we have created a page dedicated to him on our site.

    		   Find out more about Elmer Swenson - click on the image

     
    New Vines in 2004
    In the spring of 2004, we are excited to announce that we will be planting some Marechal Foch vines. Foch is a French hybrid (also known as Kuhlmann 188-2) that has been “noted for producing somewhat light, yet deeply colored and strongly varietal, wines described as having a “Burgundian” character”. Read more about Foch.    		   Question of the Month
    This month we have added a new feature to our newsletter…Question of the Month. This month’s question:   

    What is a humane way to rid my vineyard of voles?
    Vineyard Status
    The vineyard is in great shape right now. The vines that needed it were winter-protected by mounding up dirt around their bases. The Valiants are the only ones we left unprotected as they were able to withstand last winter with no winterkill - and we did not even have our normal amounts of insulating snow. So they stood out there bare all winter with temperatures south of -20F and did just fine!  

    The snow is about 8″ deep around the vines, which we are very glad to see. Now hopefully we won’t have problems with our rodent friends knawing on the trunks. We will likely see our first below 0 temperature readings of the season this week. A good first test of the protective measures we undertook this fall!

    Find out more about our vineyard and what’s happening.

    Winemaking
    Last month we embarked on a new, but highly anticipated adventure. We started our first batch of wine! Although it is a kit and not fresh grapes that we are working with, we are excited nonetheless. It is a Chianti kit from Brew King’s Vintner’s Reserve line. The instructions have been very clear and easy to follow.

    So far, the process has proceeded as expected without a hitch. The primary fermentation lasted about 8 days. We racked it into the secondary and let it sit for 10 more days. Then checked Specific Gravity (SG) on two consecutive days and it was down to .992. According to the directions we then added clarifying agents, stirred it well and have let it sit since. We should be bottling it any day now - amazingly fast, but we are trying to follow the directions as closely as we can with this first batch. Preliminary tastings have been good. It’s not going to knock anyone’s socks off, but not too bad for a kit.

    For more information and to see some pictures we took during and after the primary fermentation, check out the NEW Winemaking section of our website.

    Thanks!
    Thanks for taking the time to read our newsletter! We don’t pretend to be experts at growing grapes in cold climates, but rather we hope you find the newsletter an informative and entertaining source of information. If you do, feel free to forward the e-mail to others that may be interested.Look for our next newsletter to arrive in your inbox sometime next month. In the meantime, thanks for reading and take care! Don’t forget to tell your friends about our !

    1 Comment

    1. Blue Door Vineyard’s Grapelog :: Grape-growing, winemaking & wine » Newsletter Archive Said,

      October 26, 2006 @ 3:21 pm

      […] 2003 Issues Volume I, Issue 6 - December 2003 Volume I, Issue 5 - November 2003 Volume I, Issue 4 - Summer 2003 Volume I, Issue 2 - June 2003 Volume I, Issue 1 - May 2003 […]

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