Welcome to the September 2007 edition of our newsletter!

Fall In The Vineyard

What a great time of year it is - especially in the vineyard. The fruit is ripe…or ripening. The weather is starting to cool and thoughts turn to winemaking. Whether you are making wine from fresh grapes, other fruits or kits, its all fun and exciting. This is also the time of year I scramble looking for my favorite winemaking books. Below are two of my favorites - especially useful over the past few years as I have embarked on my grape-growing and winemaking adventures. These books might not be for the more technically inclined winemakers out there, but I think you’ll find that even seasoned vets will be able to glean a nugget or two of useful information from them.

	Cox’s guide to growing grapes and making wine is a great introductory resource on both topics. Click to check it out on Amazon.
	This book is chock full of recipes and insights taken from years of winemaking experience. Whether you are looking to make a classic red varietal or are wondering what to do with all of those apples in your backyard, this is a great resource. Click here to check it out in Amazon.

Fall Tasks

This fall I have a number of things I need to do to prepare the vineyard for winter. Chief among them are making sure that young vines have enough insulation to keep their roots from freezing:

• clean up weed and debris around base of vines
• hill up dirt around vines
• spread rodent deterrent powder (gophers seem to be pretty active in the fall)
• remove dead vines - one Valiant and possibly some others
• determine how many new vines are needed for next spring - 6 or more total

Fermenting

I have a small amount of my own grapes to ferment. I likely will just place whatever amounts of all varieties I grow into one batch of wine. On top of that, last winter I stashed away a Winexpert white wine kit. I am also planning on finally getting that one going.

On a related note, a friend of mine has been bugging me for a few years to try making a batch of hard cider out of apples that grow in his yard. I think we finally will get this done this year. I’ve pressed samples of juice from the apples and it has a good balance of sweetness and tartness. I’ll try to provide an update in a future newsletter.

Yet another fermented beverage that always comes to mind this time of year (or any time for that matter) is…BEER! Last fall I rounded up a group of guys for an evening of ‘brewing’ at a brew-on-premises place in St. Paul - called Vine Park. It was a good time. The beer making is very closely controlled. As a matter-of-fact, customers really only add the pre-measured ingredients to the kettles and then come back two weeks later to bottle the final product. With the size of the group we had, we reserved six kettles and made a batch of cider on the side. So each person went home with 36 22oz bottles of beer and/or cider. It was a really good time. This fall I’m thinking it would be even more fun to just host a home-brew event at my house.

Weather

After such a dry and hot summer, our weather has begun to cool off a bit. On top of that, we have received a great deal of rain in the past month. Its been quite amazing - our pond was completely dry six weeks ago but now it is larger than it has been all year!

Despite the recent rains, a summer like this past one has pretty well convinced me that I need to install some sort of manageable watering system in the vineyard. I do not know that it will be fully automatic, but at a minimum something that I can attach a garden hose to that will water the entire vineyard at one - or at least one row at a time. A system like that will make my life much easier.

Whats Coming Up?

What else do I have planned? Well, there’s always something. Besides vineyard maintenance and wine or beer making, I also spend a fair amount of time working on this website. I have a few things up my sleeve. Soon I plan to offer a new discussion forum open to anyone that has an interest in growing grapes and making wine. On top of that, I am working on some tools to assist grape growers and winemakers. Stay tuned as I begin to roll out some of these new features.

Thanks and have a great fall 2007!

Don

In the fall, the grapes complete their ripening and the sugar levels peak. It is at this time that growers like to pick them so they can make juice, jellies, wine or whatever else they would like.

My daughter Emma wrote the preceeding paragraph. She shares in my joy of growing things - even though sometimes we are not the best at it!

Thanks Emma!

Welcome to the Summer 2007 edition of the Blue Door Vineyard Newsletter! I hope this newsletter finds you in good health and good spirits. It’s been awhile since my last newsletter, so there is plenty to talk about. Read on and enjoy!

Weather

The weather in my part of the world never ceases to amaze me. We have experienced drought-like conditions for the better part of 2007. In the last two weeks however, the rain has finally arrived. At my last check, we are ahead of average for the month of August. While the dryness has been tough, the vines have been healthy with minimal mildue and fungus disease. Look for another update as harvest nears to find out how things ended up for the year weather-wise.

Summer Maintenance

My maintenance tasks have been fairly minimal this summer. I’ve tried to stay on top of keeping the vines and shoots growing in an orderly fashion. In addition, at this time of the year I put nets on the vines to protect the fruit from marauding birds. Last season I was not able to net the fruit and lost most of the crop over a two day period. Here are some other tasks I have ahead of me:

• clean out weeds from under vines
• stay on top of tying up the vines
• monitor ripening grapes
• reapply powdered rodent repellent

There will be more tasks to be accomplished post-harvest - look for those in the next newsletter.

Additionally, because I have multiple varieties of grapes each ripening at different times, I will likely freeze some of the earlier-ripening fruit until the later ones are ripe. Then they will all end up together in the same fermenter. I’ll keep notes about the progression of the wine as it ferments and share them in upcoming newsletters.

Vine Status

In this section of the newsletter I try to provide an update on the progress and status of each variety I grow. I’ve found this helpful for me as I plan out the evolution of my vineyard. I hope you find it interesting reading.

Valiant - one Valiant vine has done ok this season. It has enough fruit to make it worth putting the nets on it. It’s fruit will end up in the same fermentor with the rest of the grapes. I really need to evaluate the future of these vines in my vineyard. Each year they seem setback a little bit more - mainly due to disease and animals chewing their roots.

Prairie Star - I am excited to harvest my first (albeit small) crop of Prairie Star fruit this fall. These vines have done quite well over the past two seasons and I only expect their production to improve.

Frontenac - After replacing one Frontenac vine, the rest of the vines have done well. They bear the heaviest crop right now among any of their vineyard relatives. I am slowly working to retrain a couple of them that grew out of whack last season.

Marechal Foch - The Foch vines have had a good summer. They didn’t suffer their normal late frost issues of past seasons. But still they seem to struggle a little bit. Maybe it’s the grower!

Sabrevois - After a great year last year, three of these vines have had problems this season and I think it’s due to having their roots chewed by gophers. I continue to try alternative methods of protecting the vines from rodents, but to date, nothing has been that successful.

Marquette - Two of the three Marquette vines made it through the winter and seem to be ok. I’m doing what I can to help them end this season strong in order to make it through the winter. Once these two get better established and produce fruit, I’ll begin evaluating their ability to produce quality fruit in my vineyard. If so, I’ll begin adding more of them.

Wine

As mentioned above, I plan to make a small batch of wine out of a mix of grapes from all the varieties I grow this fall. I expect to produce about 2 gallons of wine from that batch. In addition, I have a white wine kit from a 3 grape blend of California-produced fruit that I will also get started.

Another interesting winemaking note: Northern Brewer in St. Paul, MN has begun offering pre-order sales of fresh California grapes by the lug. Prices vary, but are generally in the $23 - $26 range per lug. This seems like a great deal for fresh, quality wine grapes. I was tempted, but think I’ll stick to what I already have going for this year. If you’d like to know more about NB’s offer, go to their website: http://www.northernbrewer.com.
Calling All Authors!
If you are interested and have some grape-growing knowledge to share, contact me and I can see what can be done to include your writing on the pages of Grapelog.com. There is no monetary reward, but I will gladly add links to your website in exchange.

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Thanks for taking the time to read the newsletter!

Don

I just read this article on CNN.com. Enjoy!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/08/15/small.wineries.ap/index.html

Last night I decided it was time to bottle a small batch of wine I started in the fall of 2005. It is 80% Frontenac and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon. The bottling went just fine - I didn’t expect to but ended up with 5 full bottles. It’s not a great wine, but it’s not bad. The Cabernet was a more recent addition as the Frontenac needed a little more body.

Once the wine was bottled and tucked away, I decided it was time to break out a beer kit I recently purchased. The kit is from Midwest Supply and is a Red Amber Ale. Its from their ‘20 minute boil’ line of kits. Since it was my first time making beer, I thought this one sounded good and simple. The process went very well with no major problems. One issue I did run into was that my wife was pretty grossed out by the smell - to the point of gagging. Future batches may have to be done in the garage or when she’s not home. Other than that, the beer is happily fermenting away in the basement. I’d like to hear what others have done to counteract the odor from boiling wort. Add a comment and let me know.