Saturday, September 12, 2009

mmmm... beer!

Ok, yes, I'm a wine fan. I love trying out new and different wines! But hey, it's not the only fermented beverage worth looking at! :-)

They say that it takes a lot of beer to make good wine, so to help everyone make better wine, try this beauty, which I was served recently:

Innis & Gunn Original Oak Aged Beer

Talk about fusion of wine making and beer making! The oak lends a heartiness to the beer that is outstanding! Give it a try (as long as you're of legal drinking age, that is!! :-)

Monday, September 7, 2009

Blue is the colour of my true love's ... grapevine??

There are big differences between growing grapes here in Ontario versus good 'ol New Zealand. When you move from one place to another, sometimes they stick out like a sore thumb.

Case in point: Off-colour grapevines. Driving around Niagara you may come across vines looking like the picture on the right.

This rather sickly shade is from a copper and lime solution, called Bordeaux Mixture by some, that is applied to the vines to keep diseases at bay. For grapes, it is an effective control for Powdery Mildew and Downy Mildew, but it is used in a wide variety of crops for fungal and bacterial diseases. See this UC Davis page for more information.

The history around Bordeaux Mix is worthy of discussion, and was included in the book my Dad and I wrote (<shameless_plug> Grapes, published by CAB International, and available at a variety of bookstores, including Amazon.com </shameless_plug> ):

"Downey Mildew, imported with the American Grapevine material that was used to combat Phylloxera, was first reported in France in 1878 and caused another downturn in French grape production until a control method was found. The story goes that a grower just outside the village of Bordeaux was having trouble with townspeople stealing grapes as they walked by his vineyard (Prial, 1987). He decided to paint the clusters near the road with a greenish-blue paste made by mixing copper sulfate and lime, which gave the leaves and fruit and unappetizing splotchy green-blue colour. It is not reported if this deterred the pilfering, but a passing scientist observed that the grapes did not develop Downy Mildew. A few enquiries and experiments later, in 1885, he published resutls that showed the effectiveness of this bouilli bordelaise (Bordeaux mixture), and it is still used around the world for control of Downy Mildew as well as other disease organisms."

Bordeaux mix is approved for use in Organic and Biodynamic growing as well, and it is an important tool to being able to control Downy Mildew in particular in those systems, as Powdery Mildew can also be controlled with sulfur.

One issue with its use is that it does add copper to the soil, so with long term application (decades and decades) to the vines, the amount of copper in the soil can get too high, resulting in less productive vineyards. So like anything else, it must be used with intelligence and restraint.

Winegrowers are well aware of the challenges of using Bordeaux mixture and use it as only a part of a well-designed disease management programme.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Harvesting table grapes in Upstate New York

I've been lucky enough to be able to visit my parents when they are harvesting their table grapes - not so easy most of the time when they are in Upstate New York and I live in New Zealand!!

So I thought some info on growing and selling table grapes might be in order!

In the world of wine grapes, berry composition is king. The goal is to get those berries to the proper chemical and sensory levels, as well as being free of disease.

For table grapes the goals are all these, but also there is an appearance issue. So my parents need to be very careful about spraying anything that might leave a visible residue on the grapes. In some cases, this might preclude using certain types of sprays!

As well, the presence of an undisturbed bloom on the grape (this is a waxy coating on the berry which, when untouched, makes the berries look a bit white. If it's rubbed the berry goes shiny) is also desirable. This means the less the fruit is handled, the better!

Then you get into the shape of the bunch, which needs to be something like a nice stereotypical grape cluster, not some really small, scrawny or lopsided thing. As well, the clusters can't be too tight (that makes it difficult to pick the berries off when you want to eat one) or too loose (as then it doesn't look filled out enough and too leggy). Packing tight clusters is also a problem, as they aren't flexible enough to fit into conventional 20lb boxes (i.e. if you fill a box with tight clusters, the weight will be less than 20lbs).

So picking table grapes is a much more labour intensive process than wine grapes. Sure, with ultra-premium wine grapes, you will be doing some sorting in the field, such as removing diseased clusters and not picking second set and the like, but with table grapes, every imperfect berry should be removed from the cluster.

This means grapes that are too small, blemished in some way (sunburn, bit of sooty mold etc.), bird pecked, diseased or anything else must be snipped off. In some cases, this can result in a large, nicely shaped cluster when it comes off the vine being trimmed down to a scruffy looking scrag of a cluster, not suitable for the market.

In any case, there is a lot more attention paid during the harvesting process, and even during the growing season special considerations have to be made.

The returns can be pretty high, but if you don't have the labour to do all the work, it's all pretty academic, isn't it? :-)

The fruit my parents' grow is all seedless, varieties bred in Upstate New York, at the Geneva Experiment Station, and also a few other places, like Arkansas, which has released a number of varieties. The main difference these grapes have over those typically found in the grocery store is that they are bursting with flavour!!

So which would I rather be? A winegrape grower, or a table grape grower? Hmm, Table grapes are nice, but not as nice as wine!! :-)