If We Could Have Had Just Two More Weeks...

If We Could Have Had Just Two More Weeks...

That’s a statement Gary, my consulting Winemaker for 5 years, said perennially around here. As farmers you need to understand that there is NEVER a perfect year. But, if there were a near perfect year it may be this one. Being in the middle of harvest now my eyes are tired as is my brain so bear with me here as I bring up a very important topic…and that is defining a vintage. My customers, my friends, my family, my staff, and even the local news asks me during this time of year:

"What does this year’s vintage look like?"

Now, wineries, vineyards, tasting rooms, bottle shops, and restaurants will all have a different version of how kind (or naughty) Mother Nature treated our precious wine grapes on any given year. For any of these retailers within the wine industry the view of a vintage is almost certainly directly related to the sales of that wine’s vintage, and then the supply and demand for that vintage. This is why as a consumer of fine wines it’s tough to tell exactly what the common theme is for a vintage. Well, I’ve broken it down for you in this article based on a few limitations:

This article describes: 

• The vintage of wine grapes only
• Only in the Eugene area (AKA South Willamette Valley)
• Only the varietals that we work with (Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Riesling)

Knowing how a certain varietal’s grape growing year has gone in a certain region can help a consumer of wine decide which wines he or she might want to purchase from a retail shop. For example, Howard, a local wine enthusiast and organizer of a local wine meet up group came to my Vineyard Walk and Harvest Tour event on Saturday. When I said “this looks to be a great vintage for Riesling” he immediately started asking when it would be available for purchase. After a few more pressing (no pun intended) questions about this year’s Riesling I jokingly said, "It looks like it may be time to raise the price of our Riesling!"

There is some truth to that joke…actually, a lot of truth. Every year whether it’s myself or any of the other Wineries in the area the local news media asks what a consumer can expect from the current year’s harvest, and every year we are happy to announce how “Awesome!” or “Epic!” the year is in general. Usually the closest you can get to the truth in a bad year from a vintner is their admittance of it being a challenging year. Then, we talk about how it’s in challenging year’s that one needs a truly great Wine Making staff. And that’s true…right? Well, sort of.

While it is true that you need a good Wine Making staff to produce good wines, a winemaker will often tell you that
I can make good wine from good grapes, but I cannot make good wine from bad grapes.

So, whether it’s a good year or a bad year it’s never defined that simply. I will point out again here that my point in this blog is to give you a report on the common thread of 2014 as a vintage, as it pertains to the varietals that we grow here at LaVelle Vineyards.

Every year there’s a point when someone says or does something and I stop and think to myself That’s IT! That is a defining moment in the current vintage. I had one the other day while visiting with a vintner up North from us. He was driving a forklift and shaking his head. He said. "The flavors are just not there this year…"

He was referring to Pinot Noir and our relentlessly hot summer. Now, I’ve worked within this business for 8 years, and my Dad for 20, and I’ve never heard any grape grower complain about too much heat in the Willamette Valley. But that’s precisely what this vintner was lamenting. The 2014 summer brought us a lot of 90 plus degree days, and as the fruit ripened quickly it didn’t receive the hang time needed to develop all of the flavors that it could have.

There are two main aspects of deciding when to pick your Pinot Noir, one is the development of the sugars and acids, and the other is flavor maturation. Development of sugars and acids is easy to follow with simple lab work. You have a range that you look for, and you (hope) that the grapes naturally get there before you pick. Furthermore, if the natural grapes don’t have the right sugar and/or acid mix they can be altered (slightly) in the winery to help produce the body and proper balance of a finished wine. Flavor maturation on the other hand must be achieved 100% naturally, and it happens at the end of the year. What we typically look for is red or black fruit flavor when we taste the grapes, such as cherry, strawberry, blackberry, black currants, blueberry, plum, etc. This flavor maturation comes with additional hang time in the vineyard. Now I know you’re saying to yourself “Wait a minute, earlier he said this may be one of the greatest vintages”. I know, I know…but hey, it’s never that easy right?

In warm years, a warmer site will experience sugar ripeness to quickly, and if you don’t pick the grapes in you will make Pinot Noir with residual sugar, or too much alcohol. Either of these wines would largely be unacceptable. Now, cooler sites in a year like this have an advantage, or a chance to develop those flavors that are the holy grail of Pinot Noir. Then of course there’s what I call The Farming Factor. It’s important to remember that in farming we always say at the end of a year, "If we just could have had two more weeks of …"

And this year it was two less weeks of heat! So, for LaVelle Vineyards 2014 vintage of Pinot Noir I’m going to say it’s above average. We may have a reserve in the mix, and that remains to be seen through fermentations, oaking, and aging of the wine. The Pinots from this vintage will have some really nice flavors, and I’m sure that the tannin and color will be delightful.

Pinot Gris has some different varietal characteristics than Pinot Noir. Pinot Gris can be cropped at a higher level without distending flavor. Our Pinot Gris also exhibits an acid fallout at the end of the year, which is an indicator that it’s time to pick before we lose much of that acid. Pinot Gris tends to be more straight forward in flavor profile, and so we don’t have to wait for complexity in the flavor profile like we do with Pinot Noir. The fruit clusters were very tight and uniform this year making for great pressings. Even with the heat of 2014 our Pinot Gris flavor matured very well and I think we’re looking at a great vintage!

Riesling is what I’m starting to get really excited about! We still have all of our Riesling out in the vineyard, and in a normal year that wouldn’t be a big deal because we’re just at the end of September as I write this. Riesling is a late harvest varietal which means that it starts late and ends late. We typically let Riesling hang for 2-4 weeks longer than Pinot grapes as their sugar development comes on slower. In 2011 for example, we didn’t bring our Riesling in until the first week in November! That was a cold year. This year the sugars are developing early in all our varietals, so our Riesling is ready to pick now. There are a lot of different types of wine that Riesling can be made into. You can make dry, off-dry, semi-sweet, sweet, and even dessert wines with Riesling grapes. So, we have a plethora of options based on how much residual acid and sugar we leave in the finished wines. We can afford to let the Riesling hang for a while and develop some really great flavors, and then make some decisions along the way as to what types of Riesling wines are made for the vintage. Right now we’re looking at making an Autumn Nectar. That’s our dessert Riesling that requires about 24 percent sugar. I believe that we will get there this year. A typical Riesling year will get you somewhere between 17 and 22 percent sugar. Right now, our 47 year old block of Riesling is at 22.5 percent sugar, and there’s a warm weekend in the local weather forecast. I’m going to start making some either Off Dry or Semi-Sweet Riesling next week and then we’ll take a look at the rest of it here soon. As a group, our palms are itching in anticipation of what looks to be the best year in quite some time.

Ok, that’s it! I think this is a great view of the 2014 vintage from where I sit. So, tune in next for a video based article going over our Pinot Noir production process and as always, please leave me a comment or question and let me know what you think!

Oh, and Go Ducks!