Natural Wine

Sarah and the girls, along with Nonna are attempting to produce the first ever Carone Natural Wine. I was against it, being a complete skeptic. There is no such thing as making a natural wine (or organic wine for that matter). Nevertheless, I am guiding them through the process from what I have read on the topic. Unfortunately, not a single academic publication exists on the NW process. It would seem that the new process is more a philosophy/ideology.

So, here is the CARONE definition of natural wine:

The naked vineyard

Heavy frost about two days ago, ending the season. Our vines are now completely bare. Pciking up the nets, pruning and getting the pinot noir and cabernet vines ready for winter. These vines are either protected with snow as they are laid to the ground, or we hill them up with soil.

Clean-up operations begin today in the winery. We have transferred and pressed all our wines. It took a little longer this year with the emptying of our large fermenters. I think I will draw off wine from the tanks as it is still active and the cap has not fallen. Saves on time and effort!

Winter preparation begins

Began pruning Cabernet and getting the vines ready for winter. Leafs have fallen and the vines are once again bear, except the for occasional grape cluster which was missed by the pickers.
Removing nets and tying them up for storage. It’s our first year doing so and find it to be a bit time consuming but much needed. Without the nets, there would be no way to fully ripen any of our grapes before the birds have their way.

We completed the pressing of Pinot Noir and Cabernet yesterday. We pressed a little early to avoid microbiological spoilage. Both wines are extremely clean and pleasant. We have only the highest expectations from this year’s vintage. A little leaner than last year on account of our frost back in May, but what quality!
Our lab results are expected in next week. Can’t wait to see where we finished with the profile.

Frontenac Harvest 2010

Fontenac grape harvest resumes this morning. We are into our fourth day. We still have at least half the lot still hanging on the vines.I suspect these grapes will be super ripe and most likely used for our fuller bodied wines.

The growing season has been wonderful and we are already clocking in 150 frost free days. If the weather holds, we could be looking at 160-170 FFD this year and over 1600 GDD above 10C. Who would have ever thought that Quebec rapidly is becoming a serious wine growing region?

Harvest 2010 nearing an end….thank God!

Last two days of the harvest and I think we are grateful. Our volunteers, family and friend have been great. It is a real challenge to work a full day picking grapes. Your body begins to ache all over after just after a few hours. It is especially demanding when the weather does not cooperate. However, so far we are fortunate. It has only rained once on the workers and that was only for a few hours. Thankfully, that day, we managed to complete the lot we had started quickly.

Pinot Noir Harvest (2010)

All the Pinot Noir is happily in tanks. And we are grateful. The weather in the last week has been very upsetting. Rain and more rain. We actually had to postpone the harvest for a few days, but then made a final and last push in the rain on Wednesday. We had no choice. Some clusters were beginning to rot (ahh, that famous noble rot) and I really did not want that in my wine.

Harvest Update (October 2010)

We have been quite busy with the harvest. Our Rose grapes came in at 20 Brix. The crop was wonderfully ripe, acids were in check and the flavor profile within our expectations. These grapes were destemmed, crushed and co-fermented on the skins. We are borrowing a technique usually meant for reds, but I find that making an “orange” wine is not only trendy, but also quite delicious. The grapes used are Ortega, L’acadie Blanc, Vandal Blanc, Eona. There are wonderful tropical notes and a dominating honeydew melon.

We also completed harvest on the Cabernet Severnyi. These grape were, IMO, over ripe! Just under 3 tons came in, and I would estimate about 30% were raisining. The must is very inky and sweet.

No Grand Vins in Quebec?

Back 20 years ago, when cottage wineries, such as those in the Eastern Townships, started out they had no infrastructure to support the business. They essentially were on their own to figure out how to make the best wines possible from the terroir. I would estimate that about 15 vintage years was lost in bringing those companies to a level that is typical of a start-up winery in Quebec today. With no one to guide them, trial and error and lots of okay wine were the best that was achieved under the circumstances.

Today, the situation is completely the reverse – the QC wine industry has a sea of knowledgeable resources at their disposition. Those same enologists working at French and Italian wineries are now in QC making QC wines.

I don’t host public harvests

Agri-tourism and my quest for quality

Vineyard managers are a strange bunch. I should know belonging to such a group myself. We tend our vines like thousands of individual babies, each requiring that very special attention that only a parent can provide. We spend our lives trying to bring out the very best from our vines, to read the signs of need and to reap its reward when all the pieces fit together perfectly.

We hire the best possible people to assist us in our vineyard tasks – agronomists, botanists, chemists, enologists, etc. – all working in tandem to bring balance and quality to the vineyard’s yearly production. When it’s all about to come together, right before the harvest, hundreds of tourists armed with pruning shears and plastic buckets storm vineyards, like the allies in Normandy during WWII, to live the life of a “vigneron” for a day. Some winery owners try to capitalize on this and offer up, for a price, the chance to harvest grapes for a day.

It is at that very moment that all is lost!

Get Informed – Quebec Wine Industry

GET INFORMED – The Quebec Wine Industry
With a local wine industry as young and fast paced as Quebec’s, the
challenge of keeping up with its constant evolution and growth can seem overwhelming to most. In as little as five years, the industry has tripled in size adding to the total number of wineries in la belle province to over 200. Shockingly, Quebec now has more wineries than British Columbia and that is not including the numerous production-only vineyards in the Province.

I can see how it would be a challenge even for industry experts to keep
up.