Family-owned Junius Lindsay Vineyards near Lexington positions itself in the French Rhone region style. The first two acres planted there were Viognier. That was followed by Syrah, Roussanne, and Petite Sirah.
Owner Michael Zimmerman has 11 acres in vine now and hopes to add six more.Influencing Zimmerman's choice of grapes was his frequent vacations and trips through France. He was particularly fond of the Rhone Valley, with its quaint charm and its devotion to tradition. And he noted that North Carolina's climate seemed similar to that in the northern Rhone.
"I remember being in Condrieu and I was tasting the Viognier there and I said 'You can't make wine any better than this!' That's what popped into my head. Now, I had never been much of a white wine fan up to that point.
"But that Viognier. That was like drinking heaven."
Zimmerman's choice of grapes is also rooted in his business plan. "It was an attempt, from the very beginning, to set Junius Lindsay apart. I didn't want to grow what everybody else around here is growing - Cab Sauv, Merlot, Chardonnay."
As with most new growers, Zimmerman finds himself on a learning curve. He was awestruck at how vigorous new vines can grow. "It was sort of almost out of control."
"The time commitment is the most challenging, trying to balance two full-time jobs. Some time after February, this is pretty much non-stop. And fatigue begins to set in about July. No year is ever the same but there's a pattern to the vineyard that doesn't vary much year to year."
Zimmerman currently produces a Viognier, a Syrah, a Petite Sirah, a Roussanne, a red blend, a white blend, a dessert-style Viognier, and an everyday red called Party Line.
Most recently, he introduced a rose and an off-dry white.
This year, two acres of Grenache – another Rhone region grape – were planted.
"I'm hoping we can do some interesting blending in the coming years. I'm looking forward to doing as much blending as I can with these varietals. You get a much more complex wine that way," Zimmerman says.
Recently, an N.C. State University ag expert came out to inspect Zimmerman's vineyard and was struck by the planting of Roussanne, a relatively obscure white grape even in France. They discussed if Roussanne, like Viognier, might emerge as North Carolina's signature white wine grape.
"Could this be North Carolina's white grape," the ag expert asked.
That question focuses Zimmerman. "You know, I don't want to have the best North Carolina wine. I want to have the best wine that, incidentally, is grown in North Carolina."
Posted:
6/29/2011 6:58:23 PM by
Ed Williams | with
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In quite a few N.C. red wines, Cabernet Sauvignon in particular, there's a herbaceous character that's distracting. Grassiness is great in Sauvignon Blanc but in Cabernet Sauvignon, not so much.
Mark Friszolowski, winemaker at Childress Vineyards in Lexington, has studied the phenomenon for years: "I'd say it's the #1 or #2 issue we have in North Carolina. We have to get our arms around this."
The culprit is the aroma compound pyrazine and the real villain is methoxypyrazine. Friszolowski remembers a professor putting pyrazine in context: "If you could concentrate all the pyrazine from all the grapes in all the world, it would fit in a thimble."
That's how something so microscopically scant packs such a green peppery punch. This drives winemakers nuts.
Is it over-cropping, trying to get 6-7 tons of grape to the acre? Would it mitigate to pull back to 2 tons per acre? In either case, pyrazine can be there.
Next, ripeness falls under scrutiny. But low levels of ripeness, high levels of ripeness, all show tell-tale signs of pyrazine.
Is it vintage? Not the answer either.
Maybe it's Dixie's clay, a glue that locks water beneath. Alas, Friszolowski says, clay isn't to blame. But he says, pyrazine may start there, a mineral at ground level, pulled into the roots and traveling through vine. "It gets in the leaves and then it trans-locates into the fruit."
The trick, Friszolowski says, is to remove leaves around the grapes before that compound makes the leap. But leaf removal is as much art as science. Not enough leaf removal, and the grape suffers problems, pyrazine the least among them. Remove too much leafy canopy, you interrupt how the sun/plant energy transfers to grapes.
Long before North Carolina, Friszolowski made a wine name for himself in New York state. There too he confronted pyrazine.
At Childress, he thinks he may be on to solving the mystery of pyrazine. He reminds me how long he's toiled in the vineyard - up north, down south, through blind alleys to piece together pyrazine's puzzle.
"That," he tells me, "is a conversation well have for another day."
Posted:
6/28/2011 8:15:03 PM by
Ed Williams | with
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The following is an excerpt in the upcoming July/August edition of N.C. Wine Press magazine. The article "Sustaining Grape Expectations" explores why grapes grow best where they grow - and why they don't grow well elsewhere in North Carolina.
This preview may provide insight into special challenged awaiting North Carolina grape growers....
N.C. State’s Sara Spayd understands grape growers’ pre-occupation with water and temperature. What she believes is the most critical factor - a principle that holds statewide - is the rollercoaster effect of extremes.
“Quite frankly, it’s temperature fluctuation. If it’s 60 degrees at Christmas and 18 degrees at New Years, you get problems. Plants have sugars that act as a kind of anti-freeze. They develop their own protection system. In the fall, wood browns, leaves fall off, the plant is hardening off. They’re moving water outside their cells and this is concentrating the sugars and other chemical compounds in the cells. As it gets colder, water is moving out of the cell. And remember, injury occurs when water freezes inside the cell. So, if we get a sudden warm spell, the vine’s natural tendency, it's program, is to start moving water back into the cells. Then if it suddenly gets cold again, the water is caught in the cell and may freeze."
Posted:
6/19/2011 2:36:31 PM by
Ed Williams | with
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Two vowels.
If not for an ocean of Italian Pinot Grigio washing onto U.S. shores the last two decades, most Americans might know this wine by its true calling: Pinot Gris.
Pinot Gris. Pinot Grigio. It's the same. Italy has artfully branded this crisp, light-styled white on our hearts and minds as Pinot Grigio, creating healthy confusion when Americans encounter a bottle labeled Pinot Gris.
The only real difference between Pinot Grigio and Pinot Gris – a mutation of the Pinot Noir grape- is a matter of style.
“I tend to think of Grigio as being lighter floral notes, crisp acidity, lighter-bodied, no oak and just a refreshing wine to enjoy without deliberating too much over what you’ve got,” says Stephen Rigby, former winemaker at Raffaldini Vineyards. “I think of Gris as a bit more complex, maybe use of oak, maybe malolactic fermentation …something a little heftier with some nice lingering finishing notes that one may spend some time pondering.”
Italy notwithstanding, there are parts of the world where the grape shines brightest, most notably in the Alsace region of France. There the grape is called Pinot Gris. And there, much more complex and creamier styles of wine are crafted.
Geography may help explain this. Pinot Gris prefers a cooler-growing region in which to ripen and that is true in the Alsace. The grape also performs well in Germany, Austria, Canada, Switzerland, Romania, Moldova, Belgium, and in the Pacific-Northwest of the U.S. – specifically in parts of Oregon
American consumers have shown so much interest in this grape that it eclipsed white Zinfandel sales and is now the #2 white behind juggernaut Chardonnay.
Posted:
6/9/2011 8:15:57 PM by
Ed Williams | with
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I joined yesterday's field trip - 20 of Alamance Community College's culinary students on a visit to Grove Winery near Gibsonville to learn more about vines and wines.
They tasted through a half dozen dry, off-dry and fruit wines. The results broke down, predictably, generationally. The older students - chef-wanna-bes looking to reinvent themselves in a second (or third) career - had palates that suggested ... this wasn't their first rodeo. They seemed to appreciate the dryer styles, particularly the earthy, more tannic reds.
The young 'uns? Your average 20-year-old culinary student is much enamored with the romance of the kitchen. But having worked in restaurants, I know this: That romance will soon be beat out of them by the hours, the heat, the unending cycle of serving an eclectic audience with varied tastes.
Of course, that sounds a lot like life in the wine industry.
But I digress.
The young 'uns and wine? Most had not yet been weaned from sweet tea and soft drinks. They preferred off-dry wines. And they went nuts over Grove's strawberry fruit wine.
We weren't sampling many wines this day, so I had the luxury of trying something I usually turn my nose up at.
And you know what?
I liked it.
There's no accounting for taste.
Posted:
6/7/2011 8:18:04 PM by
Ed Williams | with
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