A visit to Geneva, NY

In his valedictory post for the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, Jim Trezise writes;

Cornell University and Cornell Cooperative Extension have provided our winegrowing community with world-class research and communication that is second to none.  We are incredibly lucky to have Cornell as a partner, and our industry colleagues from other states are incredibly jealous.


New York State ranks 3rd in the production of wine grapes in the US behind California (90% of the totel) and Washington State - 2nd if you include table grapes and grapes for the production of grape juice.

Historically, New York has not been an obvious place for grape cultivation. the Oxford Companion to Wins says 'After unsuccessful trials with Vinifera around Manhattan Island in the first days of settlement,  nothing more is heard of viticulture in New York until the early 19th century.' Activity resumed in the first half of that century with American Labrusca varieties such as Niagara, and principally Concord, mainly for grape juice.

The Episcopalian preacher/Abolitionist/Teetotaller/Dentist Thomas Welch also found time to perfect pasteurisation of this grape juice. Welch's Grape Juice became famous around 1900. A company called Monarch decided in 1940 to make sacremental wine for the Jewish community and persuaded the Manishewitz company of New Jersey - makers of well known Matzos - to license their name for this purpose. Apparently, the grapes from upstate New York were of variable quality so sugar was added making the familiar sweet wines under this name. Manishewitz teamed up with Welch's in 2016 to make grape juice which was kosher for passover, still from the Concord grape.

Although New York boasts the oldest winery in continuous production in the US - the Brotherhood winery in the Hudson Valley (1839), wine continued to be made from Labrusca and hybrid varieties. Prohibition delayed any progress for decades. The after-shocks are still being felt with restrictions of shipping and sale of various sorts.

In the 1950s Dr. Konstantin Frank moved to Geneva from the USSR learning English and working for two years in a non-academic capacity at the Cornell University Experimental Station before going on to prove that Vinifera varieties could be grown successfully in New York State. The rest is history as they say, bringing 300 years of failure to grow Vinifera varieties to a close.

At the moment when Dr. Frank met up with the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) at Geneva the work being carried out there could be said to have begun to converge with more research into Vinifera varieties.

Founded in 1880, the NYSAES has been researching the improvement of fruit varieties since 1887 and became part of Cornell University in 1923. With 80% of New York grapes going into grape juice, dessert grapes and grape products other than wine, it is not surprising that emphasis had been on helping farmers grow grapes for those purpuses and what is rather charmingly referred to as the 'Home Vineyard and Roadside Market.' As Cornell's website has it;

Cornell Scientists have introduced 279 new fruit varieties since 1880. By combining traditions methods with the latest molecular techniques such as marker-assisted selection, breeders are able to improve fruit quality, productivity, insect and disease resistance, tolerance to cold weather and the growth habits of trees and vines. Cornell varieties are widely grown in New York and around the world and have been well accepted by growers, processors and consumers.

A list of some older varieties bred at Geneva includes historical yet unfamiliar names such as

Alden (1952)
Bath (1952)
Buffalo (1938)
Fredonia (1927)
Golden Muscat (1927)
Ontario (1908)
Schuyler (1947)
Seneca (1930)
Sheridan (1921)
Steuben  (1947)
Urbana (1912)
Van Buren (1935)
Yates (1937)

and seedless varieties such as Canadice, Glenora, Himrod, Interlaken, Lakemont, Suffolk Red and Romulus.

The Geneva Double Curtain grapevine training system is a most obvious advance (1960) to come out of the station for grape-growers and wine-lovers in general.

Its inventor, Nelson J. Shaulis also invented the mechanical harvester by the way.

Since the successful introduction of Vinifera varieties in New York State, the NYSAES has continued to help farmers by means of new cold and disease resistant hybrids some of which are getting known as alternatives to the classic varieties. Again the website;

Today, the Station serves an evolving agricultural sector that remains an economic engine for New York State, valued at over $4 billion a year. New programs have been added to keep pace with changes in New York agriculture, including programs to serve the state’s grape and wine industries, hop producers, bioenergy crop production, food entrepreneurs, and farmers facing new crop pests and diseases.

Of the new varieties, Traminette is a case in point having been develpoed partially from Gewurtztraminer and retaining some of Gewurtz's character. We bought an enjoyable 100% Traminette at Astor Wines in NYC and recently found an example by Fox Run at ProWein, Dusseldorf no less. The other more recent varieties bred at Geneva include

Cayuga White (1972)
Chardonel (1991)
Corot Noir (2006)
Glenora (1972)
Horizon (1982)
Marquis (1996)
Melody (1985)
Suffolk Red (1972)
Valvin Muscat (2006)

Bruce

It was Prof. Bruce Reisch, head of the department at Geneva who brought Traminette to fruition as it were, building on work by his predecessors when he came to Geneva in 1980. On our short visit to Geneva, Prof. Reisch kindly had offered to give us time between events at a Grape Conference (Bev New York) in nearby Henrietta NY to meet and ask some questions. As part of an Ivy League university, Geneva is very much a teaching as well as a research institute so we were in the right place.

Insisting on first name terms, Bruce received us royally and was patience itself in describing the history and activities of his institute.

Bob Pool, Bruce Reisch's immediate predecessor

Going back over his predecessors he mentioned the names of John Einset and Bob Pool whose legacy he has built on.

Aromella

Bruce has now developed Aromella which he describes as a daughter of Traminette. Aromella is more winter-hardy and productive and has already proved popular with growers.

Arandell

Another of Bruce’s recent progeny is the blue grape Arandell – the first to come out of Geneva’s ‘No Spray Program.’

Bruce comes from a city background (NYC). His father was a keen amateur horticulturalist an grew plants hydroponically in their apartment. This inspired Bruce to enter his profession.

He explained that another achievement of his team has been to develop means of identifying genes in seedlings at a very early stage (4 – 6 weeks) which speeds up the process of developing new varities no end.

Bruce and his colleagues are working on the many diseases that show up once Powdery and Downy Mildew are controlled. These include Anthracnose, Phomopsis, and Black Rot. Gradual and patient work in these fields is obviously crucial.

Bruce spoke about the friendly relations and sometimes rivalry betweeh Geneva and other research stations arund the world including some we have already visited (Geisenheim, Geilweilerhof) and others we hadn’t heard about (Colmar). He described how sometimes one station would make a big discovery and then pull ahead of the others until someone else made an advance. It sounds a fascinating world.

Anyone who follows developments in wine will have noticed what extraordinary improvements have taken place all over the world with unknown varieties coming online and whole areas coming up to say nothing of improvements in vinification. These advances are due to all sorts of factors, an important one of which is undoubtedly the work carried out by institutes such as this.

As well as grape breeding the faculty and graduate students from all over the world study and research the following fields;

Fruit soils
Nutrition for fruit crops
Vine physiology
Rootstocks,
Fruit pollination and crop set
Cytology of fruit plants
Virus transmission through pollen
Air pollution effects on grapes
Weed control
Disease epidemics and control
Insect pest control
Applications of genomics to fruit crop breeding

Dr. Thomas Chao whose speciality is Malus (Pomology)

As well as Bruce Reisch who is the Professor in the Horticulture section of the School of Integrative Plant Science we were fortunate also to meet Thomas Chao who is curator for the national clonal germplasm collections of apples, cold-hardy grapes, and tart cherries of the PGRU, USDA-ARS at Geneva. There are over 9,000 accessions in the collection and it is the largest and most genetically diverse Malus collection in the world.Dr. Chao has worked in universities across the US and in Taiwan.

Our visit coincided with an impressive snow storm. Impressive to us but probably nothing extraordinary to the locals as that part of the state is well known for having the most snow. Altough feeling what he called apropriately 'under the weather' Dr. Chao kindly answered our questions, gave advice and then most generously offered to show us some of the nearby orchards and vineyards containing the facility's collections.

Cherry trees were there as well as some of Thomas's Malus collection behind them.

Wild vines

and fascinatingly a vineyard given over to a collection of wild native vines, kept not for table or wine grapes but for their genetic properties.

Around Geneva is typical farming country

In the distance, what looks like a dormant vineyard

Scenes more like 'Fargo' to us but part and parcel of upper New York State. No wonder they research and breed winter-hardy varieties.

This year's fun in the vineyard

Spring wasn't in the air on the dull winter's day we snapped this new vineyard at Fairmile, Henley-on-Thames but it provided the inspiration for us finally to do a bit of rotavating in an attempt to stimulate growth in our sickly vines nearby. The owner and winemaker Jan Mirkowski generously gave us the names of his contractors and consultants.

We hired a rotavator for a day and managed to make a bit of an impression.

Also during the winter we had been in correspondance with Sunnybank Nurseries of Herefordshire concerning this year's cuttings. Last year we had had about 25% success and planted

L'Acadie Blanc
Abouriou
Baco Noir
Elbling
Rauschling
Saperavi Severny

We'll see how many have made it to this year. In 2015, we had 100% failure, so even this small rate of success in 2016 was progress. On that basis, we ordered the following for 2017;

From Sunnybank Nurseries;


White
L'Acadie Blanc 
Aligote 
Aurore
Auxerrois 
Chardonnay 
Elbling 
Gelber Muskateller 
Ortega 
Pinot Blanc 
Rauschling 
Traminette 
Red
Agria/Turan 
Arbouriou 
Baco Noir 
Cabernet Cortis
Chambourcin 
Cot Precoce de Tours 
Gagarin Blue
Gamay
Muscat Bleu 
Petit Rouge 
St. Laurent 
Saperavi Severny 

We hatched a cunning plan however. We would give the majority to a local Plant Nursery who we are sure will do better than us. 

Here is Toby with his allocation. The remainder we would plant ourselves.

We had also had an interesting correspondance with the famous Vassal Collection near Montpellier having discovered you can buy cuttings from them. We selected 10 varieties which we were going to add to the home potting effort.

Through a misunderstanding we were expecting one each of the following whereas Vassal kindly sent between 7 and 13 of each. 

From INRA, Domaine de Vassal (all Red)

Alvarelhao

Croatina

Grignolino

Jurancon Noir 

Krasnostop Zolotovsky

Persan

Pineau d’Aunis

Pollera Nera

Poulsard 

Ramisco 

This necessitated some fancy last minute footwork but we managed to pot every one of them the day after receipt.

It's true in some cases 5 to a pot is not ideal but it is possible. We'll see.

off with his head!

 All this time we had been pruning hard and no harder than in our Triomphe plot. We had left these vines  pruning in summer only for a couple of years and they had gone mad. A very helpful person from a Vineyard consulting company called Vine Care Ltd had advised us to go hard at these vines, removing the crowns. We bought a little electric chainsaw and enjoyed ourselves hugely decapitating these hateful monsters. We have no doubt they will come back more brutally than ever. Will the fruit quality be improved? This is probably the last stage on the road to grubbing them up. Vine Care have also helped us find chemicals for spraying our Bacchus and now Goldriesling against Powdery and Downy Mildew this year.

Better?

We've now finished the pruning (the above photo doesn't show the final result). All this is fun even if results disappoint. We know practically none of the varieties we are trying to grow from cuttings will ever bear ripe fruit. Our interest is to see simply what will grow in our climate, what will be vigorous and what not. So far from last year we can tell L'Acadie Blanc, Baco Noir and Saperavi Severny appear to have vigour. 

We'll keep you posted.

RAW London - reduced but still good

180 Strand, London

RAW has now mushroomed to New York and Berlin so it was perhaps not surprising that its London fair semed a tad smaller than we remembered it. The venue was the Store Studios, 180 Strand for the 2017 show, home to London Fashion Week.

The Truman Brewery in Brick Lane had been the home of RAW in London up to now and the Store Studios has less natural daylight. The inside tables this time were not as easy to see. Perhaps that is why it was more difficult to negotiate.

The usual crowd of predominanlty young and cool people were back. How different from the old buffers and codgers who attend non-organic wine fairs. You can see where the future lies.

Even the winemakers are getting younger. Here was our friend David Morris from Ancre Hill once again.

We have written about this interesting Welsh winery before in this Blog. This time we were able to taste their Orange wine for the first time in addition to their Triomphe and get some advice on how long to leave Triomphe in a carbonic maceration (30 days). Amazing.

The next rarity was almost as surprising, a grape called Devin from Slovakia. The parents of devin are Gwurztraminer and Fruehroter Veltliner. Czechs and Slovaks are very keen on their own crossings and for a good reason - USP.

Attention: 14%

charming chap from the Magula Family

Devin is a most promising grape from this outing at least.

Not far from Magula (no, it's not a typo for Malaga) we found our old friend Marco Marrocco of Palazzo Tronconi, Lazio

The good news was that his 'Donnico,' a red from a grape called Ulivella was on great form. Soft and silky. This was really marvellous. Those of you with hawk eyes may notice that on the label is written Olivella. Marco assures us that Ulivella is the real name and that the authorities have made a spelling mistake. Turning to D'Agata the situation emerges as one of the more classic oenological  entanglements, so much so that even D'Agata expresses bewilderment at one point. The entry (pp 378 - 379 in his book 'Native Wine Grapes of Italy') is well worth reading.

Almost next door to Marco was Podere Pradarolo from Reggio Emilia. As well as a Croatina (we're always looking out for a good Croatina) they had brought their rare Termarina Nera again as they did in 2014.

The small bottle on the far right is labeled 'Il Canto del Cio' Solera and is a rare bottling of Termarina Nera in purezza. D'Agata writes 'I do think it is very exciting that an estate (Pradarolo) has decided to take up making wine from this variety. We can hope that more will follow suit soon.'

Our thoughts entirely.

A snapshot of Indian wine 8 years on.

Falstaff sings 'Tutto declina'  in Verdi's last opera and it's tempting to see decline in most things. Not wine. We think we can all agree on the fact that almost everything has improved in the world of wine. Quibbles may arise concerning new Bordeaux, Barolo, Rioja versus the traditional styles but in general, standards are higher than ever across the board - especially in emerging territories.

India

 India is a perfect example of this. The progress since our last skirmish with Indian wine 8 years ago has been transformative. Now we can admire the wine objectively and not specifically as a wine made in an unusual place.

Buying wine in India is still a bit of an experience.

Wine shops at least in Kerala are strictly licensed and controlled State enterprises. Attempts (successful) are made to create a furtive atmosphere and show general disapproval of the entire process.

A thick wooden grille separates punters from the serving staff.

There is a pen for when things get busy and a queue forms. We asked for Kerala wine but the question produced only puzzlement.

There's a useful website, http://wineindia.in/wine listing the main producers and their wines. Some awkwardness in the descriptions is in line with the sheer novelty of Indian wine. There is also a hilariously innocent statement:

'XXXX, the founder of XXXX Vineyards first planted...cuttings that he smuggled into India from Sonoma.'

Chenin Blanc has not figured in these pages up to now. It's an interesting and highly versatile grape to be sure but quite mainstream. Winelists in India tend towards the even more familiar Sauvignons, Chardonnay, Shiraz etc. so where we could we went for Chenin Blanc for its lower profile and as we learned, its ability to accompany Kerala cuisine.

We drank one Sauvignon Blanc (Grover) and two Chenins, Big Banyan and Fratelli. The last two producers were new on us. In our previous visit the choice seemed to be Sula (the biggest producer) or Grover (the oldest). Grover seems to have made great strides since we last tasted their wines.  Both Big Banyan and Fratelli are good. None of these wines suggested a specfically Indian character which - if they will pardon the liberty - is not a bad thing given how some Indian wines tasted in the past.

Fratelli's Chenin are a bit more refined than Big Banyan's we reckoned.


Indian producers have brought in high-level winemakers and consultants from France and Italy including Stephane Derenoncourt, Jean-Manuel Jacquinot, Lucio Matricordi and Piero Masi. Although production is still relatively small, there are some big companies such as Moet and Pernod Ricard involved and relatively few 'boutique' operations. This attests to the seriousness of Indian wine and as we predicted in the Slotovino Awards, 2015/6 more and more of our wine in the West will come from India and China.

Not a bad thing on this showing.