Wines & Vines

44 WINES&VINES Collector's Edition COLLECTOR'S EDITION bunches harvested into the old-fashioned 2-ton or larger containers often started juicing in the containers as more grapes were piled on top of them. Daytime harvesting in high temperatures often warmed this juice to the detriment of its potential quality as wine. Along came half-ton capacity MacroBins, 1-ton T bins and hand-carried plastic lug boxes (introduced mainly for sparkling wine) that could be stacked on top of each other on a trailer without smashing the grapes under- neath. Half-ton and 1-ton bins also quickly became indispensable as fermenters for small lots of red wine. Dr. Konstantin Frank Growing vinifera in New York state When Dr. Konstantin Frank (1889-1985) ar- rived in the United States in 1951, he had a career history in viticulture going back to the mid-1920s. Born in Odessa in southern Rus- s i a , h e t a u g h t v i t i c u l t u r e , r e s t o r e d a 36-square-mile vineyard devastated by phyl- loxera along the Dnieper River, earned a Ph.D. in viticulture at the Odessa Polytechnic Institute (the title of his dissertation was "Protection of Grapes from Freezing Dam- age"), and invented several pieces of me- chanical equipment for use in vineyards, including a grape plow to bury vines for the winter, a mechanical planter, and a machine to mark planting locations in the vineyard. In 1941, he and his family fled first to Aus- tria, then to Germany, and finally to New York. Frank found a job doing vineyard work and other menial tasks at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y. He happened to meet Charles Fournier, president of Gold Seal Vineyards, who hired him in 1954 to supervise a program to grow vinifera grapes for Gold Seal. In 1956, Frank purchased 101.75 acres and planted his first vines in 1958. He left Gold Seal in 1962 and started his own winery, Vinifera Wine Cellars, in time for harvest. Gradually, home wine- makers and others interested in better Ameri- can wines came to Frank for advice and to purchase vinifera vines. Frank was an out- spoken advocate for the vinifera and encour- aged his "cooperators" to grow and support vinifera wines. Today, Frank's grandson, Fred Frank, is president of Dr. Frank's Vinifera Wine Cellars, and his great-granddaughter, Meaghan Frank, is general manager. The Internet and Mobile Phones Bringing new efficiencies from harvest to point of sale Electronic technology brought about enor- mous changes in grapegrowing, winemaking and wine marketing. Cell phones enabled vineyard managers to keep in close touch with winemakers and created new efficiencies in harvest planning, to name one advantage. The internet brought everything from more avail- able and accurate weather forecasts, to fer- mentation-management tools that could be monitored on cell phones and laptops, to digital sales and marketing methods that es- pecially boosted direct-to-consumer sales. Walter Hainle Early and notable producer of ice wine Walter Hainle may not have been first to mar- ket with ice wine in Canada, but he almost certainly made the first recorded example in North America. An immigrant from Germany, he arrived in the Okanagan with his wife and son Tilman in 1970 and was soon buying local grapes for winemaking. When the grapes he expected to buy froze on the vine in 1973, he recalled the German tradition of eiswein, and a practice was born. Within a few years he had his own vineyard, just down the road from British Columbia's first estate winery. Hainle opened his own winery in 1988, and the list included his vineyard's 1978 ice wine. In the meantime, several Ontario producers were vying to make ice wine; the first to suc- ceed through the traditional method of letting grapes freeze on the vine was Pelee Island Winery in 1983. The following year, the trend was firmly established, and Ontario was on its way to becoming the country's largest pro- ducer of the dessert wine. Canada's place on the world stage was cemented with Inniskillin Wines' receipt in 1991 of the Grand Prix d'Honneur at Vinexpo in Bordeaux for its 1989 ice wine. Louisa and Alex Hargrave First winery on Long Island After completing their educations, Louisa and Alex Hargrave looked for suitable vine- yard land on both the East and West coasts. On the advice of Cornell University professor John Tompkins, they bought 66 acres in 1973 on the North Fork of Long Island in Cu- tchogue, N.Y. That same year, they planted 17 of those acres with Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc – the first commercial vineyard on Long Island. Har- grave Vineyard opened as a winery in 1976, and by 1981 the couple had 55 acres planted, adding Chardonnay, Riesling, Sémillon and Merlot. The Hargraves also provided vine- yard space for the county cooperative exten- sion agent, William J. Sanok, to conduct experiments on pruning and vine-training systems. Inspired by the example set by the Hargraves, by 1986 Long Island had 35 com- mercial growers, 1,800 acres of vineyard and 16 wineries. The Hargraves sold their vine- yard and winery in 1999 to Marco Borghese from Tuscany, Italy, for $4 million. Alex and Louisa Hargrave received the AWS Award of Merit, Nov. 11, 1995 from AWS president Ken- neth P. Brewer (right). Walter Hainle (left) and son Tilman.

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