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June 2015 WINES&VINES 77 WINE EAST GRAPEGROWING "We taste the berries and the juice and the seeds and the stems," Joseph said, harvesting "at no higher than 26.5° Brix, usually before optimum seed and stem ripeness. I've never gotten complete stem ripeness with Mar- quette." The pH is usually 3.1 to 3.2, he said. Winemaking style Once the grapes are at the winery, most of them are de-stemmed. In recent years Joseph said he has gone about 10% whole-cluster, waiting 24 hours before inoculation with D254 yeast. "Research shows that Marquette has good tannins in its skins," Joseph said. "Even if the skins are not quite ripe, you're going to get more and better tannins." Joseph said he prefers a longer, slower fer- mentation for the Marquette, keeping the tem- perature in the mid-70°s F. Besides punch downs, Shelburne's staff does what he calls "sump-overs," which he describes as "a modi- fied pump-over so that the solids in the must do not go through the pump. The bottom valve of the tank is opened, allowing must to flow out of the tank through a screen into a stainless 'tub.' Must free of solids is then pumped back over the top of the fermentation." With that, and extended maceration of about 35 days, "you get softer tannins and more seed tannin extraction." The oak program has evolved. "We started with American, but we got too much vanilla," Joseph said. "We tried a hybrid of French heads and American staves and still got vanilla. Our newest barrels are Hungarian. We tend to do about 20% new oak, and we're starting to go lower." The winery uses sur lie aging with bâton- nage and ages its Marquette for nine to 16 months, topping the barrels once per month and regularly checking sulfur dioxide levels. There's no fining or cold stabilizing. "We test all the reserve barrels for richness, depth and complexity," Joseph said. The 2012 Marquette Reserve was aged for 15 months. The result is a finished wine with aromas of cherry and red licorice and rich flavors of ber- ries and toasted vanilla beans with a spicy, multi-layered finish. WE Bill Ward has been covering wine for the better part of a century (the 21st). His "Liquid Assets" column runs in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and he has written for Wine Enthusiast, Sommelier Journal and other publica- tions. He won a James Beard Award for a series about Italian regional cuisine. He lives in Hopkins, Minn., and has a wine website, decant-this.com. miwinebarrel.com Stainless Steel & Oak Wine Barrels... Midwest, East Coast, Great Lakes, Canada... miwinebarrel 734.398.2028 We now also provide... Custom Stainless Steel Tanks! Shelburne Vineyard's Marquette is planted in north-south rows spaced 8 by 10 feet and 6 by 9 feet apart. The vines are trained on high-wire cordons. DAILY WINE INDUSTRY NEWS winesandvines.com