Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/562166
8 WINES&VINES September 2015 A member of Wine Communications Group Inc. President & Publisher Chet Klingensmith Chairman Hugh Tietjen Publishing Consultant Ken Koppel Associate Publisher Tina Vierra Publishing Assistant Maria Brunn EDITORIAL Editor Jim Gordon Managing Editor Kate Lavin Associate Editor Andrew Adams Senior Correspondent Paul Franson Contributing Editor Jane Firstenfeld Northwest Correspondent Peter Mitham Columnists Grapegrowing: Cliff Ohmart and Glenn T. McGourty Contributing Writers Laurie Daniel, Richard Smart, Richard Carey, Chris Stamp, Andrew Reynolds, Craig Root PRACTICAL WINERY & VINEYARD Editor Don Neel WINE EAST Editor Linda Jones McKee DESIGN & PRODUCTION Art Director Barbara Gelfand Summer Designer Bridget Williams DATABASE DEVELOPMENT AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Vice President—Data Management Lynne Skinner Project Manager Liesl Stevenson Database & Web Development James Rust, Peter Scarborough EDITOR'S LETTER CONTACT US SUBSCRIPTIONS Email: subs@winesandvines.com Online: winesandvines.com/subscribe Phone: (866) 453-9701 EDITORIAL Email: edit@winesandvines.com MAIL 65 Mitchell Blvd., Suite A San Rafael, CA 94903 CONNECT WITH US facebook.com/WinesandVines twitter.com/WinesandVines youtube.com/WinesandVines1919 AS THIS ISSUE GOES TO THE PRINTER, the 2015 harvest has begun on the West Coast. Lots of grapes for sparkling wine have already been picked and pressed after one of the earliest starts in modern history. Aside from periods of humidity and unusual rain spells, it has been a very good growing season by most accounts. Check out our harvest news wrap up on page 18 for more details. With September and October still ahead, though—and lots of fermentations to manage— winemakers should pay special attention to two articles in the Practical Winery & Vineyard section. If you are open to new ideas about adding SO 2 before and during fermentation, the piece by Michael Swadener and David Mills on page 60 may give you a new angle on the practice. The second piece relevant to fermentation addresses a life and death issue: how to ensure the safety of workers who climb inside tanks. In his article on page 67, "Entry Into Permit-Required Confined Spaces," Kent Freeman explains how to train staff and equip your winery. Easy money Need to get a loan? Now is the best time since the Great Recession began seven years ago to finance a new vineyard or winery or expand an existing one. That's the very optimistic takeaway from author Ben Narasin's interviews with six lenders who are active in the wine industry. It's Narasin's fourth year researching and writing the cover story for the Wine Industry Finance Issue, and he got some very meaty input from the bankers this year (see page 39). At this time of year the vines are just about done with their work and looking forward to a long winter's nap, but as far as we know the many diseases of grapevines never rest. Two articles in this issue address vine diseases. Vineyard View columnist Cliff Ohmart tells the story behind red blotch disease (page 34) and puts this troubling ailment into perspective. For one thing, it's been around a lot longer than most people realize. Another vine sickness, Pinot Grigio disease in Italy, is the subject of the first article (page 56) that Wines & Vines is publishing from our colleagues at Il Corriere Vinicolo, the leading wine industry publication in Italy. We thought you might want to know about the disease, which to our knowledge does not (yet) exist in North America. Growing Grüner Speaking of international grape varieties, do you remember when the only people in North America who had heard of Grüner Veltliner were a few masters of wine and a handful of hip sommeliers in New York City? Well, times have changed, and millennial consumers now are apparently drinking this dry and steely white wine by the growler. Ray Pompilio, a stalwart contributor to the Wine East section, set out to learn how widely Grüner is being grown and made in the eastern United States. His article on page 74 goes into good depth with two of the variety's champions—Galen Glen Winery in Pennsylvania and Dr. Konstantin Frank's Vinifera Wine Cellars in the Finger Lakes of New York—about how they grow the grapes and make the wine. He also created a great table with the help of our company's winery database to show all the wineries east of the Rockies who are producing GV. That does it for this month. We hope you enjoy your reading and find a few helpful insights in this issue. Here's to a large and high-quality harvest in 2015! —Jim Gordon Relevant Reading for Harvest Winemakers should pay special attention to articles on SO 2 additions and worker safety in wine tanks.