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April 2017 WINES&VINES 77 WINE EAST GRAPEGROWING Natural Corks Champagne Corks Twinline Corks Bartops VISION Synthetic Corks G-Cap® Screw Caps Sales Representatives: Chris & Liz Stamp info@lakewoodcork.com lakewoodcork.com 4024 State Route 14 Watkins Glen, NY 14891 607-535-9252 607-535-6656 Fax PIONEER INNOVATOR PARTNER University of Minnesota enolo- gist added, "Go toward your maturation process with intent. You need to have an intimate re- lationship (with what's in the tank or barrel)." O a k : C h r i s G r a n s t r o m , owner/winemaker at Lincoln Peak winery in Vermont, revealed one secret to his Marquette, which has earned several best- of-show awards: "I'm not sure the right amount of oak for Mar- quette is zero, but it's pretty close to zero." Enhancing mouthfeel: In what she admitted was "a really confusing area from a winemak- ing point of view," Cornell enolo- gist Anna Katharine Mansfield addressed what can be done in the winery: choosing the right yeast strains and extending sur lie time; using pectolytic enzymes (which "release polysaccharides and change tannin extraction"); malo- lactic fermentation ("which changes the volatile character and fools us into thinking there's fuller mouthfeel"), and a late-as-possi- ble addition of tannin powders ("condensed, not hydrolysable"). Working together Making the best-possible wine is essential, moderators agreed. The ways that is happening were borne out in "Wine Diamonds," a lovely, detailed documentary screened three times at the con- ference (and available at winedi- amondsfilm.com). But along with the ongoing advances in growing and mak- ing wine, there needs to be more collaboration and stronger m a r k e t i n g , k e y n o t e s p e a k e r Steve Johnson noted. "We know that viticulture practices will keep improving, that winery practice will keep i m p r o v i n g , " s a i d J o h n s o n , owner/winemaker at the hugely s u c c e s s f u l Pa r a l l e l 4 4 a n d Door 44 wineries in Wisconsin. "Now is the time to prove to the w o r l d t h a t w e h a v e q u a l i t y wines, to set aside Midwestern humility. Let's find ways to orga- nize and achieve a dream, to express the region's style and quality. We need to acknowledge how far we've come. "Instead of saying, 'this wine is like a Cabernet or a Chardon- nay,' we should be saying 'this is world-class, food-friendly, lo- cally-grown wine.'" Self-promotion doesn't come naturally to Upper Midwesterners or New Englanders, Johnson ad- mitted. "We tend to be doers, not actors," but that can change with the right message. "People don't buy what you do, they don't buy how you do it, they buy why you do it," he said. "What winery visitors are looking for is expression. You want them to see your passion, feel your passion, taste your pas- sion. They have to feel like it's authentic, it's original, it's in- spired. You want them to leave saying 'these wines mean some- thing to me.'" That enthusiasm was evident at the Winter Wine Fest the final night, where 30 wineries poured their wines for a sellout crowd. Attendance at this tasting the past four years has risen from 50 to 150 to 450 to 1,100—an indica- tion that the public might just share the attendees' enthusiasm for what's happening in the cold- climate wine world. 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 publications. He won a James Beard Award for a series about Italian regional cuisine. He lives in Hop- kins, Minn., and has a wine website, decant-this.com. " I'm not sure the right amount of oak for Marquette is zero, but it's pretty close to zero." —Chris Granstrom, Lincoln Peak For a wealth of useful viticulture and enology research and information, visit AVF.org, ngr.ucdavis.edu, asev.org, iv.ucdavis.edu or ngwi.org S U P P O RT R E S E A R C H A N D W I N E INDUSTRY NEEDS THROUGH THE AMERICAN VINEYARD FOUNDATION P.O. Box 5779, Napa, CA, 94581 | tel (707) 252-6911 Visit our Web site at www.avf.org for information on funding and current research projects AMERICAN VINEYARD FOUNDATION Finding Solutions Through Research