Wines & Vines

February 2018 WINES&VINES 77 WINE EAST GRAPEGROWING lacking good sunshine, he cold soaks the berries overnight to 24 hours, but says that is not usu- ally the case with Traminette. Arbor Hill utilizes a Lugana 2R crusher destemmer from Prospero Equipment. At this point, Brahm adds potassium metabisulfite, looking to have 70-80 ppm. The processed fruit goes into a mixing tank, where ground paper pulp and pectic enzymes are added to aid pressing. Fermentation takes place in movable PVP 500-gallon tanks, with a temperature range of 60° to 70° F. The tanks are not temperature controlled, so Brahm uses a chiller to cool the young wine to maintain that range. Yeast selec- tion is dependent upon the fruit character; Brahm tends to favor Lalvin 71B-1122 obtained from Presque Isle Wine Cellars. Fermentation usually takes two to three weeks, after which the new wine is trans- ferred into PVP 260-gallon cubes, which can be palletized for easy movement with a fork- lift. The wine is racked off the lees, treated with Bentonite and Sparkolloid, and then moved to an unheated building for cold sta- bilization. They remain there from mid-De- cember until late March or early April, when the wine is transferred back to 500-gallon tanks prior to bottling. That wine will un- dergo a coarse 200-micron pad filtration, and its clarity will determine what level of filtra- tion will follow. Brahm uses an AFTEK plate and frame filter and finishes the wine with a 0.45-micron membrane filter from Presque Isle Wine Cellars. Bottling is done with a six-spout gravity filler, except when Arbor Hill bottles carbonated wine or juice and uses a Seitz counter-pressure filler. Sulfur is adjusted to 70-80 ppm, if necessary, prior to bottling. Brahm uses a cork finish for his more expensive wines but is leaning more toward roll-on pilfer-proof screwcaps for his product line. The majority of his glass bottles and stoppers come from Waterloo Container in Waterloo, N.Y. Traminette is a popular wine at Arbor Hill, so it usually gets only about a month of bottle aging before its release. The winery produces about 2,100 cases of wine annually and sells about 80% of it onsite. Traminette makes up about 25% of the total and is produced in three styles (see table "Tra- minette Production" on page 79). In addition to nearly 30 different wines, Arbor Hill offers more than 50 food products for sale including jellies, spreads, iced tea con- centrates, desserts and candies. The winery also has a restaurant, Brew and Brats, special- izing in beer and sausages. For Brahm, a life- long grapegrower, leading the way for Traminette in New York has been a sometimes challenging but also successful venture. Oliver Winery Bloomington, Ind. On the opposite end of the production scale is Oliver Winery headed by Bill Oliver, the son of winery founder William Oliver, who started the winery in 1972. As the oldest and Flowering begins for young Traminette clusters at Arbor Hill Grapery & Winery in Naples, N.Y. RAY POMPILIO

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