Wines & Vines

February 2018 WINES&VINES 79 WINE EAST GRAPEGROWING sets vines up for better leaf re- moval with a fan/blade head. Ini- tially, Oliver was very aggressive in removing Traminette leaves but found that it caused the wine to have a terpene character. Now they try to provide about 50% shading, which according to Oli- ver results in "a more appropriate style of wine." Two John Deere narrow-body tractors rated 80 and 90 horsepower are used for these tasks, with the winery's big sprayer and mechanical harvester. Oliver said Traminette can require "anywhere from a lot to a little" spraying: 2016 was a difficult year, and he sprayed every 10 days. Conditions were better in 2017, and the vines needed only five spray applications, he said. The winery has never done any fruit thinning with this culti- var, based upon its well-behaved fruit clusters. The biggest issue is with vegetation, and Oliver stressed staying on top of it is a must. His leaf puller has a vari- able pitch screen, allowing for heavy or light removal. "The way to do it is look at the vines, use your best judgment and take a pass at it with the tractor. Then get off the tractor and check the results," he said. Netting Trami- nette rows has not been neces- sary, as the area birds tend to prefer red grapes, Oliver said, adding that when birds do go after white wine grapes, they choose Chardonel. In terms of harvest parameters for Traminette, Oliver looks for a TA around 0.75 and pH not more than 3.4. He thinks the ideal Brix is 22.5°-23° but still depends more on flavors than Brix num- bers for ripeness. The grapes are mechanically picked with a Pellenc harvester, which also destems the berries and sorts out material other than grapes (MOG) for a high-quality pressing. "The machine delivers remarkably clean fruit," Oliver said. Unlike at Arbor Hill in New York, Oliver Winery doesn't use a cold soak. The grapes go di- rectly into a Wilmes bladder press, for which moderate pres- sure of up to 500 millibars is used to keep the juice and its wine flavorful but delicate. The wine is made by 19-year Oliver veteran Dennis Dunham and his crew, with some assis- tance from Oliver. He and Dun- ham share the same attitude of what a wine should be, and this results in year-after-year consis- tency with the Traminette. Once the fruit has been pressed, po- tassium metabisulfite is added to bring the sulfur dioxide level to 30 ppm. The juice is chilled to the mid-30s in jacketed stain- less-steel tanks for four to seven days to cold settle, then it is racked and put through a heat exchanger to the mid-60s for fermentation. It is inoculated with Lalle- mand K1 (1116) yeast and, after reaching a vigorous fermenta- TRAMINETTE PRODUCTION Arbor Hill Grapery & Winery Closure Bottle Size Bottle Style R.S. Bottle Price Dry Traminette Cork 750 ml Burgundy bottle 0.45% $13.95 Classic Traminette Screwcap 750 ml Amber hock style bottle 3% $13.95 Ambrosia (dessert wine) Cork 375 ml Cobalt blue shouldered bottle 9% $19.99 Oliver Winery Creekbend Traminette Sugarcane- based Green Line closure 750 ml Reverse tapered Bordeaux style bottle 2% $18.00 Traminette makes up about 25% of the wine produced at Arbor Hill Grapery & Winery. Oliver Winery recently released its new Creekbend Traminette. 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 Powered by BREWEROMS ORDER TODAY! winesandvines.com/boms A unique online system to locate, contact and sell to U.S. beer producers. The Wines & Vines Brewer Online Marketing System (BOMS) is a web-based system that allows you to search more than 4,300 North American breweries by specific criteria, and export data into custom reports.

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