Vintage cheer

by Michael J. DeCicco

The fall is when local vineyards turn their ripened grapes into wine. But in a sense, this harvesting season started long before then. At Westport River Vineyards, at 417 Hixbridge Road in Westport, workers start taking care of the 80-acres of vines in July and August. According to Alan Stewart, the Manager of Marketing, Wine Club, and Events, the vineyard uses a wire vertical trellis system that moves the wires up so the vines are stabilized and the grapes have their best exposure to the sun as they grow.

Meanwhile, vineyard personnel are bottling last year’s harvest in the summer. “The most important preparation is to make sure most of last year's harvest is bottled and the tanks can be cleaned and prepped for harvest. Then harvesting of the grapes typically begins in mid-September,” Stewart said.

“In the middle of August we begin sampling and tasting grapes from our vineyard,” winemaker Marco Montez explained. “We are specifically looking for sugar ripeness in Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes which we use for our estate-grown sparkling wines. As soon as these grapes achieve the desired flavors and degree of ripeness, our picking crew begins the laborious process of hand-picking them.” Then, daily throughout September, Montez said, grapes are brought in small harvest lugs from the vineyard to the winery, where workers wholecluster press the grapes very gently, slowly extracting the juice from the berries. This juice is then fermented under optimal temperature. The resulting mixture then undergoes a secondary fermentation in individual bottles.

“These bottles are then laid to rest on the lees for a minimum of three years before being released to the public as our flagship sparkling wine,” he said. For more on the Westport vineyard, go to westportrivers.com.

Cheers to that

Similarly, at Newport Vineyards, at 909 East Main Road (Route 138) in Middletown, the grapes are just finishing “being established” in July and August. “It’s been a cool spring but after recent rain, they are looking pretty good this year,” co-owner John Nunes (with brother Paul) explained. “You wait for the grapes to change to a dark color at the end of August.”

The Newport winery, with over 60-acres of vines spread across 100-acres of historically preserved farmland, likes a fairly dry fall, Nunes said. Providing there are no extreme weather events this season, they will start tasting the grapes to see if they are sweet and ripe and harvest Pinot Noir grapes in late September.

“Once they are ripe, we pick them, press them, and ferment them,” he said. “Some reds are aged for two years in French oak barrels. Whites are released in six months to a year until they are aromatic enough and their wine ready to drink. The harvesting itself takes about a month, three to four days a week of work."

Meanwhile, other Newport grapes will be left on the vine to freeze, then are pressed frozen to make Vidal Ice Wine, he added.

At Newport, there are over 20 types of grapes. Seventy-five percent are for white wine, 20 percent for red, all on 62 acres on over 100 acres of land.

Westport Vineyards boasts that it owns the largest vineyard in New England and grows a wide range of wine varietals: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Saparavi, Marquette, Petite Pearl, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Gris, Gruner Veltliner, Shoenburger, Rkatsiteli, Geisenheimer, and Muscat, plus another 20 experimental varietals using more esoteric grapes.

It’s a visitor-friendly vineyard too. “Our vineyard can essentially accommodate as many people who would like to visit as long as the weather is nice,” Stewart said. “We have outdoor seating for 250+ and can seat 24 upstairs in our indoor wine bar. We typically have a food truck on-site Saturdays during the fall. We host hayrides for $5 a person on Saturdays from Noon to 4:30 p.m. in October and also offer fire pits for sale, weather permitting.”

September is also the best opportunity for the public to visit, Nunes said. “It’s a great time to visit because the vines are ripe and in their full glory,” he said. “We hold wine tastings each day and have a full-service farm to table restaurant. We are open year-round, especially weekends, and we have public tours daily.”

For more information on the Newport vineyard, visit newportvineyards.com. 

Flow going

An example of a fall wine harvest season that doesn't start earlier is at Running Brook Vineyards, 335 Old Fall River Road North Dartmouth, which grows its grapes on 16.5 acres of vineyards and also in-house distills brandies, grappa, flavored brandies, and other liqueurs. 

In late August, Justin Seney, Operations Manager, said vineyard personnel will start picking some of the grapes, especially for the St. Croix wine used as a base to make some of its liqueurs. 

But owner and winemaker Pedro Teixeira said Running Brook (so named because a brook bissected one of the winery’s original acres in Westport) starts harvesting grapes mostly in early October and ends harvesting as late as November. He said 1,000 vines per acre of mostly red grapes grow on his vineyard. One ton of grapes equals 150 gallons of juice and a gallon of juice equals five gallons of wine. He said his winery produces Bordeaux reds that include Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot, and Burgundy reds such as Cardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Grist. It also produces Vidal Blanc wines used to make its brandies and grappa.

Teixeira pointed out that the length of the harvesting season is dependent on the weather. “The length of the growing season depends on the frost dates, when the temperature gets below 32 degree Fahrenheit,” he said. “The last frost of the year is the last week of April. The first, hopefully, is in November but sometimes earlier.”

The grapes the vineyard harvests then will be de-stemmed and fermented in one of the winery’s three 1500-gallon metal tanks and three 500-gallon tanks, Seney said. The wine that results will go into a mixture of American and French oak barrels before being bottled.

For many, the last step will be the best. When the wine has aged, it is served in wine tastings that are often accompanied by live music every Saturday and Sunday throughout most of the year. Bands set up outdoors in sunny weather or move indoors when it’s cold or rainy to be enjoyed within the view of the tanks where the wine making process started. 

For more information on this Running Brook Vineyards, go to runningbrookwine.com