Spring at Unionville
Buds are actually formed on last year’s crop. They are tiny shoots that are dormant over winter on the vines’ canes. Roni and his crew cut back the excess cane earlier in the year. Now that the temperatures in the vineyard are starting to get above 50 degrees, these tiny shoots or buds emerge from nodes in the vines’ remaining canes. This is known as bud break. This is the most critical time of the year in the vineyard, a late frost now can reduce, if not ruin, our crop for the year. When I was in class in Washington last month, one of our assignments was to examine frost damaged buds. Not easy. We had to use razor blades and carefully slice half of the tiny bud off. The remaining half was placed under a microscope. If the primary bud (the bud has actually three parts - primary, secondary and tertiary) is still green, we’re looking good. If the primary bud is brown, then the crops for that year are in danger. The secondary and tertiary buds can be a slight insurance for the crop, but harvest and grape quality are greatly diminished. A few years ago when I was living in Texas, a few portions of the High Plains area had three consecutive late frosts. Strike one, two and three. No crop for that year.
Luckily, we were spared that plight, and now in the vineyard we are starting to see the emergence of little leaves. Until this point the buds are pulling up carbohydrates from the plant for energy. With the development of leaves, photosynthesis can begin. The plant can start taking energy directly from the sun and accelerate the pace of additional growth. In my viticulture class this is discussed as Sources and Sinks. Until the leaves appear and start bringing in energy from the photosynthesis, the buds are all sinks, as they withdraw energy from the plant. When the photosynthesis occurs, this reverses the process and are now called Sources. Kind of like when your kids get out of college and start paying off their student loans.
We’re still not out of the woods yet. Actually, not until the grapes are harvested, are we actually out of the woods, but more on that later. For now, we can breathe a little easier that we’ve made it through the late frosts and onto the next challenge. I’ll discuss more in the next blog.
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Also in Unionville Grapevine
It's our 25th Anniversary and I'm not sure what to say
Today, we are picking the first grapes for what is Unionville's 27th harvest. Two years after the first grapes were picked and fermented, they were sold in the newly-opened tasting room- 25 years ago. Although I've been thinking about this moment for about a year, we've started our anniversary celebration and I'm still struggling to put it all in context.
In the past few years I've learned so much that could be shared with you now. I've spent hours at the township building, reading through letters written back and forth between parties involved in the winery's founding in the early 1990's. I've walked the vineyards, pausing with each "King of the Vineyard" as Conor calls them- the craggy, gnarly vines nearly as old as me. I've stared at the black and white photos in the hallway of the 1858 Farmhouse of the family and workers who tended to this property many decades ago.
Winter is coming and so is Port wine
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! I know that is cliché to say, but it truly is a great time at Unionville. We’ve got all of our reds pressed and in barrel. Cooler, stainless-steel fermentations are finishing up in tank, I’m finally able to breathe a little easier, and wake up a little later. With the holidays upon us, the wine making team has a lot on the mind, but one thing standing out is the blending, bottling, and release of Vat #23 – the latest rendition of our opulent Port wine.
Port has a storied history at Unionville – the fortified delight has been made at the winery since its first vintage in 1993, Before we delve into that, we have to talk a little about how Port is made and the different styles in which it can be presented. Port, named for its origin country, Portugal, is typically a sweet or medium-dry red wine, fortified with distilled grape spirit, then cellared and bottled at different times and in different ways to present specific stylizations. The two most recognizable presentations of Port wine are Ruby and Tawny Ports. Ruby styles are young wines usually aged for only a couple of years (or less). They’re released early to showcase juicy acidity and fruity characteristics of young wine with fuller mouthfeel and complexity
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: The Results
Since I started at Unionville 5 years ago, it has always been a goal to have our wines evaluated by top critics. In the years since, John Foy at the Star-Ledger has called our wines "Napa worthy," and Stuart Pigott, who freelances for James Suckling and Wine Business Monthly wrote that our Syrah was the best expression of the grape in the United States. T.J. Foderaro at Inside Jersey Magazine, Alan Richman (Saveur), Robin Shreeves (Cherry Hill Courier-Post), Rosie Saferstein (NJ Monthly), and the Trenton Times' Susan Yeske have all added their voices to the coalition of the willing in the last couple of years.
Having Unionville in the pages of one of the major wine magazines had remained elusive, until last summer when Mark Squires, East Coast wine critic for the Wine Advocate sat down and tasted...
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