Home winemakers: Do you ever have a hard time finding quality fruit?

It's that time of year again in the northern hemisphere, and this year I was fortunate enough to find quality grapes for my homemade wine at a vineyard that is clearly properly managed with beautifully balanced, stately vines. In some years past, I made the unfortunate decision to pick grapes at a vineyard much closer to home that was never properly managed; the vines were simply planted too densely and put out a tangled mess of canes and foliage that shielded masses of overcropped grapes which, more often than not, had to be sought out from under the mass of vegetation. Needless to say, the wines were close to embarrassing compared to those made from ideal fruit from an ideal year. My worst experience with that sort of thing was in 2004 while picking badly overcropped Concords; last year I fared only a tiny bit better with badly overcropped Cayugas - both '04 and '06 had their share of harvest-time rains.

This year, thanks be to God, I picked beautiful Concords and Niagaras, which I just crushed last night. I'm looking forward to some really fine labrusca wine from 2007, which has been hot and dry on balance.

With that longish preamble out of the way, I would like to ask other fellow home winemakers: Do you ever have a tough time finding quality grapes? How well managed are the vineyards in your respective areas?

To me, the next best thing to having one's own private vineyard and being able to baby one's vines from budbreak to harvest is having a long-term business relationship with a vineyard that manages its vines for quality and allows for U-pick. I can't overstate how many times I've bought machine-picked grapes that were half squashed and rotten, only to watch the fruit flies have a field day ...

For us, this has absolutely been the most difficult aspect of winemaking. You don't need new French oak or a $5000 press or pumps or reverse osmosis to make good wine. The one thing you absolutely have to have is good fruit. Getting it at a reasonable price has been a struggle from day one. It seems that here in the heart of one of the largest wine regions in the world, you either buy multi-ton lots on contract from great vineyards or you deal with small time places that will let you buy half-ton or one-ton lots. We spent several years bouncing around from one vineyard to another with some success and some godawful failure. At one time, we bought from some large vineyards in Lodi and Amador, but they ended up telling us to go away. We've settled on a place up in El Dorado county that will sell us our small lots for a price we can afford and which supplies fruit that works well with our style of winemaking. They're nice people and they manage the vines well, so we're happy for the moment.

I've always gotten good quality fresh grapes from Bruce, a local grower. But he has limited quantity and only labrusa and hybrids. For vinefera, I rely on Watson's press-house in NOTL. They are much more consistent than other press-houses I've used.

I get approximately 1500 lbs of California fresh grapes every year. Unlike Mike I live on the east coast so I have to hope that the growers, packers and shippers, and the distributors on this end know what there doing. I live just outside the terminal markets in the Bronx and Brooklyn (about 40 minutes away) and there are a number of wholesale distributors of fresh California grapes I can choose from. One in particular that I think does a great job is Lawrence J. Lapide, the crew there is great and besides they work with you and deliver the grapes to your driveway.
A few years back I tried dealing with the growers and packers on the west coast directly. One year my grapes were shipped to me FedEx, this was right after the 9/11 incident and the grapes definitely showed signs of too much “handling” (understandable) and the condition of the grapes were quite poor. So I tried again the next year, instead of using FedEx they used an independent trucking company. These grapes were picked and packed in mid-September and I didn’t see them until late-October. The truck driver spoke very little English, he was Russian, and he was always lost. I believe those grapes saw more states than I did. I ended up meeting him and my grapes on a service road off a major interstate highway and off loaded his truck into my van. (Thank God a cop didn’t stop and question us). The truck however was refrigerated and the grape quality wasn’t that bad, but it was nerve racking and a hassle.
I also live about 45 minutes away from Long Island Wine Country on the east end of Long Island. In the early days of my winemaking hobby you had to deal with the wineries, and they would tell you to bring your wallet and let you pick the grapes they didn’t want to use for their wines. As the numbers of wineries and growers grew on Long Island things became a little easier. One grower in particular who actually catered to amateur winemakers was Ray Blum, great guy. Buy 100 lbs or 1000lbs plus he would gladly help you out. A couple of years ago he open his own bonded winery Ackerly Pond vineyards, and still he found the time to cater to amateur winemakers. Unfortunately he passed away at the end of last year and the winery and vineyard is now under “new management” and it appears that, like Mike said they don’t want to know you unless you’re willing to buy mult-tons.

Salute