Hart Wine Cellars 2011 Vintage

This year I ended up making more wine than ever before, about 130 + gallons. This is taxing my storage capacity and my physical stamina. I'm also making a greater variety of wines than ever. All are crushed, de-stemmed and I have two batches left to press. The overall quality is pretty good, sugar and acid are a bit lower than average (not as good as last year, which was great). The Chardonnay, Gamay, Foch and Baco were sourced as juice/must from Watson's press house in Ontario. The Cayuga, Vidal and Steuben are fresh grapes from Bruce Giles, about 6 miles from me. The rest are From Don DeMaison, except for the Chambourcin, which I grew myself. Don is just about to open his winery in the Niagara Escarpment AVA (labels approved and are now at the printer).
Here's the lineup:
Whites:
Pinot Gris – 6 gallons
Chardonnay – 6 gallons
Riesling – 13 gallons (a small portion of this will be finished as a dessert wine)
Cayuga – 16 gallons
Vidal – 16 gallons
Rosé:
Steuben – 16 gallons
Reds:
Pinot Noir – 15 gallons
Gamay – 8 gallons
Lemberger – 8 gallons
Red Hybrid Blend – about 34 gallons; 35% Baco, 25% Foch, 20% Chambourcin, 20% Vidal

[James Roscoe]

That is a lot of work for one man. (Even if the one man is Howie Hart!)

Wow.. that's a lot of wine.. especially if you make anything like that each year and it is for own-consumption. By my calculation, that's about 656 750ml bottles or 54 2/3 cases.

Drink up, Howie!!!

Hiya Howie,

You should open up your own winery!

I see you've used the Chambourcin in a blend. Did you try any on its own prior to blending to see what it was like? I'm always intrigued by stand-alone samples of home-grown juice. Glad to see that your vines are into production.

As for me, I'm focusing on hard cider again this year. (I really need to get a grape destemmer and press to be able to get back into any reasonable kind of grape winemaking without going through a lot of hassle doing it all by hand...) My cider is also a blend of many different apples; found a gorgeous apple tree by the roadside out of town a few years ago: it produces hard red apples with a very balanced juice, so I got some of those, and also used Honeycrisps, 2"-diameter crabs, a dash of Wolf River, some Cortlands, some Ida Reds and a smattering of other wild oddities that I picked up here and there on my autumn drives out of town. Juiced them all in my Braun juicer, after manually extracting the seeds (a scratter and press will solve this headache one day). In any case, blending in cider is really important if you want one with some bite and structure. My experience has been that Jonagold, Honeycrisp and Russets are the best commercial varieties to use to up the fermentable sugars in your must. The wildings, on the other hand, add the "guts" (acid and tannin) that the commercial apples lack, but which are necessary for a great cider.

Clinkin' my glass at ya!

Nice work! Is the red blend Cab Franc/Merlot again?

James Dietz - Actually, I end up giving lots of it away.
Paul - I didn't get enough Chambourcin to do a batch and I needed at least 30 gallons of red wine to fill my barrel when I empty it of it's current contents, 2010 Cab Franc Merlot, that I plan on bottling in December.
Salil - No Cab Franc or Merlot this year (expensive). It's a blend of assorted hybrids. I figure I'll have over 12 cases of the 2010 CF/Merlot blend - that should last me a while.

Good luck, Howie! Hopefully in about a month I’ll have all 150 gals of the 2011 vintage tucked away in barrels. This year was quite nice. During the primary alcoholic fermentation we had a “cold snap”, didn’t have to do much to keep fermentation temperatures from “running away”. After primary alcoholic fermentation and drawing off the “free-run” and pressing the weather “warmed-up” and MLF almost begun immediately. Performed the “first-racking” last weekend 90% of the carboys MLF was nearly completed. So now at a leisurely rate I am transferring the carboys to the “wine cellar” (and in about a mouth I’ll rack into barrels).

Salute

Howie,
Thanks for the report. A question I've been meaning to ask you: how hard is it to bring grapes/must back from Ontario to the US? When I used to spend more time around Buffalo we would often wind up bringing excellent peaches, plums, etc. back from Niagara but that was mostly before 9/11 and all the border theatrics.

..how hard is it to bring grapes/must back from Ontario to the US? ...

Bringing fresh grapes back from Canada is not allowed. I'm not sure about other fruit, but the grape ban might be due to an agricultural ban caused by the Med fly problem from about 20 years ago.
However, once the grapes are crushed & de-stemmed or pressed into juice, they are no longer considered an agricultural product. They are then considered groceries and subject to a limit of $400 per person, which is never enforced.

However, once the grapes are crushed & de-stemmed or pressed into juice, they are no longer considered an agricultural product. They are then considered groceries and subject to a limit of $400 per person, which is never enforced.

I must find out if this works the same way on the way into Canada. Might want to go over and get some Catawba juice finally one of these days! It is totally unavailable on our side.

Howie and Victor, Good luck with everything this year. I get a year off having lost my entire harvest to the copious rain this fall.

Dang, Howie - that's quite an array! Like the others, I'm impressed that you can manage all that on your own.

We have a half ton of Lodi merlot that's just finishing primary fermentation. We've shied away from Lodi for the last few years but we were shut out of our regular source due to low yields. We picked last weekend and were surprised to get grapes that barely hit 21° bx - by far the lowest sugar levels we've ever run across (and this from Lodi - a hot area). Weird year here.

Sorry to hear that Brian. Here on Long Island things were also a struggle, “disease-pressure” was fairly high. But we are fortunate to be the “sunniest” region of NYS and in certain sections of Long Island we can “extend” the growing season. Yields are low and “sorting” is definitely a must.

Salute

Yes, it has been a weird year. Hot and dry, but the fruits aren't as sweet as you'd expect. I've made that same casual observation here in Ontario this past season.

Howie's going in one direction and I'm going in the other - down; making just 40 gallons this year. Rather than doing my usual 5 gallons of each type I'm doing just 3 for some and this has taxed my supply of 3 gallon carboys. I offered to exchange some 5's for 3's straight up with members of my wine making club but got no takers. Other than that things are going well. Juice from PA (Presque Isle, Mazza and Walker's) had decent acid but needed sugar. Juice from Ontario (Watson's - thanks to Howie) and the Finger Lakes (Fall Bright and Randall-Standish) was generally OK in sugar but low in acid. I used Go-Ferm in rehydrating the yeast and the fermentations are perking along well.

Howie's going in one direction and I'm going in the other - down; making just 40 gallons this year.

Hi Dan,

Are you still making that lovely Diamond? I swear, that was the best white labrusca wine I ever tasted anywhere. What a great variety. It sorely needs a renaissance.

Hi Paul,
Haven't seen you in too long. My Diamond took a Silver at the State Fair this year, although the one you had probably was the best I've made. Iona is my latest interest. It's an old Labrusca that Randall-Standash in Naples, NY is bringing back. Sort of pink, it tastes like a combination of Diamond and Steuben. Very nice. Today our daughters are putting on a party for our 70th birthdays and my wines are featured. Should be a lot of fun.

Dan

Dan!! Happy birthday to both of you. That is delightful.

And yes, it has been way too long. Great talking with you again.

Hi Dan,
Happy Birthday to you and your wife, and good luck with the wines.
(Enjoy the day!)

Salute