The Thinkings of a Winemaker

Odd Man Out

2012-01-22T07:46:00.000-05:00

It's how I feel these days.

I first came to Allegro as a wide-eyed, slightly naive winemaker. I thought I knew what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to do it. I met John who opened my eyes to a world of winemaking I never thought possible in Pennsylvania. I had never set my sights on anything more than just making good wine and being my own boss.

Because of this little miraculous place, I realized what we are capable of here in the Commonwealth. The possibility of someday joining the hallowed ranks of prestige wine regions is a very live one for us. John's old wines still continue to dazzle and amaze me. Some of my older ones are showing the same power and finesse.

Unfortunately that brings me to my point. When I first met John, he showed me his style of making wine to his tastes. It involved tannin, structure, some more tannin extraction, a good but more structure, some acid, and some more tannin. And fruit. Then he pulled out a ten year old Cadenza and I was hooked. It was beautiful! Soft, supple tannins with layers of savory fruit on levels of bottle bouquet. (It was the '91.)

I couldn't wait to make wines like this. Of course, waiting is really what I had to do. And even though his young wines were thought of as tannic mosters, you could see the quality of fruit and depth of winemaking subtleties shining through. These were wines made for the long-haul. Wines that would climb the steep wine-developing hill and plant their flag on top of it all and proclaim their glory. These were wines that would awe you in their youth with their quality, yet taunt you: "Will you live long enough to enjoy me in my prime?"

Which brings me to today. We were part of a tasting the other day. (I won't refer to it as a competition, as the controls aren't quite the same and the organizers don't refer to it as such either. Nonetheless, they did pick a winner. Spoiler alert: it wasn't Allegro.) The 2007 and 2008 Cadenzas were the last dry wines tasted. All the previous wines were of a diametrically opposed class and style. They were smooth, fruity, soft, and fruity and smooth. And for the most part, were of exceptional winemaking quality. Not necessarily what I would enjoy drinking, but I could tell that most of them were made by good winemakers on their game.

When the Cadenzas came around, things changed for me. Tannins showed up in the tasting, as did dark fruit and savory spice. I had to retrieve my crystal ball, because these were not here-and-now wines. (Even the judges, I heard, were able to easily spot the Allegro wines in the tasting in the prior blind judging.) I also noticed how they seemed to throw people for a loop. These wines needed explaining.

And here's my explanation. When you're trying to make good wine in a wine region that is on the edge of viability, where grapegrowing is pushing the envelope, where grapes struggle to hit peak ripeness, I feel it's imperative to extract as much sap, as much soul from the fruit as possible. In warmer climes, the grapes are naturally full of fruit flavors, but the soul of the fruit gets lost under layers of fruitiness. It leads to over-extracted wines when winemakers go for it there.

Here, to get to the heart of the grape, we do simple extended macerations and barrel-aging, but by going above-and-beyond, we find that we can peer inside the window of the wine and help its spirit escape.

Not a very good explanation, I know. And the wines still seem to fall on deaf ears. The most popular wine of the tasting was a no-tannin, 15 month-old Chambourcin fruit bomb. And the message is clear. The question is, do I care to listen.

At what point do we start to make wines for other people, to let them direct our creative and artistic impulses? I guess, it's when I start to go out of business.

But until then, I am sticking to what I do best, which is make wines for me....and John.

Making Authentic Wine

2011-12-24T07:06:00.000-05:00

One of the wine world's most authoritative, creative, and combative bloggers is Tom Wark. If you don't check out his blog periodically or follow him on Twitter, you're missing out on some of the best insights on our industry. That, coupled with the fact that he has been working tirelessly to free the grapes (shippingwise) makes him one of my favorite reads.

His most recent post (http://fermentation.typepad.com/fermentation/2011/12/authentic-wine-and-mistaking-the-tail-for-the-snout.html) got me thinking about authenticity of wine. I'm not going to try to define wine here--that would be like trying to define art, something only an idiot would try to do (see my last post)--but rather think about what it means to try to make wine here in Pennsylvania.

Tom's post takes on a recent book about "authentic wine", basically destroying the premise the book was written from. The book tries to say that the wine industry is heading in an industrial/commodity driven direction and that the uniqueness of wine is being lost, or at least championed by a select few. Tom's point is that there is a huge diversity to wine these days and that there are more artisanal wineries than ever.

My jumping off point here is that we're all trying to wag the dog to some extent. Yes, I make wine in the backwaters of an industry that prides itself on pioneers from hot climates and respects cool climate entrepreneurs with a backhanded compliment smacking of condescension. Am I bitter? Perhaps. At the tail-shakers? Not really. Let me explain.

As with most things American, there has always been a drive to succeed, and in this country, it usually means making boatload of money by selling stuff. Suply and demand is what built this country. And the wine industry is no different. The reason for the oceans of wine that has been created in this country is simply that there has always been a demand for it. And as the demand grew, supply rose up to meet it as that's where the dollars were.

The problem with mass-producing anything is that you have to make sure the majority of the people are going to like it, or else you defeat your purpose. But there's hardly anything out there when made in bulk doesn't lose its originality. Beer, cars, chairs, hamburgers, wine. It happens to everything. Name one mass-marketed item that is unique. It is, by definition, impossible. An oxymoron.

So what does this mean for wine, and specifically my wine? I can assure you that Allegro wine is not at all mass-produced. We're a small place in southern PA, growing grapes for almost 40 years. We have Cabernet and Chard vines older than most of the ones in CA. So, why haven't you heard of us before? Because we make small amounts of wine. Would we like to make more wine? Sure, but here's the kicker: there aren't enough buyers.

This is not because of the current "economic situation." No, most people in this country cut there wine-teeth on Mateus, wild Irish Rose, or Sutter Home. They then "graduated" to "real" wine....from California, where it all seems to taste like sunshine and fruit. Slightly homogeneous? Maybe. Sure, there are subtle differences, but I would argue there's more difference between a St.Estephe and a Margaux than a Napa Cab and a Napa Merlot.....

And people--i.e. wine consumers and more importantly the wine retailers--like those wines. What's not to like? They're fruity and alcoholic and easy to drink. Quite unlike what we're making here in Pennsylvania. we're more akin to France 40 years ago than anything else. Are we authentic? We damn well better be, or our few customers will leave us. But will we ever get the respect and success we hope for? It all depends on whether America decides to follow what their brain and conscience tells them is right, or if they're slaves to their hedonistic palates.

This is what happens to "authentic" or "natural" wine. When a wine speaks of place, is truly terroir-driven, is truly unique, that's when you find authenticity. The problem is that most terroir-geeks only like certain terroirs, and if you're not on the short-list, you're probably in the backwater with me.....

In Defense of Winemaking as Art

2011-12-17T07:27:00.000-05:00

I tend not to read very many wine writers these days, nor wine bloggers. Usually I get turned off by their arrogant attitudes or lack of actual winemaking knowledge. And it really doesn't interest me to read about what others think a wine tastes like if I can't taste it with them. It's like my own personal version of hell.

But a couple weeks ago, a couple writers had a thread about whether wine was art, something that I feel pretty strongly about. My family--specifically my dad's side--is full of artists. It's not a big family, so there aren't many actual people involved, but here's the breakdown. My brother, Dave, builds custom motorcycles after graduating with a degree in art and spending 3 or so years in art grad school doing ceramics. My dad has been an artist--pen and ink, etchings, watercolors--whenever he wasn't professorializing about physics. Even supported our family on it for a couple years in the 1970s. His dad ran a construction firm building houses. His dad was as an artist, and his respective dad's wife's dad was a court artist to the King of Sweden. Art, art, art, art, art.

Notice, though, that this could be a long post, because I brought up the idea of motorcycle-building and house-building as art. This speaks a bit to the concept the ancient Greeks had called "techne" (where we get our concept of "technology" from. "Techne" was debated in Plato's dialogues as to its nature and whether or not is was an art. (So, this argument has been going on for a really long time.) Some translated "techne" as "craft" other as "art", but I think that's splitting hairs on the wrong side of the dialectical engine.

My sense is that "techne" or its end-product--whatever is created--is more about why it was created and how we interact with it at any given time than whether it's even a quality product.

My young boys--when they were really small--would draw pictures of things on paper. Would most think this is art? Probably not, but for them it was. They were trying to create something with meaning that people would derive meaning from. They knew that their scribbles would elicit a response from me and that was why they were doing it. For their enjoyment and the added benefit of getting a reaction from their audience. Now, I know they probably weren't being conscious of it, but as parents we know that's what they're doing. No way a kid is going to draw something without showing it off.

For me, the drive to create is art. It moves us. It moves us forward. Moving forward, in many respects, is what technology does. "Techne."

I remember as a 13-year-old boy being dragged to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Not fun, and not the first time my dad had forced art upon us. After standing for an eternity in different halls trying to get him to walk faster--or at least walk, as he stopped and stared at stuff constantly--I remember getting numb to all the paintings of pastoral settings, still life scenes, and portraits. Then we came to the "Night Watch."

This was a monstrous piece. My first impression was of the armed guard who stood watch over it. (Kind of ironic, I know.) The painting must be fifteen feet long and ten feet tall. And dark. After viewing all the other more uplifting artwork, this was in a different world. This was Rembrandt's world.

The "Night Watch" was one of the first paintings done on such a scale that showcased common folks doing common things. It's basically a picture of a bunch of guys strolling around a dark street, making sure everything's ok. But after seeing what had come before, it really hit me. Rembrandt amazed me at first, and then later as I started seeing his other paintings, especially the ones Biblical in nature concerning Jesus.

But the feeling I got from the "Night Watch" is how art reaches me. It's subjective in that it requires a drive from the artist to create something and then it requires an audience, someone to appreciate it. Both sides are involved in a messy dialectic that dances seemingly without purpose, but you know it works when it works.

My boys artwork needed me, but only they could have produced it. My brother's motorcycles need riders. My dad's drawings need people to see them. Art is a two-way street. It doesn't exist in a vacuum.

I've seen some art galleries where mundane pieces are placed next to paintings. The aim is to get people to view them as art, but I think this is missing half of the equation sometimes. If the creator of the toilet wasn't thinking they were producing art, then the viewer in the gallery will only see a toilet. I think this is something we just know.

And here's where wine comes in. Most wine is a commodity, produced to be sold. Produced to hit a certain market segment, Produced for enjoyment, to help with cash-flow, to control market-share. I make that kind of wine.

But I also make art. Not all wine is art, but without art in wine I would never want to be a winemaker.

John

2011-11-04T06:51:00.000-04:00

It's these times of the year that I think about my friend John. He and his brother started Allegro back in 1978, and Tim passed away in 2000. I never met Tim, but heard him speak at a meeting once. All I remember him saying, over and over again, was "Well, at Allegro it's a little different." How right he was.

I met John in April of 2001, and he was the most depressed human being I have ever encountered. His brother had passed away, and he was the last of his family surviving. He couldn't bring himself to finish the wines he was working on at the time. He could barely get out of his chair.

By fall, he and I were working together bringing in the 2001 harvest. He had come around the corner, and my sense was that he was enjoying harvest. He showed me how he made Nouveau, and we tasted the Beaujolais offerings from Aubin and Georges de Boeuf to see how well we did. It was--as John had always been--winemaking at its simplest and most pure.

For winemakers, the year doesn't really start in January. It starts in September, and our spring really starts in November when we can start to work on our "spring cleaning". This was my start as the second winemaker Allegro had ever had, and it was amazing to see how a guy who had been the master of wine here for twenty years gave up his control so readily. It was almost as if he knew that I--with only two commercial vintages under my belt--needed to be thrown into the fire, albeit with a safety net of his expertise.

He was right, and I thank him for it. When I was a kid, summer was my favorite season, but now autumn naturally is. And during this time, I always think back to John. Thanks, John. You'll be happy to know everything's all right, and the Nouveau will taste like Beaujolais again this year.

The Tired-ness

2011-10-16T19:24:00.000-04:00

Time flies when you're having fun....or don't know what you're doing. Harvest isn't over yet, although all of our grapes are in. Still have four tons to receive in the next week, as well as a couple thousand gallons of juice for our sweeter wines.

It's that time in harvest when my boys start to ask, "When's harvest over?" They don't quite get it yet; all they know is that I am not really here right now (even though I am around and with them, I'm not really.)

And it's hard to walk a tightrope between family and winery. Especially when the exhaustion sets in. When you fall asleep within minutes of lying down, but can't stay asleep past 5 AM, waking up after only five or six hours of sleep. It's nuts, it drives me nuts, and perhaps make me think that I am just plain crazy.

It'll be over soon, and in a few months I won't remember all this. It's a whirlwind that we winemakers live through, but I am not sure we are actually living during it. At least I am not. Who knows.

More grapes tomorrow. More pressing and racking. November is coming.

Mason-Dixon Wine Trail

2011-09-15T21:57:00.000-04:00

The time has finally come and we can bring it out from behind closed doors. We announced it this morning.

For a while now, the UnCork York Wine trail has been working on finding a new due to our neighbors up north thinking that there would be confusion in the marketplace with their "UnCork New York" slogan. Basically, they were going to sue us for trademark infringement. I wasn't privy to all the discussions, but suffice it to say that we decided to play nice and give up on our six-year-old name.

And I'm thinking it's probably for the best. With the Civil War sesquicentennial coming up, having a Mason-Dixon Wine Trail is probably not a bad idea.

I'm sure there are some of you who are wondering, "Isn't there already a Mason-Dixon wine trail?" Of course, there was, with "was" being the operative word here. John Crouch (of Allegro) and Mike Fiore (of, obviously, Fiore) first dreamt up the Mason-Dixon wine trail back in the '90s. Early on it was only 6 wineries, but we later expanded it to eight.

Managing a trail takes a lot of effort, and getting eight wineries to all be on the same page is akin to herding cats....although that might be easier. Maybe, it's like herding drunk cats. Anyway. After getting the trail up-and-running on two separate occasions, we were looking to try it for a third time. That's when we realized we were just duplicating what the UnCork York Trail was doing. Do some simple math, and it was pretty clear that we should just give up.

Mike Fiore is pretty clear in that he sees the continuation of the name as a tribute in memory of his (and my) dear friend John. I like the way he sees it, and like all good winemakers, we're honoring the tradition of the past as we move forward.

The trail will be different. It'll be new. But hopefully it will be good and better than it was.

They're baaaaack........

2011-09-01T22:30:00.000-04:00

The grapes, that is...

I think--insofar as I have any control over it--that tomorrow is the first day of harvest for us. Sure, we have had a couple juice deliveries in the past week, but it really doesn't get going for us until we deal with fresh fruit, especially our own fruit.

We were doing so well. Everything was clean, only a bit of mildew, no rot, nice canopy, no bird damage. And then came Irene. We sustained about 5" of rain with lots of wind. Sure, we had some rows pushed over and some berries swell. But the shit didn't hit the fan until I was walking through the Pinots (Noir and Meunier) and started to smell botrytis. Crap.

Our Pinot is mostly old Champagne clones, very tight clusters. All that rain and swelling caused some to burst--to the best of my knowledge--and in walked the rot. It'll take a bit more effort to cull out the bad fruit as we pick it. But even more at issue here is what to do with the fruit once we get it into the winery. It was destined to be our Nouveau for this fall, but that's not going to work now. At this ripeness level it's really meant for sparkling production, but fat chance I want to go through that, no matter how much I love bubbly from Pinot.

So, not sure what we're going to do tomorrow, except i do know we're going to be picking some grapes. Wish me luck as I try to figure out what the heck I do with them......

Anniversary

2011-08-14T09:05:00.000-04:00

August 14th is a pretty special day around here for me. Eighteen years ago my wife Kris decided that there was something about me that made her think she could spend the rest of her life with me and that I might somehow be the right person. Even though there have been numerous times when I have shown her otherwise, she has stuck by me this whole time. We have two wonderful boys, and I love her more each day.

Ten years ago today was the first time I spent the day away from her. This day in 2001 was the day I moved to York county to start our collective lives at Allegro. I moved here without her, without our one-year-old son, and started this big adventure. They joined me a few weeks later, driving back-and-forth weekly from State College initially. That fall was the start of the biggest learning curve of my life, both personally and professionally.

The following year brought us our second son and the hardest harvest I ever had. (There's a zombie-like picture of me from that time that even worries me.....) The next year, my friend and mentor John passed away and we were truly out on our own. Those were frighteningly exciting times as we both thought we knew what we were about, although hindsight proves otherwise. Somehow we made it through, not the worse for wear. Looking back, it seems we have been here forever, almost a lifetime. Although it also feels like we've just started.

We're now officially at the opening of our second decade. For businesses, that usually means your survival rate is pretty good. Kris and I are already into our third decade with each other, so that experiment seems to be going well, too. All in all, it's a great place to be.

Really.....? (About the Best Wines in the East.....)

2011-08-02T13:38:00.000-04:00

Crap.

Again, I knew it would happen. I get so caught up in things, I forget about the old blog. Even the reminders of reading other blogs isn't enough to shake the cobwebs from my brain and get my ass into gear.

Of course, it always helps having something to say, and those of you who know me realize there's never a lack for that. I always wanted to be one of those guys who would look pensively when posed a question and slowly respond with a thoughtful and insightful answer. But it's just not me. Do you think those thoughtful guys wish they had the guts to turn off the filter between brain and mouth like I do? Perhaps....

So, a week or so ago, I had the opportunity to taste a few dozen of some of the best reds the Right coast has to offer. The tasting ran the gamut of Pinot Noir to Syrah to Bordeaux blends (my wheelhouse.) The first thing that hit me was that ten years ago this would not have been possible. The quality level was sky-high, and it blew me away.

Now, you all know that we're out here in Brogue, and it tends to be a bit insular and isolated out here. It's easy to start to think that we're the center of the universe as no one comes out to tell us otherwise. But these other winemakers brought their A-game, and some crazy-good wines.

Now, I've always been a believer that hard work will get you what you want. As I have gotten older, I've realized that it helps to have some capital, some talent, and some luck. Lucky for us, two out three ain't bad. Some of the wines being made (in PA, MD, and VA) are the synthesis of all four of these strengths, and they are dynamite. When I first started making wine in PA, people asked me why I chose PA. The obvious reason is that my wife wouldn't move to Idaho with me....ok, not quite true, but I think you get it.

Secretly, though, I realized I liked being a sizeable fish in a small--yet growing--pond. What this past tasting made me realize is that the amount of big fish out there is growing, and it's frightening (in a good way.) The wines are benefiting from better viticulture, better plant material, and more experience making wines in this area. But perhaps most of all, they are benefiting from being made in this small pond.

Most of the people around the table were familiar faces, and I have the extraordinary honor of calling some of them my friends. It's this community that allows for the sharing of successes and failures that has brought our wine quality to the level where it is today. Think of it as a Jungian subconscious that we all share in...or perhaps it's more modern equivalent, Wikipedia, the information source we all share and modify.

How many winemakers does it take to make wine? One.....but how many does it take to make a great wine? A whole boatload.

Touching base on the 2010 early-releases

2011-07-08T07:58:00.000-04:00

I know, I know, I've talked till you were tired of hearing about it, but the 2010 wines really are that good.

Believe me. It's the real deal.

First out of the blocks was our Riesling, which for a hot year retained a lot of freshness and acidity. This one ranks right up there with the 06 and the 09 for great refreshing summer wines. (I've heard that the Finger Lakes is putting on a "Summer of Riesling". This ain't no FLX wine, but it's as racy as PA gets.

Next up was out 2010 Chard. I've been playing with the oak levels and fruit/complexity components in this wine and decided to try something a bit different. This is a bigger, more modern style (without the over-blown blowziness of a Cali Chard...) Let me know what you think....

And the last white for us was the 2010 Viognier. What can I say about this wine. First, give it a chance of a few months yet. It's a big-ass wine, that's going to take a little cellar time. Say 6-12 months. This is full of peach and pineapple and citrus characters, with a body that just blows me away. It's silky smooth, but having just come through bottling, the aromas and the mid-palate aren't yet conjoined. Give it a bit o' time, and this will be a rich white that'll warm your soul on a cold winter's night.

The French Winemaker

2011-04-29T05:55:00.000-04:00

This title is slightly misleading, purposefully. You see, the French don't really have a term for winemaker. They call them vigneron, or basically the person who works the vines. For us, that generally means "grapegrower", but some folks like to get a bit fancy and refer to themselves as "winegrowers". There's a distinction, of course, because a person can grow grapes without thinking of what they are to become--juice grapes, for example.

Winegrowers, on the other hand, do tend to aim more for quality than quantity. We tend to think that the reason we are growing grapes is not for grapes to be harvested in the fall, but for wine to be enjoyed a year or three down the road. It's a whole other way of approaching viticulture.

That aside, we make wine. While the French term of vigneron implies a tending of vines, here on this side of the big Pond we MAKE wine. We are "winemakers." Not winetenders, not wine-nurturers. We're winemakers.

And with this shift in terminology comes a twist of focus as well. I've written about what I consider the cult of the winemaker. (This seems to go along with the cult of the chef, musician, writer, etc.) People are fascinated by the creation of creative arts, in one way or the other. I am, too, but I am not so interested in winemakers as people but winemakers as winemakers. I guess what makes us a little different is that we not only create, but we create with alcohol, the feel-good classic influencer of the past couple millenia. We make stuff that tastes good AND makes you feel happy.

This shift in thought--from tending vines to making wines--also changes us who are involved with it. It makes us think that we are actually in control of the process. And it is true to some extent. We definitely have a lot more control over our day-to-day actions than the farmer trying to raise some grapes. When bad weather hits, there's not much you can do. But when a bad ferment takes off, we can spring into action.

Is all this just a bunch of ego-stroking? Perhaps. But in that sense it would seem that we're missing out on a key part of the puzzle. Or at least my puzzle. My long-gone friend John once told me that he aspired to be a wine-sitter. Not a maker, but a sitter. Kind of like being a babysitter. Don't push the wines, just let them be raised up, like kids, as you watch them.

All of which brings me to the French term for the general procedure for making wine: elevage. It means "raising up". They view making wines almost the same way as they see raising kids. Interesting. Now, only if I could get my kids to follow me as easily as the wines do.....

Looking back on what I could have said better....

2011-04-05T18:54:00.000-04:00

I just wrote a little piece for our newsletter, basically summing up what our Tour de Tanks event was like for us this past month. It was a warm-and-fuzzy, feel-good essay which in retrospect isn't quite what Tour de Tanks is all about, at least for us on the work side of the equation.

First off, it's not warm. Average temperature back in the cellar was 53F. And, second, after a long day speechifying, the only thing that made me feel good was a glass of wine or four. And the only thing fuzzy was my beard.

Granted, we all try to make everyone's visit as nice as possible. And I, for one, have a unique position in that I get to get up in front of almost two thousand people during the month and say something. Stuff. Whatever seems to come out of my mouth. I've learned over the years that it's sometimes best to not put too much of a filter between my brain and my tongue, even though I think I've said a couple wine-world shocking comments. (It's kind of the point in making a point: nobody ever remember the safe slow talker, just the loony who let his mouth run and made a couple interesting points.)

I spent a lot of time trying to push the idea--that I have been pushing since the very beginning--that we in this part of the world need to get off our collective asses and focus on something. The idea of "diversity is our strength" has reared its head in our grapegrower/winemaking conferences, and I have to say it makes me sick. Just think if there were 50 varieties of grapes in Bordeaux or Burgundy? Those places would cease to exist in anything that even mildy resembles their current form. Additionally, I doubt we would have such unearthly pleasures as Chateau Cheval-Blanc and Domanine de al Romanee-Conti. Generalization is anathema to beauty and wonder.

I harped on Chambourcin a lot during the past month. It's an easy target here in PA because for some reason it seems to be ubiquitous for a local winery. It usually produces an tart, acidic nicely colored red wine with an interesting flavor profile. Most importantly for local growers, it yields well, is disease resistant, and seems not to exhibit any of the obnoxious herbaceous flavors that vinifera reds seem to show when not ripened fully. But ultimately my issue with the grape is the fact that it allows us to lose focus on the task at hand.

Chambourcin is grown in the Beaujolais region of France with perhaps 6000 acres planted (so I'm told.) The French who have been making great wine for many more years than all of the wineries in PA combined relegate the grape to their table wines. Mind you, this isn't a bad thing. Chambourcin makes really nice red wine when it's grown properly. It's good juice. (I personally think it's best as a rose or perhaps a Port-style wine.)

See, I got distracted again. The task is to find out what our region can be known for, what we're best at, and what can put us on the map. What will make world-class wine in our region? I have stuck my neck out time and time again and said that Merlot is probably our star, or at least one of them. It's not easy to grow, it's not easy to ferment, but once it's in a bottle, it's easy to sell. (Don't kid yourselves....Sideways the Movie did not slow down sales of the variety.)

So, what does it take? If I knew, I'd be doing it already. Maybe we need consistency. Maybe we need a little luck. Who knows. If you have any ideas, I'm game.

Winemaking Trio

2011-03-15T05:26:00.001-04:00

A lot of you might know that back in 2009 I teamed up with a couple other winemakers in Pennsylvania to create the first cooperative red blend in the state. We took as our model the wine Tierce produced by Fox Run, Red Newt, and Anthony Road up in the Finger Lakes in New York. But, being more interested in reds, we turned our thoughts to the really nice, full-bodied wines from the 2007 vintage.

The winemakers in question were myself, Joanne Levengood from Manatawny Creek Winery (Douglasville), and Brad Knapp from Pinnacle Ridge Winery (Kutztown). Every year the three of us get together and bring samples of all of our barrels to a central non-neutral location. Not that it matters. We all know each other well enough after years of doing this that there really is no home-field advantage. For that matter, it's not a competition either. At least that's what we say.....

Suffice it to say that we start early in the morning tasting wines, beginning with the Chardonnays as a way to get the ball rolling. We all make Chardonnay, but I've been starting to wonder why. We can make blockbuster wines from time-to-time, but since when does anyone expect a world-class Chard from PA? And, to make matters worse, who would pay for one? It gets depressing when we don't get the full respect we deserve. So, we're still playing around with different things. Chardonnay is a great experimental wine as it takes a winemaker's influence readily, and it's easy to mold and shape.

But we quickly move on to the reds, the real reason most of us winemakers are winemakers. I'm sure that if I was in a cooler climate, I would come to love white wine production. But for me, there's just something about punching down the red fermentations in the fall, racking the wines to barrels, sampling from those barrels, and then creating blends at the end of the process. It's more hands-on, nitty-gritty, getting-into-it winemaking. It's why I'm a winemaker.

We spend numerous hours in the day sniffing and swirling and spitting--yes, spitting--stopping barely for a break for lunch. After doing this for years, we have a comfortable rapport with each other, and we not only expect honesty from each other, we also have to deliver honestly. We all have egos, of course. You can't make great wine without one. But with that you need thick skins. If someone says, "Carl, it smells musty, like earthy concrete" when it's not supposed to, I have to check myself from saying "But that's what I was going for" because we all know the wine shouldn't smell that way. So, I re-examine what the hell might have made this nice barrel smell offensively, trying to figure out if I have a TCA infection or some other weirdness. It's like when the doctor orders more tests because they can't figure out what's wrong.... Then I realize that it was probably a dirty sample bottle that I re-used this past time--a hypothesis confirmed when I got home and the barrel was fine.

After years of doing this, we finally made a wine together. Which is somewhat of a nice culmination of events, because in one regard we've been making wine together all these years. It turns out that we forgot about all the headaches of finding a label that worked for us, bottles that would work, and all the rest of the logistical problems we dealt with almost two years ago. And so we thought we might give it another try with some 2010 reds. We think.

We'll just have to get together again and try some more barrels this summer to find out.

Renewing Things

2011-03-11T05:55:00.000-05:00

So the craziness that is Tour de Tanks has taken off. We had a bit slower weekend as our opener, not surprising considering the bad weather on Saturday and the terrible weather on Sunday. Only 320 people came through for the whole weekend, down from around 750 in 2010.

This is not a complaint. Far from it. We have been working since the holidays to renovate our tasting room into a bigger space. Last fall we experienced four separate days when we didn't have enough space our tasting bar to accommodate all of the people wanting to taste wine. (Apologies if you were one of the ones who had to wait.) So, we decided to rip out a wall and open the space up a bit more. My father-in-law Doug did the lion's share of the work, including most of the demo and the studding out of the walls. With new paint on the walls and ceiling, it almost looks as if we have a new place.

The piece de resistance is our new bottle storage system on the new wall we created. It's something I saw originally at Deloach winery (a well-known Pinot producer in Sonoma.) The bottles are stored horizontally on metal "fingers" that stick out from the wall. It creates a large wall of wine that really shows off the great labels Kris created. We punch it up a bit by highlighting the bottles with some spotlights. All in all, I think it looks pretty sharp.

How does this tie in with Tour de Tanks you might ask? Well, we suffered from lower attendance (but still the third highest of all the wineries) and yet our sales compared to last year were the same. That's just crazy.

I'm not sure what the reason for this is, but I would like to think it's my great presentation about Merlot and how much better a grape than Chambourcin it is. But I'm pretty sure that's not the reason.

It's probably my staff. I added extra people on to help this year, and so all the visitors coming through get extra-special attention. My folks are great, and I can't believe how lucky we are to have them.

And yet, the look of the new space could be making people like our wines a little better. As a winemaker, I'd like to think this wouldn't be the case. ("Since when should surroundings affect the taste of what's in the bottle!") But humans are strange, complex, and predictably irrational beings.

Next step is to finish tiling the floor. We'll see if that helps, too.

The Coldness

2011-02-05T19:43:00.000-05:00

Yep, it's winter. Not sure what you all see out your window right now, but here in the Brogue it's cold and wet and foggy and white. It's February in southern Pennsylvania, and I know I don't have much to complain about compared to our neighbors in New England, but I'd give a lot right now for a little sunshine and green grass.

The winter months are when we prune our vines back down. After harvest, the vines drop their leaves after sucking up as many carbohydrates as possible. These they will store through the winter and actually use to push the new growth for the first couple of weeks next spring. This is the time in which we cut off around 90% of what grew from each vine the previous year and start to form the shape and manipulate the yield for the coming season.

We're trying a new pruning/training system this year. My viticulture consultant--Lucie Morton, the best in the east--calls it "cane and a half". Usually, a person either cane prunes or spur prunes. This is a modification of the former. Hopefully, it'll give us more consistent fruitfulness across the buds we leave, and therefore perhaps a better yield without compromising quality.

We're at least a third done at this time, with about 6 weeks to go. I'd like to be done by the first of March, and then tied down by the middle of March. These days, the majority of the actual pruning is done by Matt, my vineyard go-to man. He's been pruning for over fifteen years. I'm not sure he's sold yet on this new-fangled method. I don't blame him. Not sure I'd like to prune this way either. But the proof will be this fall.

We'll just have to wait and see. Like most of the best things in life.

Bottled Up

2011-01-29T13:39:00.000-05:00

There's a significant movement in our industry with regards to innovative packaging. A lot of it is driven by the desire for a smaller carbon-footprint with regards to wine consumption. A lot is also influenced by the desire to have a unique package out there, and sell a little more wine. Let's remember that it took the milk industry years to figure out that the shape of their cartons and the shape of the cupholders in cars meant that no one bought their product at convenience stores and instead bought other beverages. They probably lost marketshare permanently.

I know that there are lots of different types of ways to bottle wines, including funky-style bottles and pop-top cans. As a small winery, I'm probably never going to be able to afford the equipment for a lot of the different "bottles" out there, but I've seriously considered screwcaps and box wines. Keep in mind, this is not for our premium wines. Our vinifera-based wines (dry reds and whites) will never see any container other than a bottle with a natural cork. It's traditional, yes, but that's not a bad thing. It works for us.

Boxes and caps are probably the wave of the future for everyday wines in the under $15 range. They come with their own issues, because people seem to think that they signify bad wines. Now, there's no doubt in mind that the majority of wine throughout history that was bottled in these two methods was probably pretty bad. But these days we are in the midst of the best time in the history of humanity to drink wine. Best values are found here and now. Not only that, there's an oversupply of wine coming out of California's existing vineyards. The bulk wine market--on which the river of wine flows--is full of millions of gallons of alcoholic juice that's way better than Wild Irish Rose and MD 20/20.

Most winemakers are pretty clear on this. The container is a means to an end. It's the method that allows us to have a transportable product that we can sell today to a consumer who can consume it at leisure. Yes, there's still a snobbery against caps and boxes. I think it's like Allegro was fifteen years ago. When you used to drive up to our place, you saw a plain box winery with some run-down old trailers out front. The place looked pretty low-end. But if you went inside and braved the 50F tasting room in the winter and could see past the anatomically-correct deer made from grapevines, you would find some of the finest wines ever made on the East Coast. There were a few people who didn't let the superficialities dictate against what their palates were telling them.

Hopefully people give boxes and caps the same kind of chance Allegro got.

What's In a Name?

2011-01-26T06:05:00.000-05:00

We're going through lots of changes again at the winery. Turns out what I used to consider the nicest part of our winery--the tasting room--turned into the least attractive part. That is, after all the work we've been putting into everything else.

And, one more thing happened. This past holiday season, we ended up having to ask customers to wait a little bit in order for room to be freed up at the tasting bar. It was strange to think that after our expansion five years ago, we still needed to make a little more room for people. This is a good thing, especially in light of the fact that there are a lot of people struggling out there these days.

We've been called "Allegro Vineyards" for over thirty years. We are a vineyard, most proudly. Although, you can't see the vines from the tasting room (yet.) When people ask, I just tell them that the brothers didn't want to use valuable space for vineyard with a tasting room, so they put the winery in the least plantable space possible. Of course, they didn't care a lot about marketing niceties, so customers never got a chance to see the great vines.

Two things, though, do come to mind. They set up our website URL as "allegrowines." They knew it was about the wine for our customers, not about the vines. And, the sign out on Route 74 says "Allegro Winery and Vineyards." Again, it was about the wine.

A name change is not a small thing. It changes what we think we are. And these days we're definitely a winery. And our customers think the same thing.

Allegro Winery. And vineyards. Allegro Winery.

What do you think?

Telling....

2010-11-27T22:02:00.000-05:00

So, I guess it's telling that my last post was about harvest widows and about how our spouses are sometimes left stranded during this time of year. Turns out it's not just spouses, but just about anything in our lives. Including blogs.

This past harvest was a wicked one in terms of the amount of work required and accomplished. I haven't had this tough a harvest since 2005. It started early--almost as early as 2002--and finished late. Not quite as late as last year, but since we made so much wine this year it seemed to drag on and on.

Am I complaining? For once, no. It's hard to complain when the vintage turned out so nicely. Now, I can say this because I just had my second day away from Allegro since August 10th. The first was Thanksgiving. That's a hell of a long haul to do anything, even if it's something you love.

I'm especially non-complainative due to the fact that the grapes were awesome. Most years I am nose-to-the-barrel thinking about what they'll turn into. This year, I think I'm a little intimidated by the prospect of making such incredible wine that I don't want to know how much pressure I might put myself under. When the grapes are good, the wine should be good. When the grapes are phenomenal, the wines should blow your mind. If you didn't make really good wine this year, you should pack up and go home. This should be one for the ages.

Harvest Widows

2010-10-19T21:39:00.002-04:00

It's now mid-October, 2010. The first juice we received for this vintage was in early August. (It was peach juice from our friends at Maple Lawn Farms for the wine we call Celeste......) It's now over two months later. Ray has had a few weekends off in the meantime. I've had fewer. We're tired. We're sore. We're a bit numb.

We're staring down the last week of harvest. By this time next week, all of our fruit should be in the winery...barring any hurricanes, typhoons, or other acts of God. The light at the end of the tunnel is finally visible, but it's a heck of a ways off.

I read an article today in a newspaper from the Napa, Ca, area. It was about the families of winemakers and what happens during harvest time. One spouse out there coined a phrase--and started a support-group--for what she called "harvest widows." These are the people who have chosen to spend their lives with us nutcases. We know who we are. The ones that think nothing of spending a Friday night unloading tons of Merlot, or a Sunday morning meditating on the pumpovers and punchdowns of red fermentations. But it's a lonelier time for those whom we chose to spend our lives with.

The article described us basically as human zombies with stomachs that need to be fed. It's not far off the mark. Some days are better than others, that's for sure. But for the most part, we're tired.

And, yet, we come back every year for more. I remember when Ray first started here. He kept going to job interviews and posting his resume on Monster, etc. But after that first harvest, the first crush of 2006, I could tell he was pretty hooked. There's something about making wine, and working hard to make better wine, that gets into your blood. Into who you are. It becomes us. It's what we do.

So, here's to all the harvest widows out there. Especially, Kris, Cathy, and Marianne. We'll be back soon.

Doing

2010-10-10T06:41:00.000-04:00

These past few weeks have been full of the crush. Long days and long nights.

At one point last week, before the end of the night and after a couple days of it, we were feeling pretty beat. We still had a few more tons to process, and the combination of fatigue, cold, beer, and darkness led to strange giddiness.

I asked my good friend Nelson--of Karamoor fame, who had just brought some Merlot--why we do this. Why do we out ourselves through this small bit of insanity?

"Because it's what we do," he said. And he's right.

Some may go on, waxing poetic about how the wine drives them to make it. Some may just be going through the paces of employment. But for some of us, it's just what we do. What we have to do. Because it's who we are.

October Tough-ness

2010-10-05T07:15:00.000-04:00

So, we live here on the right side of this country, and we grow grapes here. We've been doing it unsuccessfully for a few centuries, but recently we've started to get it right. One of our chief concerns has always been the onslaught of hurricanes and tropical storms near harvest time. And this year is no different.

The timing of these past few systems (Nicole, etc.) has been pretty good. We have most of our early and mid-season varieties in, and the late season varieties are still hanging tough out there. Our beautiful season is still in the works, and it's still looking good. It's this toughness that make it all work for us.

Our late varieties--primarily Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc--originate from a maritime climate (Bordeaux). They are red varieties that have fairly tough skins, leading to the higher proportion of tannins in the resulting wine. This toughness leads to a very good resistance to a lot of the rots that plagued East coast grapegrowers for years. It also comes into play with end-of-season rains.

There's a harvest theory that you should wait at least three days after each rain to let the water move out of the vines. There are competing theories as to whether the rain water moves into the berries through the roots or through the skins of the grapes. Some recent research at, I believe, Washington State shows that even if you pressurized grapevine roots with water and he water dripped out of the leaves but didn't enter the grapes themselves.

So, if you follow that line of thinking and think about our tough varieties, you'll realize how we don't worry as much as we used to about rain at harvest. Sure, it messes things up a bit. But for the tough-stuff we like to grow, we can laugh it off. All the way to the cellar.

More Thoughts on Wine Competitions

2010-08-27T08:30:00.000-04:00

The folks at the New York Cork Report had a recent posting about their position on wine competitions the other day. It's been a long time since I've read something from someone in our industry that has fired me up so much in a good way. Here's the link to the article. Please read it now before going on.....

http://www.lenndevours.com/2010/08/we-wont-participate-as-judges-in-wine-competitions-heres-why.html

My takeaway from this is that they have opened their eyes and had the guts to put out publicly what most of us--meaning me and maybe a couple others--have been thinking and saying for years!

Full disclosure: Allegro does not enter medal competitions. We do enter the local Pennsylvania Wine Society Tasting since a lot of the members are our customers. Other than that, no other competitions.

Before me, John and Tim Crouch (founders of Allegro) did enter competitions for a while, but even they soured on them, recognizing them for being thinly-veiled games of chance.

The main point of the article that got me was when they pointed out the Emperor's new clothes: that there should be transparency and clarity in the wine business. And, it seems, hardly anyone knows what medals are worth. Or do they? I know who knows.....the wine competitions. They are worth entry fees to keep the competitions in business. But for the consumer or the media there is no transparency nor clarity on what these competitions actually accomplish.

As someone who has judged thousands of wine, I can't begin to tell you how subjective a process it it. Do I even like the wine? Is it flawed? Is it winemaking or grape-growing that made it this way? It is my style? Did I just have chocolate for dessert? Did I brush my teeth? Are my allergies bothering me? Did I drink too much last night? Do I need to impress the judge across from me? Is he a pompous ass? Am I a pompous ass for thinking this? All these questions play into it.

(As an aside, I think wine critics are of a different ilk, but that's for a different post.)

Bottom-line, wineries like competitions because it's easy to get medals and medals sell wine because no one truly knows what a medal is worth. It's a fake outside endorsement. Thanks, New York Cork Report, for calling it like it is.

Lastly, for those of you who don't get it, I'll be starting my own wine competition soon. Feel free to send me 3 bottles of your wine along with a $50 entry fee. Tell me the price of your commercially-available wine, and I will send you correspondingly-colored medals. $0 to $10 gets no medal, $11 to $15 gets bronze, $16 to $20 gets silver, and $21 and up gets gold.

In other words let the market determine the quality. It's the core value that our country was founded on.

Thoughts on a Rename

2010-08-27T06:39:00.000-04:00

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while will notice two things (at least.) One is that I haven't been very good at updating it in the past couple months. No really good reason for that. Just that the vineyard has been almost two weeks ahead of normal. And I tried to take the first real family vacation with Kris and the boys. So, basically I've just been goofing off.....

The other thing is I changed the title. "Life at Allegro" is a boring name, so I changed it. The new name is more boring but just a slight bit cleverer. For those of you who need a refresher course on your Greek, Latin, and German:

vitis - the scientific genus classification of grapes
sophia - love
philo - wisdom
enology - winemaking

And it's all German due to their tendencies to smash words together to make new ones.

Vineyard Report--Early July '10

2010-07-24T07:22:00.000-04:00

Thought I'd post a quick video I made out in the vineyard to describe what the year is looking like so far. Not sure how much I like the video format, but it may mean I can keep up with things better. Let me know what you think, if you'd like. Negative votes may not apply....

Back again....and there.

2010-07-07T21:13:00.001-04:00

I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.

There was always going to be a time when I stumbled on the blog, when I spent more time doing what I love rather than reflecting on it. So, maybe it's obvious--based on the summer we're having--but we're sitting on one of the most unique, remarkable, quintessentially different vintage that I can remember. The one that comes closest to this would be 2002.

2002 also had a warm spell in January, had a warm time in April that caused an early budbreak, and was borderline drought conditions with heat waves and cool waves. OK, so it has lots in common with 2002, just more so. It's all been amplified. Where 2002 was hot, this is hotter. Where 2002 was dry, this is drier. This is the "-er" year if there ever was one.

Now, I hate to actually put this in writing--for fear that my boys may someday read this and think that I was going nuts at an early age or perhaps taking in too much of the vinous vintage--but I actually think we maybe could use a little of the wet stuff. Now they say, be careful what you wish for. And I'm sure in this climate of overdoneness that if I asked for a shower I'd meet a deluge. But the leaves are starting to curl, they're starting to lose their gloss, and the grass crunches beneath my feet. It's hot and dry. If it wasn't so damn humid I'd think I was back in Kansas. (Not a bad thing, but you're not me.)

This phenomenal year had had me back on my heels since day one (April 7), reeling to keep up with its twists and turns. Now, after fruit set, I wonder if the vines will make it. Will we somehow be able to pull off the vintage of the century with adequate rainfall and protection from hurricanes? Or will we finally succumb to the power that was 2009 and sink into the depths of a debilitatingly tough and rough vintage due to the carnage of drought-like conditions and lose half of our venerable vines in our vineyard to the stresses of extreme climate change?

Again, for all of you who don't know me, you can now see why I don't play the lottery. This is a poker of the soul. Can we or can we not stare down the deck for an inside straight, run the table on the vines? Or will we pull up short, fold, throw in the junk and give up?

It's too soon to tell. Here we are in July. We still need to get through veraison, get nets on, build sugars, soften skins, ripen tannins. I'll see you in October, or maybe in September. I'll be the one with the grape goo on my hands.

Too Busy

2010-06-30T21:17:00.002-04:00

Man, has it been busy. I always knew there would come a time when I didn't have time to post blogs. For a long time. Sorry. At least it's better than the alternative.

Here's to a great vintage. Cheers!

--Carl

Moving On

2010-05-23T06:55:00.002-04:00

Dealing with our early budbreak put us a ways behind. Not that that's anything other than normal at a vineyard--or any other part of my life for that matter--but we were just ahead in being behind, if that makes any sense. We've finally found our groove and are starting to feel under control in the vineyard.

A couple weeks ago we finished a bit more planting. We have some spots in our Merlot that never took well with our first planting back in 2005. I never did figure out what caused it, but I have a feeling it was a combination of a bunch of things. First and foremost being that the nursery I bought the grafted vines from undoubtedly sent me a mixed bag of vines. The weak ones have died out, but the rest are doing fine.

Don't ever get me started on grapevine nurseries--or printing companies....If I ever did my life over again, I'd head to one of those fields where there's a lot more tolerance for....well, a whole lot more tolerance for everything.

The grapes are looking well so far. This cooler weather we've had has kept the vines in check for the most part. We're still ahead of most years' timetable, but not as far as we could have been if we'd had anything close to normal weather since that heat spell in early April. I've been watching the pattern of temperatures for the last month or so, and we seem to be starting out a lot like 2002 did (my first year here at Allegro.) And if 2010 is anything like 2002, I'll be happy.

It was cold....

2010-05-10T21:01:00.002-04:00

OK, so I've been growing grapes for over ten years now, and this morning I had an experience unlike any I have ever had in a vineyard.....and can you keep your mind out of the gutter?

At 6:00 AM I was out in the early daylight looking at a thermometer. It started around 31F, and eventually bottomed out at 28.8F. I wasn't sure what to think. Allegro has never been totally nuked before.

This year started out so early, with temperatures in the high 80s in early April. We broke buds on our Chardonnay on April 7th, with the Cab following a few days later. Totally crazy, totally messed up. Don't tell me that climate change isn't real, because I'm living it in 2010.

I tried to explain to my boys what the early budbreak was all about. I compared it to being in a race and trying to jump the gun. If you get caught, you're disqualified and and out of the race. But, if you time it perfectly, you have a jump on the rest of the field. And that's the way I felt up until this morning.

Standing out in the lowest couple of rows of the Cab, I felt DQ'ed. Just waiting for the starter's gun to go off for a second time. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

A few hours later I went back out and started finding leaves that were crumpled up and blackened. But after lunch he damage hadn't spread much further. Our lower rows had intermittent injuries, but for the most part I think we're ok.

Of course, tonight could be a repeat of the same. Only difference is that I plan to put a fungicide spray on the vineyard, for two reasons: a) it's going to rain soon, and b) the air is supposed to be still, and having my sprayer blowing things around out there has to help a little. And every little bit counts.

New Sweet Stuff

2010-04-28T20:54:00.001-04:00

It's taken me a while to realize this, but things that are new--and maybe different--are good. Not always, but at least most times when it comes to wine. (OK, I've had "new" bottles of wine that turned out to be crap, but you get what I mean.....)

For years, I've always challenged winemaking self to do new wines. Try something a little different. Change things up in order to make them better. Of course, Mother Nature does that for us automatically every year, but I like to change the things I control as well. Nothing like throwing the whole deck up in the air and seeing where the cards land. And now, after doing this for a lot of years, I have a pretty good sense of where they fall. Or, or at least, I know where to find them all after they hit the ground and put them in a semblance of order.

I woke up one day to the idea that I hadn't made any new sweet wines lately. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I like my dry wines, I drink dry wine, and would only make dry wine if I could get away with it. But, I am also keenly aware that my sweet wine sales outnumber my dry wines sales. It's just a reality being a small winery in Pennsylvania.

And, I'm proud of our sweet wines. All of them are technically sound, they are unique, and well-made. I can see why our customers like them. It makes me a little schizophrenic at times, but I'm OK with that. (And so am I....)

This spring we brought in some apple juice that we concentrated by freezing. It's now fermenting away in a cold tank, probably for the next month. Not sure what we'll call it, but it should be a an Aria-style wine. The wine smells like intense apples. Think green Jolly Ranchers if they were trying to make them smell like Golden Delicious instead of Granny Smiths. I can imagine the different desserts it'll go with.....

And, I'm playing around with the idea of doing a blueberry wine. Yeah, yeah, I know, I always said I wasn't doing anymore fruit wines. But I have had some really nice blueberry wines from Bartlett's in Maine, and they are intriguing. Not that I could make ones like they do (mine won't be dry), but it seemed like an interesting challenge. I like challenges, even if they kick my butt sometimes. (Remember, it took me four tries to get Red Lion Red right, and it works now.)

That may be it for a while. I do still have my dry wines that I am tinkering with. Hopefully this will keep all you sweeties happy for a while.

The Way Things Change

2010-03-30T19:53:00.001-04:00

Change. Musicians want it. Politicians want you to think that they'll bring it about. I can't live without it. Just ask the people around me. I guess I always think there's a way to do things better around here.

I think back about the way things looked when we first showed up back in 2001. I remember driving down the Sechrist toward the winery and pulling in with Kris and Carl (age 1) in the back seat. I remember seeing the winery and the old trailers and the trash out front and the musty smell in the tasting room and the dark, dampness in the cellar. I also remember that I had a cold and couldn't taste anything. And, John poured us a taste of the 1997 Cadenza, and I was impressed.

Then, he poured me a taste of the 1991 Cadenza and I was floored. Totally blown away. What an awesome wine. Even with my head-cold, I could see the brilliance that this man created in his wines.

Things have changed since then. I have lived by the mantra that a business has to spend money to make money. (John never understood that. He lived by the Field of Dreams "If you build it, they will come" motto. Doesn't work too well in Brogue.) So, early on we spent money on advertising, but lately we have spent money on expanding our vineyard and production area. And, related to this, we may be expanding our tasting/event area.

Back when John and Tim ran the winery, they produced around 4-5K gallons annually. We're now about three times that. They didn't really have any employees. We now have about 23 people on staff (mostly part-time.) They never did festivals. We take our wine on the road as much as we can. They didn't have other stores. We have five.

But, you know, would I trade what we have for what they had? I don't know. I also have a family that this winery helps to support. They did almost exclusively dry wines, while I end up making a lot of sweet wines. It's just a different path.

I have to say that because of our size, we are now surrounded by some of the most interesting and special people that I am proud to call part of the Allegro family. If we were smaller, this wouldn't be part of my world. I also come in to contact with so many people that love our sweet wines. And although I don't personally drink those wines, I feel good about bringing a bit of happiness into their lives. Our winery is different and things have changed, but you know, I like it this way.

Dunkin' Donuts

2010-03-20T08:28:00.001-04:00

It's probably been pretty obvious that I've been busy. It's the middle of March, and we're in the middle of Tour de Tanks. This wine trail event has really transformed what business is like for wineries in this region. Prior to this event, I would probably get about 75 people coming out to our winery during this month. Nowadays, we get over 3000 people.

As a winery, we're of course in the business of selling wine, and being able to get this many people through our door has been amazing. Granted, we're not the only winery most of these people are visiting. So, after we have basically fed them lunch--we go all out of the food--it does get a little disappointing to see some people leave with only one bottle from us.

But, I try to have a longer range view of things. Sure, I may not be selling a whole lot to each of them. But I know that these same people are comparing apple-to-apples so to speak. They can try our wines and try other people's wines. And, in this down economy, our wine sales at the winery are up 10% over last year. It makes me feel good.

So, as I get ready for another day talking to potentially 500 people, I remember what this means to our family winery. Even though I sometimes feel like I'm working for Dunkin' Donuts ("time to make the donuts.....")

The Breaking of Winter

2010-02-28T20:02:00.001-05:00

I noticed it today. Small spots of grass peaking their blades through the spaces of snow. And then, there were larger spots of green. Or, rather, gray-yellow-green, of the hibernating grasses that lay dormant under the covering of white.

No matter how much enjoyment my boys have enjoyed the days' off from school, no matter how much I enjoy the changing and diversity of the seasons. I am ready for spring. I am ready for summer. I am ready for spring.

The Big Snow of 2010, Part 2

2010-02-11T19:21:00.001-05:00

After spending the last two days dealing with snow, I am now totally convinced of the concept of climate change. (Just because some people call it "global warming" doesn't mean it doesn't affect the winter times.)

As someone who lives and dies by the weather--in that I follow it religiously during most of the year due to vineyard issues--I am starting to notice some patterns. Basically, the weather forecasts seem to be getting more and more inaccurate. I've got a feeling that the predictor models are based on decades of weather data, and that they may not be as indicative of weather in 2010.

Now, I haven't been just thinking this because I've been dealing with so much snow that it's even hard for my boys to enjoy it. I've been seeing the local forecasts as well as some internet ones missing big storms as well as overcalling some near misses.

If there are any meteorologists out there who think I am way off my rocker, let me know. In the meantime, I'll be digging out from what was called a 5" snow a few days before it hit.....

More Snow and More Snow and More Snow

2010-02-07T08:05:00.000-05:00

Like most of you on the East Coast, we got buried in snow starting Friday. Probably got over two feet, but the drifts in front of the winery were a good 30". It took me 15 minutes to plow a single lane with my tractor 25 feet long to our front door. The four-wheel drive tractor could barely drive forward through the stuff, let alone push the snow.

I have to say that I am glad we got all of our tanks moved outside before all this hit. We even filled them with the next batch of Suite for cold-stabilization. I tried to go out and check the temperature in the tanks yesterday, but the stairwell to the crushpad was full of snow....

I don't think we've seen this big a dumping since 2004 when we had to cancel our Sweet Release weekend and I plowed for two days. There's just a lot of snow out there.

That said, I think 4WD vehicles should be able to make it into our drive today if they really want to. Good luck. I'll be on the tractor if you need me......

Moving

2010-02-03T07:12:00.000-05:00

I'm torn these days. I spent most of yesterday moving tanks around. We have a few tanks in our winery--horizontal ones that take up a lot of space--that we use for cold stabilization. (These are old milk tanks from the dairy industry that we converted years ago for wine production. What's good enough for milk is plenty good enough for wine--we have alcohol on our side!)

Every year we cold-stabilize our wines. This involves bringing the temperature of the wine down to around 26F--depending on the alcohol content--and holding it there. We then seed the wine with some potassium bitartrate in order to start a crystallization process that helps pull the excess tartaric acid out of solution. Now, this sounds all fancy and chemistry-like, but every winery in the world does this or some form of this. The aim of this is to have the crystals deposit in the tank so they don't deposit in the bottle in your fridge at home.

Interesting fact: the crystals we pull out of the wine? It also goes by the name of "cream of tartar". That's right, the stuff used in baking comes from the wine industry. Neat, huh?

It takes a lot of energy to bring these wines to these low temperatures and hold them, especially when we're trying to keep the rest of the winery a little warmer (67F) in order to get our MLs to run in the barrels. So, the idea was to take the tanks outside--where it's colder--and save some energy and space costs. (Yes, space costs money. It's why you are charged to put things in storage units.)

Opening up the space has made me realize that we could be using this barrel room as a Barrel Room. In other words, use it for events and other marketing nonsense. Perhaps sell a few more bottles of wine. Now, I'd love to sell more wine, especially if it's the reds and whites I enjoy making so much. But the site of a newly-freed-up wall just begs for more tanks and barrels to fill it, not tables and chairs.

In any case, we're not quite done with the moving yet. Just got about 3-4 inches of snow last night. It's going to be fun sledding around with the forklift today.....

Bottles

2010-01-28T21:06:00.000-05:00

We're doing a lot of bottling these days, so I'm thinking about bottles a lot. It's all part of the packaging of our product. Back when Kris was involved in our day-to-day decisions, she said she wanted to make our bottles look as good as the wine tasted. She accomplished that.

We use a few different types of bottles.....and I've been trying to make it easier on our warehousing and storage of them by not using too many. But, I also feel strongly traditional in this sense. I can't imagine Chardonnay in anything else but a Burgundy bottle, and Merlot and Cabernet have to go in a Bordeaux. Riesling is in a hoch (although we do it in blue....why? Because it sells better that way. Believe me. Most package decisions are made purely on making the wine more saleable. If you find a cool bottle at the state liquor store, you can pretty much be assured that the wine is just as uncool that's in it. That's marketing.)

We get asked from time to time if we can re-use the bottles, and unfortunately we can't. The bottles we purchase from our suppliers come to us sterilized. (Sure, every once in a while a small piece of cardboard dust makes it into the bottle, but it's STERILE dust....) There's no way on earth that I could take a used bottle and sterilize it so that it could be re-used. It's just asking for trouble. A few stray bacteria in the bottle and, poof, bad wine. Or worse, refermenting wine that pops the cork on somebody's brand new white rug. Not worth the risk.

Now, I have been reading that there's a company on the west coast that is going to start recycling bottles. There have been companies like this around from time to time, but they have never been successful long-term. I'm hoping this one will be--and that they find a way to open a branch on the east coast. This is an idea whose time has come. Most bottles are used once, and not all of them make it into recycling bins. (In fact, at Allegro, we have to drive about 5 miles to our recycling station. No curbside pickup in Brogue....)

In Europe, they have been re-using (re-sterilizing) bottles for years, and I read that the average bottle makes about 7 trips around before it's melted and remolded into something else. Most of the carbon footprint for wine bottles comes in the making. I sure would sleep better at night knowing we were being a bit more energy efficient with our bottles. Once the re-sterilized bottles are available near Pennsylvania, you can bet I'll be using them.....

Personality

2010-01-18T18:47:00.000-05:00

Brenda--the person who has the difficult task of trying to convince me that marketing works--once asked me if I thought there were similarities between a winemaker's personality and their wines. I think this is an interesting question to play around with. And, I'm not saying that bad wines are made by bad people and good wines by good people, but rather what style do you end up making the wines in, or what wines do you choose to make based on your personality.

I had the opportunity to taste Chaddsford's 2007 Pinot Noir last night (a blend from Phil Roth's old vineyard and the Eric's Miller Estate Vineyard.) It was a really nice wine, and it almost made me re-consider my decision never to make Pinot Noir again. And it reminded me of the personality question. Pinot Noir is the "exception" grape. You can do x and y in the cellar to most grapes, EXCEPT Pinot Noir. Or it's the "especially" grape. As in, you have to be gentle with all grapes, ESPECIALLY Pinot Noir.

Pinot Noir is not a team player. It's not easy to get along with. It demands special attention in the cellar. This is not to say that we ignore any of our wines. It's just that Pinot Noir is like the prima donna of the grape world. Don't play to its ego you're screwed . And that's what it's been like for me.

Now, I like tannins. Always have, probably always will. Tannins are what protect the wines, make them robust and invigorating. Tannins separate the wheat from the chaff in the wine-drinking world. They also allow the wine to put up with an aggressive personality. I am young and dumb in this wine-world, very much a kitchen-sink winemaker. (If I think two different things will help a wine, I do them both, not just choose between one or the other.) When I get a chance with a great vintage, I go for broke. (Case in point, our 2007 Cadenza.) No holds barred, throw it all on, and leave it all out on the field (or cellar, as the case may be.)

So, my personality really doesn't jive with Pinot Noir (or Sangiovese, for that matter) that looks to be coddled and caressed and massaged on its way to the bottle. I like Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon with their richness and powerful finesse. Chardonnay that takes to layers and layers of pushing to go to the place I want. These are wines that fit my personality. Even, play to it, like it, perhaps even need it. These are Allegro wines!

Holiday Hangover

2010-01-08T06:46:00.000-05:00

Now that the holidays are past, I know a lot of people just stick there heads down and try to grind out a few months. I remember my first couple jobs out of school when I realized that my next day off was Memorial day in June. It's a long stretch. I was always sad to see the holidays come to a close.

Now, it's different, but still a but the same. I enjoyed the holidays with Kris and my boys, and visiting family. But in the Allegro side of things, it's time to finally focus on what we're good at: making wine. Christmas is our vest sales time of the year, bar none. (I always wonder what happens to all the Holiday Wine Drinkers in July--haven't they heard of Riesling?) We sell boatloads of wine in November and December--even in this economy--but in January it's as if all the wine drinkers are suffering from a collective hangover.

Not that it really matters. I know things pick up again soon, especially with Tour de Tanks coming. In the winery we're starting to bottle the 2009 wines. First up is the 2009 Riesling. We'll get the Vidal bottled soon as well as our new Dry Rose. Still have the 2008 Claret and 2007 Aria to finish up as well.

Pruning will kick in again soon. We haven't been that excited to be out pruning this year with the cold temperatures, and the wind and the snow. We usually get pruning by about this time of year, but our vineyard is still of a manageable enough size that we can hold off a bit. If we aren't into it in a few weeks, though, I'll start to worry. Again.

Winemaking never worries me. We can always wait until we think things are right to move ahead. But the vineyard--and Mother Nature herself--won't wat. She tells us what to do and when to do it. And, we enjoy it as well....

Crazy and Local

2009-12-29T07:05:00.000-05:00

It's been a little nuts around here. The balance from harvest time--where we were both vineyard and winery--shifted a few weeks ago. Since then, we have been winery and sales outlets, a balance that we have a hard time finding. It's the reason for my lack of posts this month.

I'm not complaining. In this economic climate, I am very encouraged by our sales. There's a sentiment in our industry that people like to drink wine in good times, and in bad times they need to drink wine. Of course, we all know that people are watching their budgets more and more these days. What our industry is seeing is that people are spending more on wine than they did this time last year. Instead of buying the $20 bottle of wine, they are buying two $13 dollar bottles.

Luckily for us, we havea lot of wines that fit that niche. Although, the reality of it is that most folks who tend to support local wineries do it for the right reasons, with price being a lesser determining factor. A lot of it comes down to supporting local, family-owned businesses. (By purchasing local Pennsylvania--and Maryland--wines, you're not sending your dollars to California by way of some New York-based middle-man distributor.)

There's also the sense of pride that comes with encouraging regionality in your life. We all have chosen to live in this part of the world for a myriad of different reasons. It's nice to know that there is something special about our place and time. Makes us feel good about things.

Snow? and Pruning.....

2009-12-05T07:52:00.000-05:00

By the time you read this, there's probably already been some white stuff on the ground. That is, as long as the weather forecasters get it right. (Don't get me started there. As someone who obsesses about the weather for a good part of the year, I have noticed some painful inaccuracies lately. I've got to think that recent climate change is affecting the computer models that are based on decades of older weather data......)

The vines have probably already shut down for the winter. That's the viticultural version of hibernation. Basically, we can't go out and start pruning them back into shape for next year until all the sap--for lack of a better word--has been pulled back down out of the canopy and into the roots. I know of at least a couple vineyards who have taken advantage of this warmer December weather to get out and get a jump on 2010. We're not one of them.

For the first time, we waited until after harvest to pull some of our reds from barrels. The 2008s were great wines, and could handle the extra month or two in wood. It's crazy to be doing red blends when it's cold out, but that's the fact this year. And I think the wines are better for it. Luckily, we have the space now--with ou new addition--to be able to do this.

The last tank of Vidal is almost finished fermenting. Racking that would officially close the formal 2009 Harvest, although we have been in non-harvest mode for a week. Although, if you ask Ray, he still feels the pressure of being behind. In my mind, that's just normal for a winery. But he decided he was going to move into his new house during harvest. Anyone who knew me back in 2002 knows what a zombie I was when I did that to myself.

I'll post in a while on the 2009s. Suffice it to say right now that they are a whole lot better than I could have imagined them being. They'll be really nice wines.

Wine Just off the Vine

2009-12-01T06:09:00.000-05:00

The weekend before Thanksgiving, most of the UnCork York wineries hosted the first "Wine Just off the Vine" event. This was loosely based on the Beaujolais tradition of Nouveau, basically giving everyone a sneak peek at the next year's wines.

I am worried about this event, because in the first and only weekend, we received over 800 visitors. On Saturday alone, 501--or more...we missed a few we think---came by Allegro. This is downright crazy. Now, I don't mind that many visitors coming, believe me. But I want to make sure that everyone who comes gets the same great experience. And if I have to talk to more than 500 people again, it may kill me. (Those of you who came on Saturday can attest to the fact that I was telling some people to "drink your turkey and eat the Nouveau.....")

But, on the other hand, this is a great problem to have. Can you believe that so many came out to a local winery for one weekend? It's crazy. I f John and Tim were still with us, I'm not sure what they would be thinking.

Well, for one thing, the old winery in its past state wouldn't have been capable of holding that many people. The new addition--for warehousing space-freed up all sorts of possibilities for us. We managed to find a great way for people tof low through one end of the winery and exit the other end, eliminating most bottlenecks (except the good kind.) We expanded the parking lot in light of all of this,and this seems to have made a difference as well.

But what about the wines? We tasted out our 2009 red and white Nouveau. The red with turkey and cranberry, the white with stuffing balls. It was a lot of fun--as Nouveau should be--and we sold about 3/4 of the white production and almost half the red. Crazy. For a while there I was wondering if I was going to have any left for our family's Thanksgiving.....

Anyway, it was crazy, but it's over. Thanks to all who came out and to all who helped put this on.

Our friend Melody....

2009-11-13T06:27:00.001-05:00

Our hearts are heavy since yesterday. In the middle of bottling Nouveau, I received a call from Lonnie sharing the news with me that his wife--our dear friend--Melody had passed away a few hours earlier.

Those of you who are our customers may not have known her by name, but she had been a fixture at Allegro since the early 1980s. She first started coming here when John and Tim were starting out. I've seen pictures of her labeling, picking, working festivals. She did absolutely everything she could for us from the very beginning. Most recently, you could find her working at the winery, at Tollgate, or sometimes even in Enola or Mechanicsburg.

The amazing thing about Melody--or, "Mel" as we called her--was that she was always thinking about us and rarely thought about herself. When my wife Kris and I came to Allegro, Mel was always the person we could count on. Without her, we would have never succeeded in having a stand at Central Market in York. She made that work. Whenever I would ask her to cover or pitch in somewhere, she would do it in a heartbeat...sometimes leaving groceries on the kitchen floor in order to rush off to Harrisburg to help out.

Always, whenever I asked for conflicts when it was scheduling time, she wouldn't share hers with me, only saying that I could schedule her anywhere, anytime. I tried not to ask too much of her, but she seemed to thrive on it. I remember once trying to send her home when she wasn't feeling well, and she thought I was crazy.

The memory that will most likely stick with me longest, though, is that she treated me like I was her little boy most of the time. Called me names like my mother called me. I think she felt like a mom to Allegro, and in a lot of ways she was. She took care of us, and in turn Allegro, I hope, brought her joy.

We'll miss you, Mel. Take care.

It's Here.....

2009-11-07T06:21:00.002-05:00

Well, it finally happened. I woke up this morning and noticed a heavy layer of frost outside. The thermometer is reading about 27F, which means all the leaves I worked so long this summer to protect from disease to ensure ripening are toast.

It was bound to happen, and we're fortunate that it happened so late this year. Back in 2001, we were frosted on October 8th. That would have spelled disaster for 2009. We weren't even starting to pick our early reds until after then. And the late ones? They would have ended up as rose wines.

The timing is great, though. My plan was to pick our Cabernet this weekend--Sunday, in fact. The frost hitting the leaves will cause them all to fall off by the end of the day. Tomorrow, when we go to pick the grapes, the work will be a bit easier for us, as we won't have to search for the clusters. With bare canes, the grapes will be the only thing left hanging on the vines.

Next week, we'll get all the nets put away, and leave the bare and clean vineyard for a couple months. I've already been thinking about pruning. I'm strange that way, usually thinking 4-6 months ahead about vineyard operations. The empty vineyard will be a great place to walk through on a snowy day and dream about the future wine we will grow there. And how we will grow it will start with the first pruning cut sometime in January......

The End is Near.......

2009-10-25T06:09:00.000-04:00

And it's not a good thing necessarily.... One of our retail people asked me today--yes, today, she was emailing at 2 AM--if I was going to be happy when harvest was over.

Of course not! Harvest is what harvest is. And that to me is the best time of year. It's when the grapes come in--well, we bring them in--and we get a chance to pull back the veil on what we've been working on all year. Sometimes we have good feelings about it, sometimes not.

Think of it as Christmas when you were a kid. You knew going into it that there were gifts you knew you weren't going to want. Like the matching socks and sweaters from your grandmother. But for one fleeting moment before you tear off the wrapping, there's a chance that what lay underneath was excitement. And sometimes it was. But it was the feeling of anticipation and the process of gift-opening that made your adrenaline rush and carried you through the rest of the day as the grownups sat around exhausted..... That's what I'm talking about.

It's also why I haven't been posting. This could be a yearly phenomenon, so deal with it. I'm out here running around in my pajamas opening up presents of Hot Wheels cars, sweaters, and Legos, all the while I can't wait to take the best of them and play with them the rest of the day.

I will admit it makes me tired some. OK, a lot. I'm 39, and this is my 12th harvest. Not a lot, yet. But I can tell a difference. I still wake up early, too excited to sleep, but I can't go go go like I used to. Ray--my assistant winemaker--is starting to show it, too. When he first showed up here in his late 20s, he used to help with harvest then head to the bars. Now, four years later, it's been a few weeks since he's done that. We all get older, but the feelings for this only get stronger.

I'll do this till I die.

The Busy-ness

2009-10-06T21:29:00.001-04:00

We pulled in our Chardonnay and Riesling yesterday. Harvest is starting to feel like harvest. Time is of the essence. We still will see this week: Viognier, Merlot, and more Merlot, and more Chardonnay. It's time to stop making sense and make wine.

This Bizarre Harvest

2009-09-29T07:09:00.000-04:00

I realize that I haven't been making wine for as many years as some of my colleagues. Yet, this is definitely the strangest harvest I have seen.

Back in 2003, we just knew it was going to be tough from the get-go. In 2007, we were pretty sure we were on auto-pilot the whole way through. But this year can't seem to make up its mind.

May was the coldest I'd ever seen, and June was one of the wettest. July was schizophrenic, and August saw us finally get some heat. September has us bouncing between monsoons and beautiful fall weather. It's enough to drive me even more insane.

All of this variability has put stress on our vines. We've kept them clean through August, but little spots of downy mildew are creeping in. It's starting to look like a battlefield out there, and the good guys are barely hanging on. Only a few more weeks to go, and I think we'll make it.

Keeping a positive attitude in life is one of the most important things on my priority list. But even now, I still find myself forcing a smile or having thoughts of throwing in the towel. Then, I get little surprises.

We picked some Chardonnay last week, and you know, it's pretty nice stuff. Not great in the numbers department. But the aromatics are very pretty and the juice was sqeaky clean. It'll make a nice Steel Chard.

So, I am still holding out hope that I'll be surprised again. And, hopefully, again and again and again.....

Life with Giant

2009-09-16T06:28:00.000-04:00

Most of you know by now that we have stores-in-stores with Giant. (This is all part of what the PLCB calls an "extension of premises" of our license.) The first one opened in Enola back in November of last year, and the second opened in Mechanicsburg in February of 2009.

I think this model may ultimately be the model for Pennsylvania wineries to promote their products to local communities in the future. Giant grocery stores is a rather large corporate structure, and one that took me a little while to understand when I started working with them. See, I ran away from all things corporate and found refuge in the wine industry. I like flat organizations, and by that I mean small. Corporations, almost by definition, aren't small.

The interesting aspect of Giant is that it thinks very locally as a business. Of course, there's all the standard mass-market items you'd expect to find, but more than that you find locally grown produce and other products. Giant likes to partner with local businesses, and Allegro was just an extension of that idea.

Now, keep in mind that in no way was it a simple extension. Whenever the PLCB becomes involved, the bureaucracy ratchets up. Bottom-line, though, is that everything we did was within the letter of the law, and our license did not come about through any new legisalture. It was mostly brought about by the willingness of the folks at Giant to see things in a new way.

Back in 2005 (I think) we sold wine at a local grocery store in York using a "festival permit." It was a creative way to gain access to grocery store sales, and it worked really well until the PLCB started to deny similar applications in 2006. I approached the local grocery store-to-remain-nameless and told them that all they would need to do is to make an outside entrance in their building for me and I could be their permanently. The manager thought it was a great idea--as all his customers loved it--but the corporate folks at the unnamed store shot it down.

Fast forward a couple of years--and with a forward-looking partner in Giant--and we're selling wine in a grocery store again. Two, in fact, and things are going really well.

It really does come down to who you end up working with. Finding people who are on the same page as you. Giant--the grocery store chain--is an immense corporate structure. That said, it's also filled with people from central PA. These folks understand what central PA is all about. And they've been great to work with.

Thanks for everything, Cheryl, Tracy, Nick, Chantal, and especially Kerry. You all get it.

It's started...again....

2009-09-12T09:10:00.000-04:00

What's strange is that every year before harvest, I worry that I won't be able to make wine this year. That this will be the year that the yeast and grapes don't get along, and I fail miserably. I worry that the wines will taste awful, it'll all be my fault, and I'll have to go back to the real world and a real job.

This happens to me every year. Yes, every year.

So, on Wednesday we started harvesting our grapes. The early varieties (Cayuga and Traminette) were the majority that came in. The Cayuga is destined for our Brogue Blush, and some of the Traminette will end up in a white Nouveau (I think...you heard it hear first, but I might change my mind.) We also brought in our Pinot and Chelois for our regular Nouveau, as well as some Chambourcin for a Rose. (I know what you're thinking, "Rose?" Yes, Rose, damn it. I love the darn stuff. Just like Riesling. And I make what I like, but that's for another post....)

So, after a couple of days of processing fruit and juice, we now have the first wines of the 2009 vintage percolating away in our tanks. And the familiar smell/sensation of CO2 permeates the winery. Aahhh, harvest. As a kid, I used to love the summer, for obvious reasons (no school, sunshine, no school) and didn't like fall (school started) or winter (cold, school still going on) or spring (school). But now summer is just a prelude to fall. Man, I love it.

Harvest is coming......Harvest is coming...

2009-09-06T09:20:00.000-04:00

And here it is. Strange, though, because Ray and I looked at each other two weeks ago and told each other, "Sure feels like harvest." By that, we didn't mean the weather. We meant how tired we felt. Not a good sign.

Harvest is what I live for, outside of my family. It's why I am a winemaker. It's when the excitement happens. It's when we make all the decisions that we're going to have to live with intimately for the next 12 months or so, but really for the rest of our lives in one way or another. And what usually happens is that the decisions that really matter come sometime in late October when we're dead tired.

It doesn't seem fair, but it's also the allure that harvest has for me. I use to race hurdles years ago. Sprinters are all about psychology, and like most athletes, they have to believe that they can do things better than others. I's pure competition. It's about raising your self up to a challenge. And what better challenge than to make great wine.

This vintage, 2009, could be a tough one. It's starting out later than normal. But most vintages end at the same point (at the end of October.) What is means is that the same amount of work we get less time to do it in. Not fun. On top of that, this has been a tough year to begin with, and there is a chance that it may finish with the same adversities. Oh, what fun....

The Best Dinner Ever

2009-08-27T07:21:00.000-04:00

OK, this one is only in my dreams. But I was thinking the other day as we were bottling our next Bridge that the 2007 vintage was just phenomenal on so many levels. It got me thinking--yes, it was around lunchtime--that a dinner using on 2007 wines is just begging to be created.

I was thinking we could start with our 2007 Fanfare (the Gewurztraminer based wine with a good dose of Reserve Chardonnay in it.) This could go with some harvest style appetizers, and then maybe follow it with the 2007 Bridge and a hearty squash or goulash-style soup course.

Then we could serve Maryland crabcakes with our Reserve Chardonnay, followed by our Riesling and a nice salad with cranberries and goat cheese and walnuts. The main entree would have to be filet mignon covered with a nice reduction sauce with the 2007 Cadenza. Lastly, our 2007 Aria--still in barrels, but we could pull a sample--to go with a key lime creme brulee for dessert.

OK, again, this is only a dream, but a mighty tasty one at that. Anybody know any restaurants our there who are game?

Cadenza, Bridge, and Trio: Three Wines

2009-08-22T07:48:00.000-04:00

For the first time ever, Allegro has three reserve reds on the wine list. Here’s a short description of the wines. I have had numerous people ask me about the differences between the wines, so I thought I would write up a short piece trying to start to explain them.....

2005 Cadenza
This is our flagship wine. It was aged two years in French oak barrels and bottled unfiltered. This is meant to be the best wine we can make. When we make Cadenza, it’s not just the best from that vintage, it is a quality level that never changes. The 2005 is only the ninth time in Allegro history that we made a Cadenza. 2007 will be the tenth.
This is a traditional Bordeaux-style red, emulating the best of the St. Emilion or Pomerol regions in the Medoc. It is structured with nice acid and supple tannins. The wine exhibits aromas of dried cherries and leather and spice, and these carry through to the palate. This is a wine that begs to be served with nice beef. It should age gracefully until 2012-2015.

2006 Bridge
Bridge was originally conceived in 2001 as a bridge wine between John’s Cadenza tradition and my own. Now I think of it more as a really good wine, just not quite Cadenza level. Hence the lower price.
It was also aged two years in French oak barrels and bottled unfiltered. This wine has more primary fruit characteristics and a fuller mid-palate. The tannins are still firm, and this wine should peak around 2012-2014, and perhaps live on until 2020.

2007 Trio
This is the collaborative wine that I made with my good friends Brad Knapp (from Pinnacle Ridge) and Joanne Levengood (from Manatawny Creek). If you ever get a chance, please go up and try their wines. They are fantastic winemakers.
This wine came about because I had what I called a “dumb marketing idea.” We always taste each other’s wines each spring, and in 2008, we all realized that we were each sitting on too much great wine. I suggested this collaboration, and it worked out really well.
After getting together a couple times to work on the blend, we settled on a distinctive trio of grapes: Syrah, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc. Each winery kicked in four barrels. I donated 2 Merlot and 2 Cab Franc barrels to the cause; Joanne added 2 Syrah and 2 Cab Franc; and Brad threw in 2 Syrah and 2 Merlot. We blended the wine up at Joanne’s winery and bottled it there as well.
This wine had a good core of dark fruit with light yet firm tannins. It was aged 18 months in French, Pennsylvania, and Hungarian oak barrels—another “three.” It should age nicely through 2012-2014.

Looking at this Year

2009-08-10T06:42:00.000-04:00

We're heading into the middle of August, the grapes are going through veraison--the coloring-- and I've been trying to figure out this growing season in order to be ready far harvest.

I think we've been a little drier than our friends to the east, enough to lower the downy pressure and increase the powdery pressure. I was getting a bit depressed a month or so ago about this season. After the last four years, I know we're due for a bad one, but I kept hoping we would be spared. I started looking at historical weather data from weatherunderground.com for York. (It's not quite Brogue, but close enough.) They even give GDD above 50F.

Here's what I gleaned from doing it. May was our second wettest ever since 1998. June was our coldest. July was drier, but not very warm. But then I noticed we were only 80GDD behind 2005 and 2007 at the end of July. 2004 had more than 250 more GDD than 2007/2005/2009 at this point. I am starting to think that our best years really come down to two things: warm and dry Septembers and dry Octobers. That's really the only pattern I could see.

So, my strategy this year has been to stay clean, open the canopy early, pull out all secondaries early, and hope for a good fall. At least I'm not as depressed as I was. Spraying every 5-6 days is a pain in the butt, though.

The wines should be at least nice, and if Mother nature cooperates at all with us this fall, look out, we could have some beauties.

A Brush With The Big Boys

2009-07-30T07:45:00.002-04:00

(For those of you that haven't heard it yet, here's the story that first put Allegro on the national map.)

John and Tim Crouch began their respective careers as classically trained musicians. When they entered the wine industry, they brought their interest in music to their winery through its name (Allegro) and the naming of some of the wines. When John created a Seyval Blanc and peach wine blend, he christened it “Opus 1.” Yes, “Opus 1,” just like any composer might.

Now, in the early 1980s, Robert Mondavi and Baron Mouton-Rothschild decided to enter into a partnership as a new winery in Napa, California. Millions were spent on the development of the winery and the vineyards. This “Napamedoc” wine needed a name. They chose “Opus One.” Wouldn’t you know it....

After the big announcement at a press conference, a voice from the back of the country was heard to say, “Ahem. We already are using that name.” (Actually, Jim Laube from Wine Spectator broke the news, and John wrote him a letter explaining the coincidence.) Therewith, a fleet of lawyers was sent to Pennsylvania. A deal was struck. Allegro was not allowed to use the name “Opus One” for any of its wines in exchange for a monetary settlement. Thus came to be the honorary “Opus One Bridge” and “Opus One Corker.” Both are still in operation.

Additionally, it was noted that there was a gentleman's agreement that Mondavi was to come to this small hamlet and taste the wines.

He never showed....

Some Thoughts on Wine Competitions

2009-07-23T07:20:00.002-04:00

When Kris and I came to Allegro, we found a winery that had enormous potential without very much recognition. Kris set herself to the task of making the general public more aware of what Allegro wines were about and basically increasing sales. We both thought that wine competitions were one of the key elements in a good marketing strategy.

Wine competitions exist throughout the world. This is where a select number of people of varying skills sit down and taste and spit innumerable wines in one sitting. At the end, a few wines are deemed unworthy of medals, but usually at least half receive some sort of hardware. The bar is usually not set very high.

I believe the last competition we entered was in 2004. We had had success in many competitions as evidenced by our medals, but I had noticed certain discrepancies. I would enter a wine in one competition and receive a bronze medal. The same wine in a second competition would receive a gold, and then in a third might receive nothing at all (case in point, our 2002 Reserve Chardonnay.) This did not make any sense to me, until I started to learn about how competitions operate (as explained above).

I truly believe that the judges are doing the best they possibly can in their task of judging wines. As a winemaker, I judge wines constantly, and I feel that I am only barely consistent as well. Lately there have been studies proving the inconsistency of wine judging.

Informally, I have noticed that most competitions are not friendly to East coast wines. The big fruit of California wines makes our wines seem small, where instead they are actually more complex and balanced. The wine competitions that are less biased against us seem to favor sweeter wines for the most part.

Medals are a great tool to market wines with. They make it easy to sell wines. Unfortunately I view competitions as one small step removed from gambling. Wineries send the organizers a few bottles of each wine (along with an accompanying $50+ per wine fee) and cross their fingers that they might get lucky. If they don’t, they send it off to another one. Eventually, most wines get medals and keep competitions in business.

From 2004 and moving forward, Allegro does not play this game. Coincidentally, John and Tim before me decided the same thing back in 1990 or so. I should have listened to them better than I did.

On a more philosophical note, I would just like to say that I am not interested in making wines that win competitions. I want to make good bottles of wine. I want to make wine that someone can drink a glass of and be captivated by. So captivated that a second glass is required to satisfy, and even that doesn't do it. One that makes you want to pour some for your friend and fix them a good meal to go with it.

I am not trying to make a sip of wine that tastes good while it’s spit into a dump bucket.

Blog about Comments

2009-07-20T13:45:00.002-04:00

Hey, if you're reading this thing because the crap I write actually interests you, then thanks! If you're doing it to kill time, then I can think of a whole lot of better uses than this. Heck, I don't even get a sympathy read out of my own mother for this thing....

But if this stuff does spark some thought in your gray matter, why not make a comment on it? I sometimes feel like I am sending thoughts into the inter-nether-world, until someone prods me with a thought. I know that there are a lot of folks out there who think that the goings on in a winery and vineyard are fascinating. In fact, I'm one of them. It's why I write the blog. (Also as part journal, because my memory's awful.)

And most of the time I don't know what I'm talking about. Of course, that's in the big picture. Most of my colleagues don't know what they're talking about either. I just happen to admit it. The idea of growing grapes and making wine for a living is still kind of crazy. I mean, most of us know how to keep grapes clean and how to run a fermentation. But when it really comes down to making wine, as in directing it to a specific, high-quality end, there's really not much we can do. We're just along for the ride.

I mean, we can force the wine to go down a certain path, but it usually ends up barely resembling wine. Winemakers, in the words of my friend John Crouch, should actually be winesitters. And it's a whole lot easier to sit on something and not do anything than to be proactive. Especially when you're not sure of exactly what you want.

So, there you have it. We make good wine here at Allegro. Some day we'll make great wine. But that'll take years of my connecting the dots between the vintages and figuring out how to finesse the last final details. I'll probably figure it out right as one of my boys tries to kick me out of the driver's seat here.

But I digress. I'd appreciate your off-the-wall comments if you had any.

Thoughts on the 2005 and 2006 reserve red wines we made……

2009-07-18T08:07:00.001-04:00

We have been fortunate that since 2005 we have been on a string of nice to great vintages here in Pennsylvania. (I think it may be one reason that I haven’t lost Ray greener pastures—he hasn’t had to experience a 2003 vintage where the wines were tough and the winemaking tougher.) I’ve always thought of Pennsylvania having perhaps 3 tough vintages per decade, maybe four average to good ones, and three great ones.

Here’s how I see the first decade of the millennium stacking up:

2000 – Tough vintage, cool summer, light wines.
2001 – Good hot summer, but early frost (October 8). Good whites, late reds were nice.
2002 – Great summer, rains in late Sept/early Oct. Great whites and early reds, Nice late reds.
2003 – Hardest vintage in 30 years.
2004 – Average vintage, average wines
2005 – Amazing year, amazing wines.
2006 – Very nice year, warm summer, rains. Nice wines.
2007 – Phenomenal vintage, legendary wines across the board.
2008 – Very good year with rains in late Sept/early Oct. Very nice wines.

So far, we have had 3 great vintages, 4 average to good years, and 2 tough ones. If my scale is accurate, we’re in for a rough one in 2009. (As a side note, in the past 15 years, every time we had a bad vintage a Crouch passed away. In 1996 it was Marguerite. In 2000 Tim died, and John died in 2003. Another way to look at it is that perhaps since we’re out of Crouches, the cycle is broken….)

John’s Cadenzas were almost always Cabernet-based. The first Cadenza was Cabernet Franc-based in 1994. His philosophy about Cadenza was that it was the best wine we could make. According to him, it didn’t even matter that the wine wasn’t grown at Allegro, as long as it was great wine. (In fact, I probably should have called the 2002 Reserve Merlot a Cadenza in retrospect.) I have followed John’s thinking by holding Cadenza to a very high standard.

The 2005 Cadenza is about 59% Merlot with less than a third Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest Franc. This is a classically styled Right Bank Bordeaux-inspired wine, heavy on the Merlot and a backbone of Cabernet Sauvignon. The tannins are pretty well integrated and smoothed out at this point. What excites me about this wine are the layers of flavors and depth of the wine. This one speaks to the quality of the vintage by how complex and intriguing it is. You can lose yourself in a glass of this all night.

The 2006 was from a pretty good vintage. The color is great, and the fruit is right up front. The tannins are firm (another sign of a less-than-perfect year.) This wine is about 50% Merlot, with around 35% Cabernet and about 15% Franc. This is a “fruit-forward” wine, and it is extremely hedonistic and charming. What it lacks is complexity and elegance and depth. It’s more one-dimensional.

Both wines have good ageability. The 2005 because of its strength, and the 2006 because of its tannic structure. The 2005 should age gracefully, while hopefully the 2006 still has some fruit when the tannins finally resolve. I firmly believe that great wines age well, and that it’s not necessarily dependent on the grapes involved. Some of the most age-worthy wines in the world are not Cabernet-based. Think of the German Rieslings, the Australian Shirazes. Or Petrus from Pomerol which is 95% Merlot. Or the ’61 Chateau Cheval Blanc (from the movie Sideways) which is 2/3 Cabernet Franc and 1/3 Merlot.

Talking the other day with Ray, we thought about the idea of using the term Bridge like we did in 2001 for the 2006 wine. There’s no doubt in my mind that the 2006 is a very good wine. But it’s more like the 2001 Bridge (which was 2/3 Cabernet and 1/3 Franc) in terms of its quality level. We came up with the name Bridge as a way to talking about a wine (that John and I made collaboratively) as a bridge between his Cadenzas and mine. I am now thinking of Bridge as being a signifier of wines that are very good but not quite Cadenza.

We’ll release the 2006 Bridge at $27 (as opposed to the 2001 Bridge which was $25). We will also have a Cadenza from 2007 (and perhaps a Bridge as well, depending on how the blends work out.) 2008 will have at least a Bridge wine, if not Cadenza.

Winebuilder or Winefarmer

2009-07-16T17:17:00.002-04:00

The damnedest things get into my head when I am out spraying the vineyard, and this morning was no different. Some days I get a phrase stuck in my head. Other days I struggle to stay awake (since I usually get up around 4 AM). Once in a while I can't keep John Denver's "Country Roads" from driving me insane.

Today I was thinking about the name for the person who grows grapes. The grape grower. My neighbor calls me the grape farmer. And that's more of what I consider myself. Farmer, in the truest, most honorable usage of the word.

There are some of my colleagues that refer to themselves as winegrowers. I don't have a problem with that, as it does link the idea of what we're doing with the end product. That's really what it's all about.

In France and Germany, they don't really have a word for "winemaker." Their thought is that the wine pretty much makes itself after you've grown it correctly. The person doing the vinification had just better not screw it up. In France, the term is vigneron (as in vignoble for vineyard), and for the Germans it's Weinbauer. The German Wein is, of course, wine.

Bauer has a couple of meanings. The verb bauen means to build. But a Bauer is a farmer. (And the jack in a card deck is also referred to as a Bauer.) So, for the Germans, the person who grows grapes and makes wine is called a winefarmer or winebuilder. I like it.

Like I said, I get the damnedest things in my head when I'm spraying.

Growth with age

2009-07-09T06:12:00.003-04:00

OK, maybe not the kind of growth you were expecting. The growth I'm talking about it the growth of micro-flora on the top of the cork that you sometimes find on wine bottles. This usually occurs after some period of aging in a dank, dark cellar. This, by the way, is the recommended storage condition for wine. It creates havoc on the labels, but remember, you're not drinking the label.

This has been a wet year for us so far, and the Allegro cellar is showing it. Our roof is leaking in a couple spots--we're putting a new roof on this year--and the fact that we're underground has added to the humidity level in the cellar. If relative humidity could go past 100%, we'd be there.

There are positive side effects to all the moisture. First and foremost is the fact that our barrels don't evaporate off as much wine and hence don't need to be topped as much. (In some wineries, topping of barrels occurs every couple weeks. So far this year, I think we've topped three times.) The wetness also adds to the typical "cellar aromas" you get when you walk into our place. The place smells like a winery. And that character comes out in our wines at some level. I like it.

But the downside of all this is the aesthetics. We sometimes get mold growth on the tops of our corks. It doesn't happen uniformly across all bottles. Some wines never show it. But some do, and this is disconcerting to some customers in this age of blatant sterility. Keep in mind that you're not drinking the cork, you're drinking the wine. If the wine tastes good, then it is good. Simple as that.

Back in 2002, John wanted to open a 1983 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon for me. He pulled the bottle out, and as he started to remove the cork, we noticed what terrible shape it was in. Moldy and black and wet. And it smelled. Bad. He was about to go dump it out, when I asked that we at least put a little in a glass to get a sense of the wine. Heck, it was almost 20 years old and deserved at least that.

Turned out the wine was a beauty. Totally surprised us both. One of my more remarkable wine-drinking experiences. It just goes to show, you can't just a wine by its label. Or its cork, for that matter.

Wine and Hot Weather

2009-07-05T20:51:00.003-04:00

OK, so here's the converse of what most people ask me about wine. ("What do people usually ask you about wine, Carl?" "Well, they usually ask me if it'll age and when they should drink it." "And what are you going to tell us that's different?" "Something different, I think.")

So, we all kind of know that for wine to age, it should be stored on its side--if it's a natural cork--and in a cool and stable place. I just wanted to put out a quick post about the heat we have in the summer. In case anyone was in doubt, heat is bad.

What we see happening from time to time in the summer is that someone will bring a bottle of wine back to us and claim it doesn't taste very good. We'll taste it and agree. It's usually very sharp-tasting. We agree to replace the bottle, and then after a little conversation we realize that the person left the bottle in their car in the middle of the day in the summertime.

What's happened is that the wine has oxidized due to the high heat it experienced. The hotter wine gets, the faster it ages. And it's an exponential factor. A couple hours at 100F kills any wine. A few minutes at lesser temperatures damages them beyond recognition. It's the whole reason we tell people to age their wine at a constant temperature in a cool dark place. That way we can avoid all this.

Sometimes there are tell-tale signs. Like the cork is pushed out. Or the wine has leaked past the cork. Or the bottle is so hot you can't touch it. Most times, you find the bottle after it has cooled down. You chill it in your fridge, pop the cork, and think, man, this isn't what I was expecting. At that moment, try to think back on the history of that bottle. Just don't tell me about it. It's too sad to bear.....

Post-Bloom

2009-06-27T21:46:00.004-04:00

This is the time of year when I start to see fruit in the vineyard and get greedy. I start to think about all the barrels of wine we have sitting out there, and I can't wait to get them in to the winery. Of course, it's not that easy.

The berries have set, and most are between BB-size and pea-size. Here's an idea of what they look like. A few more weeks from now and we'll be past the critical stage of fruit development as far as disease concerns go. This spring has produced some of the most intense disease pressure I have seen. The only thing in our favor has been the fact that all the moisture was coupled with cooler temperatures which kept the vine growth a little in check. This meant that the vines weren't outgrowing the fungicide sprays we were putting on them.

Bottom-line for this climate is that we can't grow grapes organically. Perhaps more accurately, we can't grow them organically on a successful, commercial scale. I really wish we could. Nobody I have ever met has ever said that they would prefer conventional farming to organic. Fungicide sprays are expensive, time-consuming, not always environmentally-friendly (although we all do our best), and not completely reliable.

If you look closely at the picture, you can see some spray residue on the leaves and the grapes themselves. This is mostly sulfur (an organic fungicide) that I use to fight off powdery mildew in our vineyard. The grapes are Chardonnay, and in 2006 I lost two-thirds of my crop to this fungus. I am religious now about keeping vigilant against these mildews. I have become the nozzle-head with tractor-butt, but my grapes are clean. So far.

Naturally, anything can go wrong. Best laid plans of mice and men, etc. What happened for me in 2006 was that I could go back and look at the history and say, yes, I did work really hard at disease-prevention, but I didn't work hard enough at it. These days, I take no prisoners. It's always the things you can't see that tend to bite you in the ass, and it's hard to see microscopic bad guys. I'm out there every 6-7 days for until we're past the critical time for the fruit.

It's the dream of barrels of Allegro wine sitting in our cellar next fall that gets me out of bed before 4 AM to put on the sprays that let me sleep till 6 AM the other days. And as I try to stay awake on the tractor in my Tychem suit, I also dream about the future when none of this is necessary. When we've mapped the grape genome and have been able to breed mildew resistance into our European grape varieties. That'll be the day....

Weather Data

2009-06-23T14:56:00.002-04:00

The other night as we were finishing off some wines, I started thinking about the unbelievable weather we had been having. I started checking my favorite weather site for historical data (Weather Underground). 2009 so far has been pretty wet, and I wanted to see how we were faring against a couple of other wet years.

In the past decade or so, we have had a couple years that really standout insofar as making grapegrowing difficult. 2004 was really tough, and 2003 was even harder. I learned more about winemaking in both of those years than I thought I could. Some things I wish I never have to learn again. Like how to slog through bottling wine that doesn't excite me. That's still one I haven't learned.

So, I took a look at the months of May and June for 2009 and 2003 and 2004. In very rough, broad strokes, we're not doing well. We are just as wet as 2003 and 2004, and even colder (as measured by maximum temperatures and mean temperatures.) This does not bode well. But I will say, I learned a lot about disease control, and so far we are very clean in our three vineyards, as opposed to 2003 when I had downy mildew outbreaks everywhere.

Now, 2003 and 2004 ended pretty poorly as well. We had a total combined days over 90F of 3 (yes, three.) It was cool and rainy and overcast throughout. We still have a chance in 2009, as we still don't know what July and August and harvest hold for us yet. If we do the right rain dances, perhaps we can pull out a good year yet. I'll just try not to get too depressed just right now.....

The Cult of the Winemaker

2009-06-20T07:41:00.003-04:00

I just noticed something crazy. It's Saturday morning, and I thought I'd get a few computer things done before going down to the winery to rack a wine from wine tank to another. I checked our Facebook page (that I think we started about two months ago.) I try to put some little one sentence blurb on it every day or two, just to let folks know we're alive and that we do stuff here even when you're not drinking any of our wine.

So, I noticed we just clicked over a hundred fans..... In two months. Without even trying. I knew how viral this social networking one, but for crying out loud, we're not even trying. What amazes me is that folks find some of the stuff interesting. Ok, admittedly, I am really not sure what folks on Facebook want from a fan page. I do know this: they probably don't want boring, long-winded descriptions of petiole analyses and the benefits of leaf-pulling and its subsequent impact on fruit-bud initiation for the following season.

They are probably wine drinkers. And, more than that, they seem to be predominantly female. Female probably younger than me (which is strange, because I'm not 40 yet.) This is where I run into a problem that I wish people would explain to me. What do people want from Facebook?

These days I am realizing more and more something that I remember figuring out years ago. I remember back when I was about 24 years old, I went to my first winery tasting room. (It happened to be Kolln Vineyards up outside of State College, PA.) I remember talking to Jack Kolln, hoping he would show me around the tank room I could see over his shoulder. Nothing doing. But I still remember my fascination with they guy who made this beverage.

Years later, at Mount Nittany, I would realize that--even though I was pretty clueless about winemaking at the time--people would listen to everything I said. And not only that, I knew that my small amount of knowledge was already much more than they had. The folks that came to tasting roooms wanted to know more about the specific bottle of wine they were tasting. And they really wanted to hear it from the person who had made the wine.

Having been in the industry for as long as I have, this day-to-dayness is all very mundane. But every once in a while, I meet someone who really has this fascination with winemaking and who we are. Years ago, I started referring to it as the "Cult of the Winemaker". It really doesn't have much to do with who I am, what my personality is or where I'm from. It has solely to do with the fact that I create this symbiotic relationship between people and grapes and alcohol. Every winemaker carries this sign that says, "I make wine." And people associate their good feelings from and about wine with this person. It sounds a little crazy, but every time I meet someone new I try not to let people know what I do. If they find out, that's all they can talk to me about. It's crazy behavior.

Maybe I should run for political office with all this......

The Overwhelming.....

2009-06-17T19:30:00.002-04:00

I knew it would happen. I got caught up in the details of the every day and let numerous days slide by without a post. Of course, it wasn't just any old detail, but Split Rock.

I've been pouring wine there since 1999 back when I was with Mount Nittany. Just the name "Split Rock" makes me tired. Don't get me wrong, it's hard to beat any weekend anywhere for the sales we make there. It's mind-boggling how much wine we sell in twelve hours. It takes a couple days to gear up for it every day (load-up and load-in), and a couple days to put everything away. But for six days of effort, we move huge amounts of wine and win innumerable new converts to Allegro.

Granted, we sell mostly sweet wines to lots of sweeties. But let's not lose sight of what wineries are around for. It's not for making wine. Wineries only exist to sell wine. Winemakers make wine, and wineries sell wine. The two do meet from time to time. I have ongoing arguments in my head almost daily when the two don't see eye to eye. Luckily for me, the winemaker wins on the dry wines, and the winery wins on the sweets. And it's the sweets that keep our lights on and pay for the French barrels and low yields in the vineyard.

So, we survived another Split Rock Wine Festival. As the years go by, either I am getting numb to it, or the festival is getting tamer. I remember years ago that there were way too many people falling over and sirens in the distance. This year, we only had to flag one group. It's hardly Split Rock anymore. Maybe Pennsylvania wine drinkers are growing up. One thing's for sure, they're buying more wine than ever. Even in this economy, we sold almost as much as last year. Imagine that. I'd like to think it has something to do with the wine quality we put into each and every bottle of Allegro wine, from the dry wines to the sweets.

The Opening in the Rain

2009-06-09T06:28:00.003-04:00

I think every vineyard in this part of the world was getting sprayed this weekend. After what seemed like a week of wet weather, the skies cleared on Saturday, and for those of us who struggle with Mother Nature (the good and the bad), we go on it in a big way. I sleep a whole lot better knowing there's a dose of protection out in the vineyard keeping our future glasses of wine healthy.

It's been a real juggling act this spring in our vineyards. I decided to run a third vineyard near Stewartstown. This is the source of some of the best Cabernet Franc we've had since 2001. The Franc has ended up in our 2001 Bridge, 2002 Proprietor's Red, 2005 Cadenza, 2006 Bridge, and 2007's Cadenza and Bridge. Driving up to it, it's obviously not the most ideal site for a vineyard. It sits rather low near surrounding hills, and it stays shaded through some of the earliest mornings sunrises. But it does create nice wines for us.

Trying to balance that vineyard with James (that we are now managing for the third or fourth year) and our own home vineyard has been akin to mental gymnastics. It's been tough staying in touch with all three places, and making sure tasks are done properly in timely manners. Luckily I have had four guys (Matt, Steve, Eric, and Levi) who have kept up with all my instructions. We're almost halfway through the major work for the summer, and things look pretty good out there.

Our reds (across the board) have set too many clusters. After leaf-pulling in a couple weeks, we'll go through and drop the extra clusters. The Merlot, Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon have all put on too many third clusters on their canes. These will never ripen and will cause the other clusters to not ripen sufficiently. It's never easy to go through a vineyard and drop fruit, but it has to happen to make the wines we want to make. Every cluster is a couple glasses of wine, and we probably are carrying hundreds of extra ones this year.

But, if this year keeps up the way it started, we need to lighten our load. We need some sunshine. And lots of heat. Start doing your No Rain Dances.

My Philosophy of the Art of Winemaking....Part One......Section B

2009-06-03T19:15:00.000-04:00

There are some in the wine world that wax poetic about the artistic side of winemaking. These are usually the enologists who are hired to make "masterful blends" for wineries around the world. A lot of times, they are the owners who come and sit in on blending sessions prior to bottling. I'll give them that those take skill and that there's a sense of art to them. But for me it goes a little bit in a different direction.

At one point, while reading a wine magazine, I read some importer describing the wines in his book as being made by winemakers who drive tractors not Jaguars. That's what I am. I drive a tractor and dump lugs. As do the people I surround myself with. And this is key to what I think winemaking is about.

There is definitely art in the glass. A sense of quality that happens in the interaction between the wine and the winedrinker (and perhaps the winedrinker's surroundings.) It takes a winedrinker in the act of drinking wine to sense that there is quality in the glass (or a lack of quality.) It's my opinion that art leads to this quality.

The word "art" comes from the Greek, I believe. "Arete" is a sense of goodness reached by "techne" (loosely translated as skill.) Through a technical ability, something good is created. This is art. And, for the Greeks, there was the addition of the divine. An inspiration that occurred, that could usurp techne and lead to even greater goodness.

After reading way too much Plato, I realized that Quality (with a capital "Q") that can be found in art is probably just as much a result of the process as it is the end product. Sure we like to drink the glass of wine. But sometimes knowing where the glass of wine came from and how we struggled to make it sometimes makes it taste better still.

Our winemaking here at Allegro is driven by my need to make better wine. In order to get there, we change our process constantly. And hopefully it shows in the glass.

My Philosophy of the Art of Winemaking....Part One......Section A

2009-06-03T09:47:00.001-04:00

This is a sizeable topic, and I expect it'll take many years for me to finish it out. But for now, having been making wines for over a decade, I am starting to understand why I am a winemaker.

I come from a family of artists. Most of them disgruntled for one reason or another. One left his home country of Sweden. One became an engineer. My brother is a story unto himself. Each one of us seems to have been firstly hindered by a commitment to a certain medium. Pen-and-ink, oil, watercolor, ceramics, motorcycles, woodworking.

I don't draw. Doesn't mean I can't. But I never spent the effort and put in the time to learn how. But I did know how to drink. As a teenager, you go through all sorts of phases, most of them preoccupied with quantity rather than quality. But somehow early on I was attracted to the taste of really good beer. I started homebrewing when I was 23, with many failed batches of pilsners, IPAs, and meads to learn from. All homebrewers--if you didn't know it already--will drink just about anything. And I was a homebrewer, I had paid good money for that barley and hops, and damn it, it was going to be drunk.

Unfortunately, my palate couldn't handle it after a while.

The Next Big Reds

2009-06-01T06:11:00.000-04:00

I had the most enjoyable experience last week in the winery. Ray and realized that we needed to finalize the blends for our 2007 reds. This is probably one of the few tasks that makes winemaking really worth its while.

It used to be that I described winemaking as 95% janitorial and 5% artistic. Most days winemaking to me meant sanitizing equipment so I could make a mess with it and then cleaning up afterwards. It's still all that. The only thing that's changed is that Ray is the responsible janitor now... I mean, assistant winemaker. These days, I get stuck managing retail locations, looking at spreadsheets and writing emails more than anything else.

The one thing I won't give up is harvest, though. There's nothing like getting up in the morning for two months straight and trying to create the best damn wine humanly possible, fighting the elements, Mother Nature, fatigue, and my own stupidity sometimes. Slightly insane, but if I let you know that I used to run cross-country it probably all makes sense. (In a similar vein, Ray is a soccer player.....)

So, tasting through the hard work from almost two years ago was immensely satisfying. Ray said, "You know, we can't go wrong with any of this." And he's right. These 2007s are special. It'll be a while before we see wines like this again. (I hope not, but that's probably reality.) We have twelve barrels that we saved out from 2007 to take for a second year in oak. And from that lot, we developed two blends. We'll have a Cadenza and a Bridge blend, both of which are going to be impressive in their own respects.

This will be the third year for Bridge. What started out in 2001 as a "bridge-wine" between John's tradition of Cadenza and mine had now turned into something akin to a Bordeaux second-label wine.

The Cadenza we put together is one of the richest wines I think we've ever had here at Allegro. It's heavy on the Merlot, but with good structure. It should remind people a bit of the 2002 Reserve Merlot hopefully.

All in all, those kind of days are what making being a winemaker worthwhile. And luckily we'll get to share the fruits of these labors for the next dozen years or so.

Rain

2009-05-26T21:15:00.000-04:00

The past four or five days, the weather forecast has been for rain and thunderstorms. So far, I think we're at about 20% accuracy. It made for a nicer-than-expected Memorial day weekend, but it sure makes it difficult to plan our week.

We were hoping to get some work done in our home vineyard and a spray on Stewart vineyard, but the weather messed up both plans. We'll re-adjust and try again tomorrow.

Lots of wine work being done this week, as Ray preps the Forte, Chardonnay, and Red Lion Red for next week's bottling. We'll also taste through the 2007s and put together final blends to be bottled in the next couple months. This is where the last couple years' wait finally pays off, and we get to taste these wonderful wines and create something memorable. Something definitely to look forward to.

Suckering

2009-05-24T08:49:00.001-04:00

We working on our weed control in the vineyard these days. We have had a nice spring with some good rain events. The heat has made the shoots really take off, and with that the weeds are going like gangbusters. Remember what weeds are: they're just plants that aren't growing in the places we want them to.

A couple well-timed, soft herbicide applications will make it so our vines aren't competing for essential nitrogen and nutrients. Our newly planted vines will appreciate the help as well. We try to make as few applications of herbicide as we possibly can. We're running a vineyard here, not a golf course. There needs to be a balance to everything, and monocultures aren't sustainable.

There are some folks who do cover crops right under their vines to control vigor. These are usually some types of grasses, and they're used in vineyards where there is an over-abundance of nutrition for the vines. This is not something we struggle with at Allegro. Sometimes we struggle with getting the vines just to survive.

In order to apply our herbicide, we usually do what's called suckering. It's not a fun task. Back-breaking is more like it. It involves removing all the shoots that are budding out along the trunks of the vines. Some vines will throw over a dozen shoots out, and these need to be removed before we spray. If you've ever done one thousand deep kneebends in a day, then you know what it's like. Any volunteers?

Barrel Work

2009-05-22T06:13:00.000-04:00

This time of year is when I start to notice that harvest is coming up. I'll be out in the vineyard thinking vineyard things, admiring the new shoots with baby grape clusters on them, thinking of how to protect them.

Then it hits me that what I am looking at is future wine. Wine that's going to need a home in just three short months. And then I think of our full cellar. That's when I go talk to Ray and say "Let's bottle a lot next week."

The idea for Allegro is that we get all of our tanks emptied by the beginning of June. Now, we've never done that. But that's the idea. I'm full of unattainable goals. That's what keeps me on this earth.

My guess now is that we'll have everything bottled by the first week of June, which is probably the best we've ever done. Starting in June, we can start putting together our dry reds and bottling Aria as well. This is always the most enjoyable time of the year, especially since the past few vintages have been so nice. I've always described winemaking as 98% janitorial and 2% artistic. This is when we get to do the 2%.

The Next Steps

2009-05-18T06:37:00.001-04:00

Our vineyard year is starting to settle into its very familiar pattern. The vines are almost all shoot-thinned. For some of the vines, this isn't required. But for most vinifera, we like to go through and do the second crop adjustment at this time by eliminating the extra shoots found on some vines.

Our vineyard is trained to the VSP trellis sysem (stands for Vertical Shoot Position). During the dormant period for the vines (winter) we take two canes from the previous year's growth and (removing all other canes) attach these to the fruiting wire in opposite directions. From each node on the canes, a shoot bursts forth the following spring. Sometimes the nodes (buds) are not fruitful (water shoots) and other times they're completely dead. Once in a while they throw out two canes per bud.

We usually make a few passes through the vineyard (especially in the Chardonnay) to make sure we have about one shoot for every three inches. This will makes for more even ripening and also a more open canopy in the summer (leading to less disease pressure.)

Never let anyone tell you that that wine is a natural product. It is something that is shaped from the very beginning. We start in the winter bending the vine to our will, and in the winery we shape the wine to the best of our abilities. Without human involvement, there wouldn't even be vinegar.

That said, we try to respect what Mother Nature gives us every year. We can't make good wine from bad grapes, and you can't make Cabernet Sauvignon from Cabernet Franc. But without us, wine would not happen, and that's not natural.

Strange Weather

2009-05-14T19:43:00.002-04:00

It was supposed to be rainy yesterday. Well, it did rain some. But not as much as was predicted. They're calling for more today. We'll see what we actually get, as this little plot of land seems to miss the worst of the storms. I personally think that the forecasts are being thrown off more and more as climate change kicks in and the past computer models don't hold as true as they once did.

We're finally able to settle into a cycle in the vineyard. The planting is over, and Eric put the last of the grow tubes on last night. Most everything is shoot-thinned as well. We're doing a few trellis maintenance things, and then we're waiting for the canes to get longer. Next up is moving catch-wires on our VSP trellis and pulling leaves.

Little Details

2009-05-11T06:23:00.008-04:00

Having adjusted to the near-term goal of having new vines in the ground, I realized I had to let my psyche know that we still had more to go. We composted the new vines on Saturday to give them a good start in this tough place called Allegro. (There's some irony in the fact that we have difficulty establishing young vines in a place we describe as "lively" in Italian.) This week we'll be about the business of putting grow tubes on them. The grow tubes act like single greenhouses for the vines, encouraging upward growth. We usually keep the grow tubes on them for the first two years in the vineyard. By year three the vines trunks are usually pretty well established, but we'll still leave the steel pencil rods in place to keep the vine trunk as straight as we can.

Some of the established vines are in need of suckering at this point. Most vines (until they're pretty old) tend to send out shoots along the existing trunk. These are removed manually every year to keep the vine from using extra energy in a fruitless direction. We'll start suckering the vines this week as well.

The End of Planting...for now

2009-05-09T07:58:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Ray and Levi, the planting of the vines for 2009 was finished yesterday. It took longer--and was a lot harder--than I remembered. I always like having planted, but the actual act of planting--after the inaugural vine--is physically punishing. Many thanks as well to Steve, Janna, Eric, and Anthony who helped with the rest of the replants.

We still have more plant next year. The Merlot needs two more rounds of replants (the next of which will do in 2010), and the Chardonnay and Cabernet still need one more round. We should be getting about a half barrel more Cab and a full barrel more Chard in 2010 from our 2008 replants. 2011 should see us with an additional barrel of Chard and barrel and a half of Cab.

In the meantime, we are going to get these young vines composted today. This week we'll be about getting grow tubes on the vines (held in place by pencil rods.) And, of course, shoot-thinning everything.

Cabernet Down, Merlot to go...

2009-05-08T05:53:00.004-04:00

We finished planting the Cabernet Sauvignon yesterday and started filling in the Merlot with new vines. The Merlot is planted up in what we call Block 5. (There used to be five vineyard blocks at Allegro--now there's only three.) The soil up there (at the furthest west and highest point in the vineyard) is much rockier (as Ray can attest to after digging holes for vines.) The Cabernet and Chard blocks had occasional rocks we had to deal with in the vine holes, but the Merlot field seems to be littered with them.

We took part in a vineyard soils workshop put on by Mark Chien (the state extension agent for winegrapes) in the summer of 2007. Paul Anamosa was the main presenter at for the two days of classes. We dug soil pits in two places in the property and were able to see some of the structure beneath our feet. I think we should have dug a third one, because of what we're seeing up in the Merlot holes. Turns out there's good reasons for why I like our grapes so much here at Allegro. We have a schisty/silty soil with lots of clay pockets, large amounts of iron in spots, and amazing drainage. The pits were six feet deep, and we didn't encounter any sort of hardpan or oher impediment to drainage. The expert from Napa thought these were good soils.

John and I talked numerous times about what makes Allegro different from most places. It was usually after a long day of work and involved a pizza and a couple bottles of Cadenza. He would throw out different ideas about the "poor soils" (for normal agriculture, meaning good for grapes), the southern slope, the airflow (or "winds of Broguandy" as he would call them), and the longer growing season (for Pennsylvania). After making wine here for twenty years, he still didn't know why Bacchus had smiled on this little plot of land. But smile he did. And so do we....

More Planting

2009-05-07T06:33:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was a bit easier on us here. I was able to get our first fungicide spray on the vines to start protecting them from the five major diseases we have here in the East. We also got caught up in a couple of our other vineyards as well.

This year we are once again running James Vineyard over in New Bridgeville. It's about a 2.5 acre vineyard planted to hybrids. Mostly Chambourcin and Cayuga, with some Traminette and a little Chelois. We use the Chambourcin for our Forte and dry red, the Cayuga goes into our Brogue Blush, and the Traminette is for our Serenade. The Chelois is usually part of our Nouveau. This is our third year managing this place.

For the first time, we are going to manage part of Stewart Vineyard. This has been the source for the Cabernet Franc that is usually blended into our Reserve wines or Claret depending on the year. The vineyard is about 2.5 acres as well (bringing our total up to about 11 acres) and is comprised of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Chardonnay. With more Chardonnay at our disposal, we'll probably try another shot at our Steel Chardonnay in 2009. (I know, I said I'd never make it again, but that's what I do...I change my mind...constantly....just ask Ray.)

Today we're going to finish planting our Cabernet Sauvignon I hope. The weather looks like it may cooperate. We'll see.....

Planting, Take 3

2009-05-06T06:41:00.001-04:00

We did get more vines in the ground yesterday, with still a bit to go. The weather held off, which was nice. I was amazed to see how many earthworms we had in each hole. It was a good sign of the life coming back to these soils. We've done two compost additions in the past four years and that must be most of the difference. The vines are starting to show better health as well, although we still have some soil micronutrient issues to address at some point.

Had a wonderful time with Mark Chien (the state viticulturist) and Nelson and George. Worked our way through the barreled wines. It's always a pleasure and a great learning experience to taste wines with such knowledgeable people with such good palates. Having different peope to bounce ideas off of is what makes winemaking and grapegrowing such a collaborative effort and such a great community to be in.

I'm going to try to sneak in my first fungicide spray in today between the raindrops. Then we'll go back to planting tomorrow.

More Planting/Less Rain

2009-05-05T07:53:00.003-04:00

We're going to try again today. We got some vines in the ground yesterday (just shy of 200) before the rain kicked in too hard. When your gloves fall off due to the weight of the mud on them--it wasn't "soil" or "dirt" any longer--then it's raining too hard. It's supposed to only drizzle once today, so we should be able to get most of the Cabernet replants done.

What we're doing is replanting the empty spots we have in a few vineyard blocks due to to accumulated mortality of the past 30-some years. Replanting is one of the hardest tasks to do in the vineyard. The vine that died probably died for a good reason, and we're trying to put another vine in its place and hope for the best. Odds are good that the same thing that took out the first vine will take out the second. Of course, if it doesn't, then we're ahead. It makes me feel a little like the mythical Sisyphus pushing the stone up the mountain and having it roll back down again.

And, of course, you can't mechanize any part of it. It's just us and a shovel and the dirt and the vines and on our knees. Over and over again. Makes me remember why I didn't want to get older...

Planting

2009-05-04T06:42:00.001-04:00

We're going to try to get some vines in the ground today. This old vineyard is comprised of three different blocks, two of them still containing original vines going back to the initial planting in 1973 (the Chardonnay and the Cabernet Sauvignon). We believe these are the oldest commercial plantings of these varieties in Pennsylvania still producing. That said, the block is nowhere near 100% made up of vines that are that old.

Vines have a lifespan of 20-30 some years usually (under normal conditions.) In unusual cases, they can go past 100 years. But Pennsylvania isn't normal (for more reasons than just weather), so individual vines tend to die out from time-to-time. This calls for replanting those spots. This is what we're up to this week.

Our vineyard was originally planted with twelve foot rows and eight feet between vines. Pretty standard California spacing from the 1970s. This comes to about 454 vines per acre. These days, the thinking is that denser is better for wine quality, so I decided last year that we needed to plant vines in between each of the older ones. We started that project then, and we're trying to finish it now.

On Saturday, four of us planted 250 Chardonnay vines. The goal was for even more yesterday, but the rain changed those plans. We're trying again today with the Cabernet Sauvignon. Wish us luck....

No promises.....

2009-05-03T19:27:00.001-04:00

I've always thought a blog would be the best way for me to work out some of my day-to-day issues at Allegro, as well as keeping some of the few folks who are interested in keeping in the loop about what we're doing. We just started a FaceBook page, and I started putting up a few posts there, but that doesn't seem to be the right outlet for most of my ramblings.

I'm pretty good at writing a few sentences periodically about what we're doing. Extended blogs are probably not quite up my alley, but we'll see what happens. So, no promises, but here goes.....