Impossible

The people from UNH cooperative extension have told me that it is impossible to grow organic grapes in New Hampshire. I don't believe them.

That said, this week I sprayed the American grapes with copper fungicide. The humidity was just too much for them and the black rot fungus started to take the grapes. I did choose an organic fungicide. The Niagara and Concord grapes are usually the worst hit by fungus. Irony there that the American grapes are the worst hit. Something I need to keep ahead of in future years...and this one now that we started to finally get some rain.

That said, we just released our 4th vintage since we were licensed as a winery. No previous vintages of our grapes have ever been sprayed with pesticides and no weed killers are used around them either. Many of our Minnesota Varietals do very well in NH just as they are. We train our grapes differently and the windy site makes the fruit and vines dry quickly.

I believe the 2015 Brianna reserve is best wine we have ever produced. At 13% Alcohol by Volume, it is also the most potent. This is between the 2014 Brianna and Brianna Reserve in taste with a little more alcohol kick. We didn't get a lot of these grapes (about half of the 2014 vintage), but what we did get was OUTSTANDING!

The 2015 Blushing Bride was released just before the Brianna. This is a blend entirely from our own organically grown and pesticide free grapes. Just slightly sweet with the taste of raspberries, nectarines, and McIntosh apples but made entirely from our own grapes (no other fruit).

Veraison 2016 is here! The Brianna bunches are full, and the berries are starting to turn transparent and soften. The vines are more heavy with fruit than they have ever been. Rough estimates put this around a ton of fruit - nearly 3 times last year's harvest due to more vines coming into production and the dry spring that enabled full fruit set.

The Marquette is usually not the first to ripen, but started to color this week. All signs point to an early harvest! The severe drought has been very good for the grapes.