TRAVESSIA Winery Blog

Travessia Winery joins Coastal Wine Trail of Southeastern New England

This week Travessia winery was accepted into the Coastal Wine Trail of Southeastern New England. This is very significant for us.  The Coastal wine trail encompasses a group of wineries within the Southeastern New England AVA.  The term AVA is short for American Viticultural Area and can only be used by a region that has been recognized by the federal government for a distinctive combination of soil, climate and topography.  The idea is that these characteristics contribute to identifiable regional wine character.  Some would call this terroir, though this French word is a beast of its own that I will tackle some other day.

Technicalities aside, I feel like we’ve just joined the big boys/girls.  If one is serious about becoming a well-known wine grower in this region, being associated with this group of wineries is an absolute must.  Some of the people who own and run these wineries are pioneers in the growing of wine grapes in New England.  I’m very thankful that they’ve allowed me into their group.

My entrance into the trail was not a given from the start because one of the requirements is that members must be engaged in the growing of vinifera grapes within this AVA.  As most of you know, I do not own my own vineyard.  However, I explained that as part of my work at Running Brook Vineyards, I follow and often provide input into the growing of the grapes that end up as wine in my bottles.  When buds break (God… can’t wait, when is this winter going to be over?!), I start walking the vineyard at Running Brook on a weekly basis to follow the growing cycle and monitor the vineyard’s progress.  My involvement is even more direct as we get closer to harvest and picking decisions are made, with almost daily tasting and testing of the grapes for ripeness, sugar content and pH levels.  So though I do not own a vineyard, I’m most certainly engaged in the growing of grapes here in Southeastern New England.

Soon I will explain how the trail works.  For now, what I want you to know is that sometime in the Spring there will be a kick-off party for the 2009 wine trail at Sakonnet Vineyards in Little Compton, Rhode Island.  The eight wineries in the trail will be at Sakonnet pouring their wines.  I will tell you the exact date once we have one and yes… I want to see you all there.

Running Brook Update #3 - 2007 Reds

Back in mid January I wrote about Running Brook’s 2007 white wine vintage.  Here is a summary and latest status for the red wines made from the 2007 harvest:

• Rosé of Pinot Noir – The grapes were left in contact with the skins longer than we had planned for due to the chaos that was developing at the winery during harvest/crush time.  With three days of juice to skin contact, this wine is not really what you would expect a rosé to look like, but it is lighter in color than any Pinot Noir.  This was one of our first wines to be made in 2007, so the temperatures of early October were high enough to allow it to go through a natural malolactic fermentation.  We took advantage of the cold winter to add some tartaric acid, drop its high pH to just below 3.6 and cold stabilize it.  Should be a great summer time red.
• Pinot Noir – Have I told you about my feeling towards Pinot Noir?  Well, add another strike to the count.  The problem is that this wine ended up with pH above 4.0 which makes it extremely difficult to maintain healthy.  More importantly than any pH numbers, the wine just does not taste like what we had hoped and worked for.  We haven’t given up on it but may feeling is that 2007 still was not the year for our Pinot Noir.
• Petit Verdot (*pictured)– The color is just phenomenal.  I won’t forget pressing this small lot of wine into a single barrel until past 2AM sometime in late October.  My hands were purple for days.  Still a bit "harsh" mouthfeel especially for someone who may prefer lighter reds.  It is young so this is not surprise.  It may be used to blend with the Cab.Franc and Merlot as it is usually done in Bordeaux, but we haven’t made a final decision.  We love to take a barrel sample and just look at its color… wine geeks do this you know.
• Merlot – Even Eric Fry commented during his visit in January that this is a “Nice Wine”.  Coming from one of East Coast's top winemakers it was a huge complement.  This wine had a juice to skin contact of about 13 days which resulted in a beautiful color extraction.  It has enough tannin and acid backbone to carry it for the long run.  Still very young and it has a major step to go through... mallocatic fermentation.  Very promising.
• Cabernet Franc/Merlot – This is a field blend of the two grapes, de-stemmed and then crushed together right at the crushpad.  What’s the ratio of Cab.Franc to Merlot?  We aren’t really sure… it’s Manny the Vine Man secret… :-)  Just like with the Merlot, 13 day maceration resulted in beautiful color.  You can taste the tannins easily but they are not overpowering.  We are very happy with this wine thus far.  It promises to be one of our best reds.

There are also a few other reds that Manny Morais made on his own with natural yeast fermentations.  I detect a bit of an acetone aroma/flavor in the Cabernet Sauvignon but besides this the wines are showing good.  The 800 pounds of Pinot Noir that I took home from the Dartmouth Vineyard ended up pretty disappointing.  The wine developed a slight taste that can be described as “mousy”.  This is something that usually occurs with wines made with very low levels of sulfite.  It’s bacterial in nature and my research seems to indicate the worst… it can’t be fixed.  The wine is drinkable, but I can’t get over the “mousy” taste so I think it is heading to the drain at some point before the next harvest.  A good example of a wine that I would never attempt to sell to anyone.  In fact, I would not even give it away for free.

But let me end this on a good note.  The wines that we really had high hopes for right from the start are the Merlot/Cab.Franc/Petit Verdot.  I’m honestly holding myself back in my assessment because wine this young changes on a daily basis and who knows next time I taste them I may be disappointed.  Let me just say that I’m very confident.  This past weekend after tasting every single red wine barrel (unfortunately there are only 11 of them), I left the winery with a big smile on my face.  Yes we can make good red wines in the Southeastern New England AVA.

Running Brook Update #2

2007 WHITE WINES
(As of mid-January 2008) 

• Pinot Gris – Flavors of very ripe fruit with a hint of caramel.  Good acidity will make this a food-friendly wine.  We’ll probably prevent malolactic fermentation from occurring so that we can preserve this acidity.  Unoaked, it will probably be released sometime this upcoming Summer.
• Gewurztraminer – The earliest grapes to be harvested ended up as a bit of a disappointment.  Logistical problems at the winery led into an extremely quick first half of fermentation resulting in a wine that lost much of what a Gewurz is well known for… aromatics.  There were also some off flavors that we were only able to partially eliminate.  This wine was not up to the quality standard that we would like to produce.  There will be no Gewurztraminer 2007.
• Chardonnay – The 2007 Chardonnay had a sugar content just above 23 brix at harvest which is not bad at all.  Brown seeds and flavors were a good indication of ripeness.  The wine is not showing its true potential just yet.  We’ll probably allow this wine to partially go through a natural malolactic fermentation and age at least a portion of it in oak barrels.
• Auselesen – I blogged about Botrytis Cinerea and this wine back in early November of 2007.  Truth be told, there was probably a small percentage of rot in this Chardonnay which was not of the “noble” kind.  It shows in the wine right now so we’ll have take care of this.  It is difficult to predict if this vintage will be up to par with the excellent 2005.  We’ll have to wait to see/taste.
• Vidal Blanc – The Vidal was the last varietal to be harvested.  We finished harvesting it on November 12th and it looked/tasted fantastic.  The juice chemistry test results were close to perfect so we did nothing but whole cluster press, settle the juice and ferment at a cool temperature.  We finished this wine just off-dry with its natural residual sugar.  Not an easy and risk-free thing to do while avoiding sterile filtration but we’ll give it our best effort.
• Vidal Blanc Sweet – We took a portion of the original Vidal juice and stopped its fermentation earlier so that we could preserve a higher content of residual sugar.  Again, not easy but if we succeed this may be an excellent desert/aperitif wine.

The owners of Running Brook were also kind enough to give me a small portion of Vidal so that I could fulfill my desire to run crazy winemaking experiments down in my basement.  This case involves a juice-skin contact (a.k.a. maceration) of 12 hours and 48 hours in two separate fermentation bins.  Not typical for white wines, especially Vidal Blanc, but the grapes were so good that I wanted to give it a try.  I started by de-stemming about 200 pounds of Vidal… by hand.  I finished de-stemming in about four hours and couldn’t really feel my fingertips two hours into it.  Yes, I’m stupid!  Definitely one of those nights when I ask myself… why?   But once I had started there was no going back.  Fermentation went according to my expectations and we’ll see what the results are in a few months.

Next post:  Reds

Running Brook Update #1

October 20th and 21st we celebrate Harvest Weekend and hope to see some of you at the winery/vineyard.  Though Running Brook does not yet have the most luxurious tasting room or hospitality center, there is always a friendly person there to receive you.  Be it Scott, Denise, Pedro or Manny, there is always someone to welcome you with a smile.

There is a lot of activity at Running Brook these days.  We are well into the harvest season but with the bulk of wine still to be made:  Below is a summary of the 2007 harvesting season detailing the grape varietals which we have already brought into the winery and those which we are about to pick.

Grapes already harvested and fermented:

• Pinot Gris - Currently settling in tank after fermentation.  Expect to see this released by Summer 2008.
• Pinot Noir - Already transferred to barrel for aging and malolactic fermentation.

Grapes fermenting right now:

• Gewürztraminer - Cool temperature fermentation under way.  Most likely to be finished dry but we'll see how it progresses.
• Sauvignon Blanc and Alvarinho - Very small quantities of these grapes were produced this year.  Really just for experimental purposes so don't expect to see these on the sales brochure.
• Chardonnay - A small amount that we plan to ferment in barrel.  A lot more still ripening in the vineyard.

Grapes to be harvested in the next few days/weeks:

• Chardonnay
• Vidal Blanc
• Petit Verdot
• Cabernet Franc
• Merlot

Making Wine at Running Brook

Early this year I was invited by the owners of a local winery to help them in their winemaking activities.  Running Brook is a winery founded in 1998, located in Dartmouth - Massachusetts, producing wines from estate grown Vitis Vinefera and hybrid grape varietals.  The winery has faced many challenges and things haven't always run smoothly.  It certainly isn't easy to start a winery business from the ground up here in New England.

But Running Brook has a key ingredient to success... very good vineyards.   Approximately 21 acres of vines planted in two separate vineyard sites with Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Vidal Blanc, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir and Petit Verdot. Their estate grown Chardonnay wines are as good as any that I have had, especially at the $10 per bottle price range – actually… I think that’s a steal for a locally grown "boutique" wine.

My role at Running Brook is of part-time winemaker. This is a great opportunity for me to learn from people who have been in this business for a few years and I’m very thankful to Manny Morais and Pedro Teixeira, co-owners of Running Brook. We are currently bottling the last few barrels of the 2005 vintage. I’m very excited about the upcoming harvest because it will be my first experience making wine in a fairly large scale. Although Running Brook can be considered a small winery, 40+ tons of grapes will result in a reasonable quantity of juice to handle. The vines are looking great and certainly the hot and fairly dry summer we have had to this point here in the Northeast should result in grape clusters with flavorful berries.

There are several options to consider in preparation for harvest and winemaking… crush techniques, cold soaking, fermentation temperatures, press timing, etc. I will regularly post updates on what is happening at Running Brook.

If you happen to be in the New England area please visit Running Brook.  After your visit you can continue to the other four local wineries which are part of the Coastal Wine Trail.