Ken Albert

It sure looks quiet upon first glance. The vines are dormant and will remain this way until spring. In the winery, grapes from the fall harvest have gone through fermentation and the tanks are silent as fermentation is complete and the new wine is resting and beginning the aging process.

We do have a smaller staff at this time, but our vineyard and the winery are still seeing quite a bit of activity, starting with the ice wine harvest.  It took two harvest sessions this winter. The first just before Christmas when the daytime weather finally reached the desired 15 degrees Fahrenheit But as we began the harvest, the bright sun seemed to accelerate the warming process too quickly so we suspended operation and resumed at 0 F on Jan 3. The juice from this activity has begun it’s fermentation in the winery….requiring daily monitoring.

Elsewhere in the winery we are chilling several white wine tanks to 28F for 2 weeks and then moving on to the next set of tanks until all tanks receive this treatment. The chilling action precipitates the tartrate crystals from the wine, so when you put the wine in your fridge,  it won’t happen there. We are also doing heat stabilization trials which involve heating samples of wine “fined” with different concentrations of bentonite (a natural clay substance) to determine the minimum concentration that will insure the wine will not become cloudy when exposed to moderate summer temperatures.

And last but not least, we have started pruning all those dormant grape vines. This activity was great fun during the days of the January thaw and a bit more challenging during the more typical January days. But our resolve does have some limits…tomorrow’s temperature is forecast to hover around 0F…so you will find us in the winery.

Check out the photos below from our ice wine harvest this year!

Gail Albert

Our 4th Annual Wine and Food Festival was definitely a day to smile about! Beautiful fall weather, some of Vermont’s (and Shelburne’s) finest specialty food vendors on hand and a vendor tent donated by Vermont Tent, coupled with the generosity of the 600+ visitors who came bearing food and cash donations resulted in the collection of the equivalent of 3190 lb of food for holiday distribution by the Food Shelf to our hungry neighbors.

The atmosphere was festive and a perfect beginning to the holiday season. If you weren’t here, think food, wine and gifts and imagine our wines paired with Cavendish Quail or Red Hen Breads, cheeses from Shelburne Farms and Vermont Creamery, VT Smoke and Cure preserved meats and house made charcuterie and relishes from Shelburne’s Lemon Peel Cafe. Then top it off with Blackflower Chocolates and special holiday quaffs from our VT winemaking friends at ESV, Eden and Artesano.

As we drew winners for raffle items from each of our vendors throughout the afternoon, periodic whoops and clapping resounded through the Tasting Room. As the day ended and the last visitors trailed back to the parking lot, the Food Shelf Coordinator, Bob Maritano waved good-bye and drove off to weigh the day’s donations bearing a big smile of his own!    ~Gail

Lisa Arms

We’re gearing up for our 4th annual Autumn Wine & Food Festival at Shelburne Vineyard this Saturday.  Co-sponsored by VT Tent, the festival is a benefit for the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf and has become our most popular event drawing hundreds of visitors who come for a fun day of free wine tasting and free noshing on some of Vermont’s most heavenly specialty foods.  The festival is a great opportunity to taste and buy what you like, chat with our wine makers to learn more about the wine making process, win raffle prizes – all to support a good cause.

We’ll also be releasing two new wines that day, our crisp 2011 Riesling and our very limited release 2011 Vermont grown Duet Ice Wine, a rich and luxurious dessert wine with notes of melon and pear.  We have a very limited quantity of Duet available and therefore won’t be offering it to taste, but trust me, it may very well be one our best ice wines to date.   I for one will be bringing home a coveted bottle which I plan to serve with this Clementine Cake.  This rustic, not too sweet cake is made with Clementines, olive oil and Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery’s Fromage Blanc.  Give it a try!    ~Lisa

Clementine Cake with Fromage Blanc

Ingredients:
4 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup light olive oil
1/2 cup Fromage Blanc from Vermont Creamery (or plain Greek yogurt)
2 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch salt
Juice from 3 clementines (about 3/4 cup)
Zest from 3 clementines
1 teaspoon vanilla
Fresh whipped cream, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 9” springform pan.

In an electric mixer, beat eggs, sugar and maple syrup until light and thick.  Add oil and Fromage Blanc and beat until just combined. Add the flour, baking powder and salt and mix until smooth.

Wash and dry the clementines.  Using a microplane, zest the clementines and add zest to the batter.  Juice the clementines and add the juice to the batter.  Add vanilla and mix until well combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for approximately 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Cool.  Serve with fresh whipped cream if desired.

Ken Albert

What a season!  Vermont  weather in 2012 was like Napa!  (Well almost).  Spring came early and stayed.  And, the late spring frosts did virtually no damage.  The season progressed in the same manner with consistently warm, relatively dry weather right into late September.  And we also had just the right amount of rain to avoid any stress on the vines.

The weather, along with this being the first season we finally had several acres of our MN hybrids fully mature, produced a record harvest both in quantity and quality.

On this rainy Wednesday (Oct 10) as I write this paragraph, Ethan and Tommy are at the press, for the last time this season, pressing a fully macerated Marquette batch off their skins.  All the grapes we harvested are safely in  tanks and barrels and nearing the end of their fermentation.

We, including Ethan and Tommy (who were  full time in the vineyard for the growing season) and the rest of our super team, are tired but happy, and anticipating some wonderful wines to bottle come spring.  Experience the summer of 2012 with our release of the 2012 vintage Louise Swenson, La Crescent, and Riesling in spring 2013 and our 2012 vintage Marquette, Rose’ and In Spite of Irene semi-dry red later in 2013.  ~Ken

Check out more photos of our 2012 harvest and crush here >

Lisa Arms

We’re thick into blueberry season in Vermont.  And we’ve had everything blueberry – from muffins to mojitos.  Blueberries are beloved in all kinds of ways, sweet and savory.  But there’s nothing like the old fashioned way: a warm Blueberry Crisp with vanilla ice cream melting all over it.  This recipe is a great way to use up all those berries you’ve picked and a delicious ending to a late, summer supper.  A crisp, cold glass of Lakeview white and an Adirondack chair are all you’ll need.

Blueberry Ginger Crisp

Filling:
5 cups blueberries, rinsed
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
Zest of 1/2 lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Topping:
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup quick cook oats
1/3 cup graham crackers, finely crushed
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 stick butter, softened
2 Tablespoons crystallized ginger

To prepare filling:
In a large bowl, combine blueberries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon zest and juice and toss gently.  Pour filling into a buttered baking dish or pie plate.

To prepare topping:
In a large bowl, combine brown sugar, flour, oats, graham cracker crumbs, cinnamon and ginger.  Add softened butter and mix with your hands until the butter is worked in and the topping is crumbly.  Fold in crystallized ginger.

Cover the berries with the topping mixture, leaving a small margin of blueberry showing around the edge.  Bake uncovered at 375 degrees for approximately 30 minutes, or until the topping begins to brown and the berries are bubbling.   Allow to cool slightly before serving.  Top with vanilla ice cream and serve with Shelburne Vineyard Lakeview White.   ~Lisa

Ken Albert

It’s May.  Our white grapes harvested last fall are now finished wine and the wine is ready to drink.  So, spring is bottling time for our whites.  We try to schedule bottling for rainy days since the vines are also awakening and needing attention.

We are very fortunate to have an automated line that moves at the rate of 1,000 bottles an hour.  It may be automated, but we really have to hop on bottling days!  It takes 4 to 5 of us to keep the machine busy.

One person unloads cases of empty bottles from a pallet stacked 7 feet high; another feeds the bottles onto the machine’s moving web;  another at the far end of the line grabs the now filled, corked, capsuled and labeled bottles and loads them into an empty carton; another loads the now filled cases onto a pallet. And, since the machine is liable to do anything at any point in time, one person is designated to keep watch on it all and be ready to push one of the red stop buttons strategically located on several points on the machine as quickly as he or she can when something goes wrong.

While winery workers are a little bit edgy on bottling days, it’s a job everyone wants to participate in, and there’s a certain satisfaction when the day is over and the wine is safely in the bottle.

We love to have anyone who’s curious take a look at this very interesting happening and hear all the bottles clinking as they progress along the moving web, so if you hear that “music” in the background when you stop by, be sure to ask for a tour.  – Ken

Check out the short video below for a look at our bottling line:

Ma Po Tofu with Pork

1 lb firm tofu, cut into small cubes
1 lb ground pork
peanut oil
6 scallions, sliced
8 dried shiitake mushrooms
4 fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced (optional)
1/2 cup canned, peeled tomatoes, chopped
1 cup beef broth
Red chili sauce or Sriracha
1 tsp. cornstarch
3 Tbsp Sesame oil
Cilantro, fresh, chopped
Salt and pepper (Szechuan peppercorns have a great flavor)

Boil 2 cups of water, soak dried mushrooms in hot water until soft (about 15 minutes). Chop softened mushrooms.  Strain and save the soaking water.

Heat about 3 Tbsp of peanut oil in a large skillet.  Add scallions and the ground pork.  Saute until pork is no longer raw.  Add dried and fresh sliced mushrooms and sauté until soft.  Add tomatoes and sauté.   Add mushroom soaking water and beef broth and simmer for 5 minutes.

In a small bowl, stir together the cornstarch with few tablespoons of hot broth from the pot.  Pour cornstarch mixture into pot and stir to thicken.  Add tofu and stir gently.  Season with chili sauce or Sriracha, sesame oil, cilantro and salt and pepper to taste.  Stir gently and simmer until liquid is reduced.

Serve over white rice.  Garnish with fresh cilantro, scallions and a drizzle of sesame oil.   ~Lisa

Lisa Arms

This Sunday (March 18) is the first Annual Ice Wine Festival at Jay Peak Resort Hotel and Conference Center.  Vermont is fast becoming a world-class producer of Ice Wine, Ice Cider and Late Harvest wine, so this will be a great opportunity to sample some of the best Vermont has to offer.   We’ll be there tasting our 2010 Late Harvest Quartet, a sweet, dessert wine with a lively acidity made from the Vermont grown grapes: Riesling, Traminette, Vignoles and LaCrescent.

I love Quartet with goat cheese- it’s a great combination of sweet and savory.  This Goat Cheese Tart is savory and rich and pairs beautifully with our late harvest Quartet.  I topped it with an awesome VT product that my husband discovered at the Shelburne Farms Gift Shop-  sweet and spicy Mango/Habanero Jam made by Sidehill Farm in Brattleboro Vt.

Goat Cheese Tart with Mango Jam

Preheat oven to 375

Pastry Crust:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 stick butter, diced
1/2 (+/-) cup ice water
pinch salt

Pulse flour, salt and butter in food processor until butter is the size of peas (just a few seconds will do it).  Slowly add just enough ice water for the dough to begin to hold together.  Pat dough into a disk, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until filling is ready.

Filling:
12 oz Goat Cheese (I used VT Butter & Cheese Creamery Goat Cheese)
1/2 cup Ricotta Cheese
2 Egg yolks
1 Onion, sliced
Tbsp. sugar
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup Mango/Habanero Jam (Sidehill Farm)  or your favorite Apricot Jam
2 Tbsp.  pine nuts, toasted

Start by caramelizing the onions.  Place sliced onions in wide pan with a drizzle of olive oil over a medium heat burner.  Stir frequently until onions begin to brown.  Sprinkle sugar on top and reduce heat to low.  Slowly cook onions until they become deep brown and caramelized, stirring occasionally so they don’t burn.  Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, mix goat cheese, ricotta, egg yolks, salt and pepper.  Roll pastry out until it’s about 1/2 thick.  Line a tart pan (or pie plate) with the pastry and trim the edges.  Prick the bottom with a fork.  Pre-bake the tart shell in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until the bottom of the shell is just starting to brown.  Spread caramelized onions on the bottom of the tart shell, then spread goat cheese mixture on top of onions.

Bake tart at 375 for about 35-40 minutes.  Filling should be just set and starting to brown on the edges.  Toast the pine nuts in a pan on the stove top while the tart cools.  Top the tart with sweet and spicy Mango/Habanero  or Apricot jam.  Sprinkle toasted pine nuts on top.  Serve with SV Quartet Late Harvest.   ~Lisa

Ken Albert

Many people (and I mean MANY) have asked me, “How is this mild snowless winter treating your vines?”.  The simple answer is “Right now, the vines love it!” After all, vines growing in most of the world typically see winters like this. But I tell people I am worried about what might happen this spring. I’ll explain later.

First, let me explain how a vine endures winter. In fall the buds formed during the previous growing season produce a robust layer of carbohydrates to protect them during dormancy. Each bud contains the flowers of next season’s fruit. Typical European varieties such as Chardonnay, Riesling and Cabernet will sustain serious bud damage when temperatures fall below the -10 ْ F range.

Our 15 acres of grapes are mostly hybrids, botanical crosses of native American grapes with European varieties. Hybrids are both hardy and good wine producers. The latest hybrids we planted, like Marquette and La Crescent, originated in Minnesota and their dormant buds can survive winters of 30ْ below! This season’s low of -3ْ ْF means even our tenderest varieties, like our Riesling and Vidal, are in good shape going into spring.

So why worry? Well, the Minnesota  hybridizers thought they fooled nature, but these super- hardy varieties turn out to be the earliest to bud in spring. Bud break happens late in April here…..normally!  But… with current mild weather patterns it could happen earlier in April and once it does, even the cold-hardiest vines are on equal footing with the least hardy. Once the shoots reach a half inch or so in length they are vulnerable to a sudden spring frost.

They can likely sustain 32 ْF, but will be severely damaged at 28ْ, killing all chances for fruit in the coming season. The vines will survive and likely recover the season after…..but that’s a long time to wait for fruit. It used to stay cold long enough to avoid vines being “ nipped in the bud.” But this year we’ll worry until we get past May 10th.  So stop by for a glass of wine and toast with us to a traditional VT spring.  ~Ken

Ken Albert

Folks, when visiting the vineyard look at the rows and rows of vines, and frequently comment that it must be a lot of work and where do we get enough people to harvest all those grapes?  While it is always a challenge to find folks to do this kind of farming, the harvest is a relatively easy time.  Some even volunteer to help at that season.  It’s a time of soft (usually) fall weather, and you can sample the fruit as you pick.   One of the real challenges is now….winter time.  This is when we prune most of last year’s growth off the vines.  Last winter we did it on snow shoes and  in very warm parkas.  This year we are doing it using ice cleats on our shoes and rain gear. We start in January and our goal is to finish before the vines start to awaken in late March.

A prospective pruner has to be trained before we turn him or her loose on the vines.  If you prune too much not only do you lose some needed fruit but you over-invigorate the vine.  If too little is pruned the vine may over-produce, resulting in poorer quality fruit and the resulting stress on the vine might lead to too small yields the next season.  We aim for consistent yields from year to year or, in viticulture terms, a “balanced vine.”  On the left is one of our 6 year-old Marquette vines before pruning and on the right is a Marquette vine after pruning. (check out the video at the bottom of the page.)

We mostly prune canes, the soft, smooth-barked one-year growth.  We usually leave a few buds on these canes from the previous season’s growth.  These buds will be the coming season’s source of fruit.  If there is not a lot of previous-year cane growth, we will prune more aggressively, leaving fewer buds.  We hope this will keep fruiting down somewhat and coax the vine to show some more vigor.  Viticulture texts go into detail on this subject, with formulas for pruning weight of the one year canes vs. the number of buds to leave on the vines, and the resulting fall harvest fruit weight , and we follow their guidance.

Based on the pruning weight on our Marquette vines this 2011-2012 winter, we have hopes for a very robust harvest next fall.   So….. while we may not seek new volunteer winter pruners, yes, we still welcome your interest in work here during the harvest season and hope you’ll enjoy snacking on some the fruit as you gather clusters and drop them into the harvest lugs.  -Ken

Check out this short video of Ethan pruning a Marquette grapevine.