The latest from NH’s theater, arts and literary communities
• Rom com on stage: The Nashua Theatre Guild will present Prelude to a Kiss, described as “a romantic comedy that explores themes of love, identity, and the extraordinary nature of ordinary life,” on Friday, Sept. 27, and Saturday, Sept. 28, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 29, at 2 p.m. at the Court Street Theatre (14 Court St. in Nashua). Tickets cost $20 general admission, $18 for students, military and 65+. “After a whirlwind romance, Peter and Rita marry and experience a life-changing twist when a mysterious stranger appears at their wedding. This thought-provoking story delves into the complexities of human connection and the essence of true love,” the email said. See nashuatheatreguild.org.
Oliver! It’s the final weekend for Oliver!, the Oliver Twist musical adaptation, at the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org). The show will be on stage Thursday, Sept. 26, through Saturday, Sept. 28, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 28, and Sunday, Sept. 29, at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $35 through $49. See Michael Witthaus’ look at the production in the Sept. 12 issue of the Hippo. Find the digital edition at hippopress.com; the story is on page 16.
• Cabaret Friday: Anselmian Abbey Players will present A Miscast Cabaret on Friday, Sept. 27, at 7 p.m. at the Dana Center for the Humanities at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. Tickets cost $15. See tickets.anselm.edu.
• Iron melt: The Andres Institute of Art in Brookline will hold its annual iron melt on Saturday, Oct. 19. Buy a mold for the melt for $45 and return in advance to have it prepped for the melt (no later than 10 a.m. on Oct. 19), according to andresinstitute.org. Purchase a mold online or in person and pick up at the welcome center, 106 Route 13 in Brookline, on Tuesdays or Thursdays between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. (see the website for additional details). Whether you have a mold or not, the public is invited to watch the molten iron be poured into the molds on Oct. 19 — according to the website, “The pour should happen between noon and 1:30 pm. Molten iron can be a little finicky, please be patient.”
Arts Alive, a “nonprofit organization working to sustain, promote and expand access to arts and cultural resources in the Monadnock Region,” according to a press release, will hold a field trip related to the Iron Melt. The two-part trip will include a session on Saturday, Oct. 5, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Keene studio of artist Craig Stockwell when participants can carve a design for the melt. “Designing is completely beginner-friendly and a fun challenge,” the release said. On Saturday, Oct. 19, participants will head to the Andres Institute to explore the grounds and watch the pour. Registration costs $50; see monadnockartsalive.org/artist-field-trips.
Fall Festival The Beaver Brook Association (117 Ridge Road, Hollis, 465-7787, beaverbrook. org) hosts its annual Fall Festival and Art Show on Saturday, Sept. 28, and Sunday, Sept. 29, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. This year’s featured artist is Carolyn Maul, whose works include landscapes and Ecoprints, which feature leaves and other nature designs and which you can see at carolynmaulstudioart.com. The festival will feature an adult and children’s art show, a raffle and silent action, local exhibitors, a bake sale, children’s nature crafts, an insect safari, an apple cider press, a fire pit with music, a self-guided story walk and a scavenger hunt, according to Beaver Brook’s schedule. Also slated for the weekend are Wingmasters Birds of Prey (Saturday at 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.); a history walk (Saturday at 11:30 a.m.); storytime at the amphitheater (11:30 a.m. both days); a puppet show (Saturday at 2:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.), and Eyes on Owls (Sunday at 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.).
• See saws: Woodworker Ted West will present a demo and a project planning topic at the Concord Makerspace (197 N. Main St., Unit 4, Boscawen; concordmakerspace.org) on Saturday, Sept. 28, at 10 a.m. He will discuss air-dried wood versus kiln-dried wood and he will bring Japanese saws, according to an email from the Makerspace, which said the presentation is part of the “Ask An Expert” series and is free and open to the public.
• Shades of black and white: The Manchester Artists Association will present Jim Luckern for “A Demonstration in Charcoal and Graphite Drawing” on Monday, Oct. 7, at 7 p.m. at the Manchester Police Department Community Room (405 Valley St. in Manchester). Luckern, who grew up in Concord, “creates lifelike images in his charcoal and graphite medium. He will share his techniques in a demonstration for the Manchester Artists Association at their monthly meeting,” according to a press release. See luckernfinearts.com for a look at his work. The event is open to the public.
• Stories from beyond: The Woodman Museum (182 Central Ave. in Dover; woodmanmuseum.org) will host a reenactment event called “Voices From the Cemetery” at Pine Hill Cemetery in Dover on Saturday, Oct. 12, and Sunday, Oct. 13, with tours starting every half hour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.. More than a dozen famous and infamous Dover citizens will come to life at their gravesites to tell their stories, according to a press release. Tickets cost $20 for adults, $10 for ages 17 and under online; find the link to purchase tickets at woodmanmuseum.org.
Dan Dailey The work of Dan Dailey, described as “a New Hampshire artist whose creative ideas and innovations in glass have expanded the canon of art,” will be on display at the Currier Museum of Art (150 Ash St. in Manchester; currier.org) in “Dan Dailey: Impressions of the Human Spirit,” which opens this week. A member preview will be held Thursday, Sept. 26, from 6 to 8 p.m. (registration required in advance). The show will feature more than 75 of Dailey’s pieces which “span more than five decades and push the expressive boundaries of glass as an artistic medium, drawing on comics, pop art, art deco, and 1960s pinup posters,” according to a Currier press release. Dan Dailey will discuss his craft and career highlights with Kurt Sundstrom, exhibition curator, on Sunday, Oct. 6. The exhibit is on display through Sunday, Feb. 2. The Currier is open Wednesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dan Dailey, Aquamotion Circus vase, 2018. Photo by Bill Truslow.
An exhibition titled “The Lost Weekend – The Photography of May Pang” that showcases photos of John Lennon and friends will be held at Creative Framing Solutions in Manchester on Tuesday, Oct. 1, from 3 to 8 p.m. and Wednesday, Oct. 2, from 3 to 8 p.m.
May Pang was romantically involved and worked with John Lennon during the time period dubbed as the “Lost Weekend” that took place from late 1973 through 1975.
Pang spoke about the photographs and how the exhibit came to life: “I was in the middle of also doing my movie, The Lost Weekend – A Love Story, but no one knew that. And I was using some of my photographs for that, so I just sort of kept it under wraps.”
The documentary can be viewed online now and helps give context to the photographs. Scott Segelbaum, owner of the Rock Art Show, who helps put on the gallery showings, was persistent in getting Pang to display her art.
“I truly didn’t think people would be interested. And he kept saying, you’re wrong,” Pang said.
Ultimately Pang dug out the images, to the delight of Beatles and John Lennon fans everywhere.
“They were sitting under my bed. I have a storage unit and it was always sitting under my bed and I never really thought anything of it. They’re my home photos when I was living with John,” Pang Said.
Some photos will be recognizable to fans. “One of the photos was John’s favorite and when people come to the exhibition I point that out. It is the single sleeve cover for the U.K., because Imagine was being released three years from its initial release of the album, and he wanted to use that particular photo that I took of him for the sleeve,” she said.
Other albums include her artwork too. “And then a couple of years ago, Julian, his son, wrote to me and said, do you have any pictures of me from when I was young? And I never know if I have whatever in my collection, so I sent him a couple of photos, and that became the album cover,” Pang said. The album from Julian Lennon was Jude, which came out in 2022.
Besides the artwork, Pang was involved with recording and producing the songs of John Lennon along with George Harrison, Harry Nilsson, Mick Jagger and more. “And then we did David Bowie with Fame, hung out on that one,” Pang said.
According to Pang, John Lennon would let songs naturally grow in the studio. “It was more organic. John understood what he wanted in the studio. It depends on what part of the process we’re in. He knows what he wants and then at that time he’ll go and figure it out. Like he’ll say, ‘I need a chorus, I need people to sing here,’ or ‘I want this sound.’ He hears it as it goes along. So the first part is him just laying down the basic tracks and then he works it from there,” she said.
Outside of the recording studio Lennon was enthusiastic and encouraging about Pang’s photography. “He was the one that kept pushing me to take more photographs. I think it’s a great thing to see. What you’re seeing is, as I always say, you’re seeing pictures of John and everybody else through my eyes, the way I saw them,” Pang said.
What type of equipment did Pang use to capture what her eye saw in these moments? “Well at the time I was using my Nikon. I mean we had our Polaroids, that was great, but when it came to using the camera I used my Nikkormat, one of the other versions of the Nikon in the Nikon family. And I had a great lens, I used a portrait lens that I was using all the time and that’s what most of my pictures are from. I like using film and I like using black and white, some of my favorite, but then you use color and you get slides and so the film process is really nice. It’s just really dynamic.”
Of all her photographs, Pang could not pick a favorite. “Everybody asks that and it’s very difficult to say, oh yeah, that’s what I want, that’s my favorite, only because they’re like my kids. You know, you can’t show favorites.”
The last photo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, from March 29, 1974, will be at the exhibit. “The photo was the first time that they had seen each other in a few years. And then, I never took another photo of the two of them and nobody else did either,” she said.
Pang mentioned that Lennon and McCartney’s relationship was not as sour as it is sometimes represented. “A lot of people think that they were always arguing. They weren’t. They’d come over, you know, chat, we’d go, what’s going on, where did you go, what’s your next project, that’s the type of thing that went on,” Pang said.
Pang is happy to have a chance to share her photographs to the world and New Hampshire. “It’s like a gallery, they can come and see it, it’s all free. I’m just very happy about it and I appreciate all the people that come out and check out the artwork,” she said.
The Lost Weekend – The Photography of May Pang When: Tuesday, Oct. 1, and Wednesday, Oct. 2, from 3 to 8 p.m. Where: Creative Framing Solutions, 410 Chestnut St., Manchester, creativeframingsolutions.com, 320-5988 Note: Pang will only autograph items purchased at the gallery.
Featured image: May Pang with artwork 2023. Courtesy photo.
The Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce’s downtown Visitors Center is an oasis for art lovers. New Hampshire Furniture Masters and the New Hampshire Art Association both display works there. Currently, sculpture and otherworldly tables and chairs built by Jon Brooks are streetside, while 11 paintings from Yildiz Grodowski adorn the back wall.
Grodowski was born in Istanbul, Turkey, and studied there before moving to New England; she’s lived in the Boston area for most of her life. Speaking by phone recently, she described herself as “a semi-abstract artist, because there are always recognizable elements in my paintings.”
These include scraps of text: handwritten or from newspapers, magazines or sources, like the Viking cruise ship brochure found in the lively “One Step at a Time.” The latter work is part of a series called “Into The Woods,” which occupies the first half of her exhibit, “Where Will I Take You.” Its four pieces — there are more, she said — are evocative, playful and joyous.
The first, “Ménage a Quatre,” has a bird with bits of sky in its wings rising toward three Dali-esque windows capped by a staircase to the stars. Below this raucous activity is a street scene that looks cribbed from a mid-20th-century European fashion magazine. The next two, “Her Hands Were Watching Me” and “One Step at a Time,” are colorful and animated.
The final painting of the group, “Take Me to Where the Wild Things Grow,” is subdued. It’s also beautifully textured, another characteristic of her work. It’s an important reason why looking at photos of her art online can’t do them justice.
Her overall selection of works for the exhibit, which ends in early November, was done in hopes of holding onto summer as it fades away.
“I like warm weather, I don’t like winter, I don’t like cold,” she said. “That’s the reason I wanted to bring some color, something happy, something joyful, something optimistic.”
That said, Grodowski stressed that her art isn’t born from crunching around in the autumn leaves, even if it arrives in a bucolic place eventually.
“I love nature. I respect it so much, but it’s not my inspiration for some reason,” she said, explaining that the series’ title is “about discovery of a space, of a person, of oneself.”
For Grodowski, the creative process is as kinetic as her works suggest. The first stage, which she calls “the play,” always includes music played at full blast, and a lot of movement. “I don’t even think about creating movement,” she said. “It’s so intuitive, it comes from within, you know? I’m a dancer, so I guess my brush dances on the substrate as I’m painting.”
She often layers on an already prepared surface.
“I start with either collage or my own writings on the substrate,” she said. “Collage pieces can be almost anything. A lot of them have also numbers and writings … or I write myself. If I’m listening to a song, maybe I’m just writing the lyrics, or whatever happened the day before, or what I’m feeling.”
The middle stage is the longest, one she calls The Ugly. “Which is the struggle,” she wrote for artsyshark.com, leading to “refinement — the home stretch. With the exception of the last stage, during which I need absolute quiet, I blast the music, singing and dancing … and of course, painting.”
At that point, after the pasting, the painting and occasionally the sanding of surfaces, Grodowski can bond with the piece and sign her name to it.
“Connection is everything; that’s the foundation of my art, really,” she said. “Connection means … there’s nothing more I can add; it’s all I could give to that piece. Although many artists and many masters say, and it’s true, that no art piece, no painting, is finished … there comes a moment that you know — this is it.”
Hopefully, the viewer will be similarly lifted.
“I want to create something so they can find their own place and connection,” she said, noting that the exhibit title is a question, not an answer. “Rather than giving it to them, saying ‘Here it is, take it,’ I want to ask them what they see.”
‘Where Will I Take You’ – Yildiz Grodowski When: Through Nov. 10, artist reception Saturday, Nov. 2, 6 p.m. Where: Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center, 49 S. Main St., Concord More: nhartassociation.org
Featured image: Works by Yildiz Grodowski. Courtesy photo.
This year’s grape harvest is as excellent as last year’s was bad
Some of the most reliable weapons in Amy LaBelle’s yearly battle to bring her grapes through to harvest are bars of soap. Of course there are nets to protect young grapes from birds — “As the grapes start to ripen, birds start to get savvy, and we have to drop our nets,” she said. And who could have predicted the beavers? “We had a few problems with beavers taking out an entire row one year and borrowing our trunks to make a dam in the stream that runs behind the winery. So that was kind of a bummer. Yeah, so we battle, but we’re winning so far. I don’t think anyone ever wins completely.”
But it’s the bars of Irish Spring soap that keep the deer away. “I’m a believer that Irish Spring soap works to protect my perennial beds at home and my grapes at the vineyard,” LaBelle said. “So we hang Irish Spring soap bars from some of the vines closer to the wood lines.”
LaBelle and her husband, Cesar Arboleda, own LaBelle Winery (345 Route 101 in Amherst and 14 Route 111 in Derry, 672-9898, labellewinery.com). They grow 6 acres of grapes between their two vineyards. It turns out you don’t need a huge amount of land to grow grapes. While a small apple orchard generally covers at least 20 acres, grain fields can be hundreds of acres in size, and some cattle ranches are as big as medium-sized European countries, a respectable vineyard often takes up about the same amount of space as a couple of football fields.
“The 3 acres in Derry haven’t matured quite yet,” she said. “We’re not pulling a full crop from there. In Amherst we’re pulling about 14,000 pounds a year.”
Most years.
2023 was a rough year for New Hampshire grape growers. A hard frost toward the end of May killed off new blossoms and buds, more or less destroying last year’s grape crop.
“On May 18 [last year], I lost my entire crop in two hours,” LaBelle said. “The six weeks just before that I had spent meticulously pruning that whole vineyard myself, every single plant, and I was making sure that every plant was perfect. I was trying to have the best year ever. Last year I [harvested] 300 pounds of grapes.”
This year’s grape harvest is looking good across the board.
“This year was our earliest harvest ever,” said Al Fulchino, owner of Fulchino Vineyard in Hollis. “We started picking on Aug. 21. It’s been a fabulous year. We’re three and a half weeks into our harvest, maybe four, and then we probably have two more weeks. The tonnage has been good.” Fulchino said that the sugar content in this year’s grapes have been high, and their acidity has been right about where it should be.
That acidity comes in part from New Hampshire’s climate. Winter temperatures are low enough that most vineyards in the state grow cold-weather varietals that tend to be lower in sugar and fairly acidic.
“It’s interesting,” said Richard Jacob of Vinilandia NH, a wholesaler specializing in wine from small estate vineyards, “because we obviously have a different climate than very famous growing regions for grapes. Normally in New Hampshire grape wine-making, you would get a lower-alcohol wine with higher acidity. So that being said, a classic thing that winemakers would do in New Hampshire is if they do go bone dry, sometimes the acidity can be a little bit overwhelming. And so you can back sweeten by adding some sugar or you can stop your fermentation a little bit earlier, so that way you have a little bit of natural residual sugar and the acidity isn’t as intense.” In that case, he explained, because the fermentation has been stopped early, the resulting wine is normally lower in alcohol.
Ted Jarvis is the owner of Black Bear Vineyard in Salisbury and the President of the New Hampshire Winery Association (260 Stage Road, Hampstead, 770-6719, nhwineryassociation.org). He said that New Hampshire wine makers are not limited to acidic wines.
“Each winemaker can finish the wines however they like,” Jarvis said. Personally, I don’t like sweet wines, and I like my wines finished off fruit-forward. We can’t grow just any type of grape here in the Northeast.”
“For instance,” Jarvis continued, “I do what is called a meritage, which is a blend of a couple of my reds together that we grow here on the property.” He also experiments with flavors in his finished wines. “I do some infusion in wines where I make what is called Amante de Chocolate, which is a raspberry chocolate-infused red wine, which is a big hit. I also do a take on my favorite childhood ice cream; I’ve turned an orange creamsicle into a wine. Yeah. It tastes exactly like an orange creamsicle ice cream. I sought out a certain coffee bean — a Sumatra coffee bean that had some spicy notes and chocolatey notes — and then I infused that into the wine; it’s called Vino Cappuccino.”
Not all grapes in New Hampshire are grown for wine. Owner John Lastowka grows 16 varieties of table grapes at Maple Gate Farm and Vineyard (183 Amherst Road, Merrimack, 759-9174).
Photo courtesy of Flag Hill Distillery and Winery.
“Normally, the table grapes that we get here in New England come from California in one season,” he said, “and in our winter season they come from Chile. Those two locations supply pretty much all the table grapes in the country.” As a result, Lastowka explained, most supermarket grapes have been developed to ship well from the West Coast or South America, and not necessarily for other characteristics, like flavor. “The universities have been doing a lot of research on table grapes to develop hybrids and different rootstocks that will survive our cold winters,” he said.
Like other New Hampshire grape-growers, Lastowka only devotes a small area to his vines. “I have about a half-acre vineyard,” he said. “I’m not done picking, and so far I’ve picked two tons. Each vine will produce on average 20 to 30 pounds of grapes.” His rows are 9 feet long and spaced 4 feet apart.
This sort of density of planting seems to be the norm, but Amy LaBelle says she plants each varietal of grape a little differently. “I’ve planted them a little bit differently depending on their expected vigor,” she said. The Cayuga [varietal], for example, is a very vigorous vine, so I planted those a little closer together to try to control that vigor so I don’t get an all-vine-no-grape kind of situation. It reduces the workload eventually in the vineyard a little bit, because if you can help the plant naturally reduce its vigor then you don’t have to trim it back every week to make sure that the grapes can do their thing.”
Ted Jarvis at Black Bear devotes a little more acreage to his vines. “I’m very old-school, very traditional,” he said. “We have one of the largest vineyards here in the Lakes region. We have about 4 1/2, 5 acres of vines on our property. We grow seven different varietals. We started our vineyard in 2008. It was my oldest son’s senior high school project. He got the A+. My wife and I get to spend every time we have money.”
LaBelle grows six main varietals in her vineyards — three white and three red. “In Amherst, we take all of the white varietals,” she explained, “and we blend those into an estate blend called Amherst Vineyard White. And that wine is so beautiful because it has that little influence from the grape called petit amie, which is, even when you just eat them fresh off the vine, that you get this huge explosion of florals, especially roses. It’s crisp and elegant and lovely and with that floral overtone — just very, very special.”
Al Fulchino said that about half of Fulchino Vineyards’ wines are blends. “I would say we’re closer to 50-50,” he said. “We do a lot of single varietals and we do do a lot of blends. That’s kind of a lot of fun in that. Literally taking the same grapes and doing a tweak one way or the other, aging it differently, oaking it differently, and getting a totally different wine that will be more suitable for one customer over the other.”
Because New Hampshire vineyards are comparatively small, if the grapes are ready to be picked, most or all of a season’s crop can be harvested very quickly, often in a day or two. LaBelle winery brings its customers in on the process.
“We usually select a date for harvest, and then we send out a note to our Vineyard Club,” Amy LaBelle said. “Our Vineyard Club is a long-standing club at LaBelle Wine. They are very loyal, very good customers — folks who have paid money to join the Vineyard Club. [Club members] sponsor a vine in the vineyard. They get their name on one of the vines and they come and visit their vine during the year and they take pictures with their vine. It’s very cute.”
Bill and Mary Reinhardt are Vineyard Club members. They said harvesting grapes at LaBelle is one of the highlights of their year. “What happens is that early in the morning we’ll gather with other Vineyard Club members. Amy and Caesar basically tell us, OK, this is what we’re going to be doing; we’re going to be harvesting these grapes’ and go through the process,” Mary Reinhardt said. “It’s a day where you can just go out and enjoy nature and life, go pick grapes, and talk to the people — just leave all your troubles and what’s going on in the world behind and enjoy yourselves.”
Bill and Mary each sponsor a vine, and of course they have named them. “It’s Mia and Grumpy,” Mary said, “because that’s what our grandchildren call us.” The Reinhardts’ vines are petite amie grapes, which make a dry white wine. “They put your name on it and you can go visit it,” Bill said, “when you’re there for lunch or whatever and see how your grapes are growing.”
Fulchino Vineyards harvests their grapes themselves. “We are hand-harvest,” Al Fulchino said. “We have three different vineyards all within 2 miles of our winery. [Our harvest is] mostly staff. We do have some people who follow our social media page like on Facebook and they know we’re harvesting and they want to get involved. We used to pick much more on Saturdays and Sundays, but because the winery is so much more busy on the weekends we have strategized to move more toward Monday through Friday. We’ll meet up in the morning and target what we want to pick, then we’ll all sit down and have some lunch and some wine and talk. It’s kind of old-school — very simple. It’s a really nice old-fashioned way to enjoy and not rush and remember why we’re here. Oftentimes when you do it on the weekends, you have to rush a bit. We’ve picked 20 tons or so so far.”
Ted Jarvis organizes a ticketed event to get his grapes in. “We throw a big harvest fest weekend,” he said. “Last year we had over 250 people up. We have live music. We have food trucks come in. We have 20 or 30 vendors to set up their New Hampshire crafts, so people can go booth by booth and check all that stuff out. And if people want to help out, we are a family business. I’ve had people come up, families, for years come up and just want to come in and participate in the whole process of it and help pick the grapes. My boys and I set up a crush pad so folks can see how their wine became from vine to glass. They can taste the juice coming right out of the wine press to see what it tastes like just being crushed and then like if they’re having a glass of La Crescent wine, ‘This is the grape, this is how I started it, and that’s what you’re tasting is how I finished it.’
Grape Fun
• Help with the harvest at Black Bear Vineyard (289 New Road, Salisbury, 648-2811, blackbearvineyard.com). Volunteer to help with the harvesting of grapes at Black Bear Vineyard on the weekend until the harvest is in and Black Bear provides lunch and a bottle of wine, according to the vineyard’s Facebook page. Email [email protected] to volunteer and get the details.
• Bottle Your Own experience at Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com). This is an ongoing series of events held Sundays through Nov. 10, at noon, 1 and 2 p.m. Attendees get a guided tour of the winery and vineyard and will learn directly from staff about the winemaking process. The cost is $59 per person and includes your own bottled wine to take home.
• Harvest and Stomp Festival at Appolo Vineyards (49 Lawrence Road, Derry, 421-4675, appolovineyards.com) Saturday, Sept. 28, and Sunday, Sept. 29. In addition to grape harvesting opportunities, there will be winemaking tours starting at 10 a.m., grape foot stomping and more. Tickets are $60 per person and include a catered lunch and other amenities.
• Harvest Weekend at Black Bear Vineyard (289 New Road, Salisbury, 648-2811, blackbearvineyard.com) is Saturday, Oct. 5, and Sunday, Oct. 6, noon to 6 p.m. Tickets are $18 through eventbrite.com. There will be live music, wine, food trucks, yard games, vendors selling New Hampshire products, and bringing in this year’s harvest.
Photo courtesy of LaBelle Winery.
• “Walks in the Vineyard’ wine class at LaBelle Winery Amherst (345 Route 101, Amherst, 672-9898, labellewinery.com) Sunday, Oct. 6, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Join Wine Educator & Sommelier Marie King and Senior Assistant Winemaker Melaney Shepard for an educational walk through LaBelle Winery’s vineyard and wine cellar in Amherst. Sample five LaBelle wines and learn about the winemaking process during the harvest season. Tickets are $35 through LaBelle’s website.
• The Annual Hollis Grape and Italian Festival will be Sunday, Oct. 20, noon to 6 p.m. at Monument Square in Hollis. The day will include a car show, live music, food vendors and a meatball contest, according to the event’s Facebook page. See fulchinovineyard.com.
• It’s not a local harvest but the Franco-American Centre will celebrate the French harvest with its Beaujolais Nouveau Gala dinner and dance on Saturday, Nov. 23, from 6 to 10 p.m. to celebrate the release of the 2024 Beaujolais in France. The three-course meal, with optional wine pairing with each course, will be at Oscar Barn Wedding Venue, 191 W. River Road in Hooksett. Tickets cost $115 ($90 without wine) for non-members. See facnh.com.
Wild Grapes
Joe Ross is a foraging expert and the owner of Eat the Planet (eattheplanet.org), a business that teaches students how to identify and find edible New England wild foods. According to him, there are three varieties of wild grapes we are likely to run across. “In our region, there’s three different kinds of wild grapes that are native,” Ross said in a telephone interview. “There’s the fox grape, the riverbank grape, and the frost grape.”
“The fox grape is the wild variety that’s called Concord,” Ross said, “but when they make a variety, they breed it specifically for certain traits over time. They select obviously. But if you look up Concord, it should be the same.” Ross said that all three species of wild grape have what’s called a “palmate” leaf structure. “It’s not like an oak leaf that’s got a center line all the way up the leaf with lobes on the side. The lobes can vary in what they look like.”
Ross said that while wild grapes can grow almost anywhere in New England, from the edges of swamps to deep forest, they do best on the edges of woods, where they have access to a lot of sunlight.
“Wooded edges and wetter areas are good areas to look for them; check those spots,” he advised. “Even just old fields where there’s a lot of bramble-type stuff — that’s a good spot to check because they’ll at least have a chance of popping up a vine again above everything else., so they can get to that sun.”
Sometimes older grape vines can be found deeper in the woods, Ross said, but that’s usually a situation of new trees growing up around an established vine. “Some of them are shade-tolerant,” he said, “but growing in the shade, you’re just not going to get a lot of grapes.”
Wine-Making Terms
Crush pad – Where grapes are crushed for their juice. This is usually done outside.
Meritage – A blend of two or more red “noble” Bordeaux varietals — cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, malbec, merlot, etc.
Root stock – The base of a plant that is used to graft onto a different variety. In the case of New Hampshire grapes, the root stock will be of a hardy, cold-tolerant variety, and the vine grafted onto it will have other characteristics, like improved sweetness or acidity.
Terroir – Subtle characters in the taste of a wine, dependent on unique weather and soil conditions in the vineyard where the grapes are grown. Each vineyard has its own terroir.
Varietals – How winemakers describe the types of grapes that go into their wines, instead of “varieties.”
Local varietals
A good resource for finding out more about cold-hardy grape varieties is a website by the University of Minnesota, mnhardy.umn.edu.
Whites
Frontenac Gris: A gray-skinned cold-hardy varietal used in white or rosé wines with fruity flavors, especially peach and pineapple, with hints of honey. Black Bear Vineyard (289 New Road, Salisbury, 648-2811, blackbearvineyard.com) makes a Frontenac Gris white.
Frontenac Blanc: A golden-skinned cold-hardy white wine grape. The vines produce exceptionally high yields of fruit. Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com) uses this grape in its Fronteanna White.
Petit Amis: A green-skinned cold-hardy grape used in acidic white wines. LaBelle Winery Amherst (345 Route 101, Amherst, 672-9898, labellewinery.com) uses this grape in its Amherst Vineyard Estate White.
Cayuga: A French-American hybrid grape used in light, citrus-tinged wines that can come in a range of styles, from dry and sparkling to late-harvest dessert wines. Flag Hill Winery (297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com) produces a Sparkling Cayuga White.
La Crescent: A very cold-hardy white grape. The wine produced from La Crescent has flavors of apricot, citrus and tropical fruit similar to that of muscat. Zorvino Vineyards (226 Main St., Sandown, 887-8463, zorvino.com) produces a La Crescent White that it describes on its website as “lively with sweet flavors of Meyer lemon and white peach.”
Reds
Frontenac: A classic bluish-black grape known for its rich, red wines. Black Bear Vineyard makes a “deep garnet”-colored Frontenac.
Marquette: Medium-bodied, dry, red wine suitable for extended maturation in oak barrels. Shara Vineyards (82 Currier Road, Concord, 836-9077, sharavineyards.com) uses this variety.
Petit Verdot: Red wine grape whose small, thick-skinned berries are valued for their depth of color. LaBelle Winery uses this grape in its Amherst Vineyard Estate Red.
Chancellor: A black-skinned cold-hardy grape used in full-bodied red wines with notes of plum and apple. Blue Heron Winery (Quinn Court, Newfields, 770-6719, blueheronwines.com) uses Chancellor grapes in its Seacoast Red.
Maréchal Foch: A cold-hardy hybrid grape that is made into deeply colored red wines with jammy, dark-fruit flavors. On its website, Flag Hill Winery describes its Maréchal Fochas having “lingering flavors of cherry and plum, with nice acidity.”
Balin Books (Somerset Plaza, 375 Amherst St., Nashua, 417-7981, balinbooks.com) is starting a new Book Club. The first meeting will is tonight at 6:30 p.m. and will be an informal get-together to discuss books readers would like to read and decide what direction the Book Club will take, according to an update from the bookstore. There may also be a discussion of the Nashua Reads book for 2024, The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts. (Elizabeth Letts will be discussing this story and her work at the Nashua Public Library on Sunday, Sept. 29, at 2 p.m.)
Friday, Sept. 27
Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier will perform at the Rex Theatre (823 Amherst St., Manchester, 668-5588, palacetheatre.org) tonight at 7 p.m., with special guest Jaimee Harris. Tickets are $29.
Friday, Sept. 27
Saint Anselm College’s Geisel Library (100 Saint Anselm Drive, Manchester, 641-7300, anselm.edu) will host its 34th annual book sale Friday, Sept. 27, through Sunday, Sept. 29, featuring thousands of books across academic disciplines and genres including art, religion and theology, literature and drama, cookbooks, history and politics. Also for sale are DVDs, VHS tapes, music CDs, board games and puzzles. Hours are Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Friday, Sept. 27
The Hop Knot (1000 Elm St., Manchester, 232-3731, hopknotnh.com) will hold a Fancy Fifth Masquerade tonight from 8 p.m. to midnight to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Hop Knot. Arrive dressed in your finest along with a mask of your choosing.
Saturday, Sept. 28
The Halcyon Club (11 Central St., Derry, 432-9704) will host its first ever Antiques Appraisal Day from 1 to 4 p.m. today. TV personality and appraiser John Bruno will offer verbal appraisals of antiques, collectibles, toys, art, books, ephemera and memorabilia. Admission is free; a fee of $5 per item will be collected for this service, with all proceeds donated to The Halcyon Club Community Projects.
Sunday, Sept. 29
The seventh annual Great Massabeseek family scavenger hunt will take place today at New Hampshire Audubon’s Massabesic Center (26 Audubon Way, Auburn, 224-9909, nhaudubon.org) from 1 to 4 p.m. to raise money for the Global Foundation for Peroxisomal Disorders (thegfpd.org). The Great Massabeseek invites participants, individually or in teams, to use clues to locate hidden objects along the trails of the Audubon. Register for $20 per person. Register at thegreatmassabeseek.org.
Sunday, Sept 29
The Busch Lumberjack Championship at the Biergarten at Anheuser-Busch Brewery (221 DW Highway, Merrimack, 595-1202, anheuser-busch.com/breweries/merrimack-nh) will run from 11 a.m to 5 p.m. and feature food, kid activities and music from The Slakas. Watch competitors vie to become the Top Lumberjack. Tickets cost $15 online or $20 at the door; kids 12 and under are free.
Save the Date! Saturday, Oct. 12 Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live Glow Party will come to the SNHU Arena in Manchester on Oct. 12 and Oct. 13. The show will feature legendary monster trucks, including Big Foot and Skelesaurus, jumps, crushing competitions, and a demolition derby, according to snhuarena.com. Shows will be Saturday at 12:30 and 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Tickets start at $35.50.
NHPR reported in an online article on Sept. 16 that the New Hampshire Department of Public Health Services has confirmed a second human case of eastern equine encephalitis, EEE, contracted through a mosquito bite. NHPR reported, “The infection was in an adult from Kensington who began experiencing symptoms on Aug. 8. The person was hospitalized and is now recovering at a rehabilitation facility. Last month, health officials announced that a Hampstead resident had died from EEE. It was the state’s first known infection since 2014.”
QOL score: -2
Comment:According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC.gov), EEE is a “rare but serious disease. Approximately 30% of people who develop severe eastern equine encephalitis die, and many survivors have ongoing neurologic problems. There are no vaccines to prevent or medicines to treat eastern equine encephalitis.
Make that six
In its weekly e-newsletter on Sept. 18, the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance announced that one of its “7 to Save” historic buildings was lost this summer. “The Manager’s Residence at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Manchester,” the announcement read, “was an important component of an architecturally and functionally cohesive campus that was completed in 1950 as part of a national program to provide medical services to veterans of the United States Armed Forces, particularly to men and women who had served in World War II. This summer, it was demolished for additional parking.” The building was a 2018 “7 to Save.”
QOL score: -1
Comment:The Alliance’s 2024 “7 to Save” list will be announced on Oct. 9. See nhpreservation.org
Another movie theater closes
The AMC Theater in Londonderry permanently closed on Sunday, Sept. 15, as reported by WMUR in a Sept. 19 online article. In addition to first-run movies, the theater was a spot to catch the Fathom Events special screenings. For those who remember the theater back in its O’neil Cinemas days, it’s a bummer to see another multiplex full of screens go dark.
QOL score: -1
Comment:QOL still has a Carmike loyalty card stuffed in QOL’s wallet.
A lot of similarities
A recent study by WalletHub (wallethub.com), an online finance company, says New Hampshire is the 48th most diverse state in the country. In a Sept. 17 press release WalletHub released the findings of a study that examined diversity of income, educational attainment, race and ethnicity, language and other factors. The study ranked New Hampshire 47th racially, 46th in terms of generational diversity, and 47th in terms of household types.
QOL score: -1 for our appearance of same-y same-ness
Comment:This study ranked California as the most diverse state, and Maine (49th) and West Virginia (50th) as the least diverse.
