Author: The Hippo Press

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).

“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 blackbearvineyard897@gmail.com 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.

• “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.”