Vermont looks to become a new variety of wine country
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Bob Foley with his grape vines in the back of the Neshobe River Winery, which happens to be adjacent to the Neshobe Golf Club fourth green. Foley is among several Vermonters determined to grow and produce wine grapes here. PHOTO BY VYTO STARINSKAS |
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By GORDON DRITSCHILO Staff Writer - Published: July 19, 2009
Napa. Sonoma. Finger Lakes. Vermont?
The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets wants Vermont to become known as a wine-producing region. Dellie Rex, who recently taught wine-pairing at the New England Culinary Institute, has signed on as a consultant to help make it happen.
"It's a $5 million business now and I have no doubt that could be more," she said.
Steve Justis, senior agricultural development specialist at the agency, said Vermont has 17 licensed wineries and he expects another half dozen to become licensed in the next year.
"We think there's a lot of growth potential in the industry," he said. "We're going to work closely with winemakers and see what we can do."
Rex said the effort got a boost last month when five Vermont wineries won 16 medals in the Eastern States Exposition's wine contest. The contest takes place ahead of the actual expo so that it can showcase the winning wines.
Neshobe River Winery in Brandon took Best of Show and Best Grape Wine for its 2006 Cabernet Franc. Shelburne Vineyards took five medals, including two golds. Putney Mountain Winery, Boyden Valley Winery and Honora Winery also took prizes.
That success aside, Vermont wines have a ways to go in terms of recognition. Calls to national wine magazines did not turn up anyone familiar with them.
"I've heard of them," said Wolfgang Weber, senior editor for Wine & Spirits. "Have I had them? I don't think I have. I wouldn't be the first person to write it off. … A number of states that wouldn't come to mind in the same respect have come out with interesting things."
They are showing up in Vermont stores and Vermont restaurants, where proprietors are championing them.
"The typical perception is Vermont wine is not great, but I think that's going to change because I've tasted a lot of Vermont wines that are very good," said Megyn Pitner, manager at Café Provence in Brandon.
Pitner, responsible for wine-buying for the restaurant, said she just put Lincoln Peak's La Crescent on the wine list and recently had a tasting of Vermont wines. Lincoln Peak Vineyard is located in New Haven. She said the La Crescent has a hint of sweetness but a crisp finish.
"It would be good paired with your dinner, a seafood dish, on its own, with cheese or with a pasta," she said. "We thought it was very approachable and would represent Vermont wines well."
Linda Fondulas, co-owner of Hemingway's in Killington, said she serves some Vermont wines, but not many.
"They're not on the radar yet for the general public," she said. There are more and more up and coming and I hear of some good ones I ought to try. I've been thinking of having a Vermont winemaker's dinner."
Fondulas said her restaurant serves Shelburne Farms' dessert wines and their Cayuga White. They have also served dessert wines from Boyden Valley in the past. She said a number of Vermont wineries use grapes trucked in from out-of-state, a practice she dislikes.
"Because of the Vermont cachet, I feel it should be grown in Vermont," she said. "I know it's not easy, but that's what people expect."
Justis said use of out-of-state grapes in Vermont wine has not yet been a subject of policy discussion at the state level.
"Right now, we see the trend is that most wineries, once they get an investment in equipment, can take three to five years to get enough yield to press their own grapes," he said. "We're kind of in a transition period."
Long-term, Justis said, the agency wants to encourage wineries to use locally grown ingredients as much as possible. Short-term, the agency is looking at promotional efforts and at bringing in experts from Cornell and Minnesota to help improve the quality of Vermont wine.
Rex said Vermont's climate poses serious challenges to would-be vintners.
"We obviously can't grow Rhone varietals like syrah," she said. "We can't grow Bordeaux varietals like cabernet sauvignon, merlot and sauvignon blanc. They need more sunlight, warmer temperatures. Italian varietals will not do well here."
Even grapes that tend to prefer cooler climates, like chardonnay, pinot noir and Riesling, often have a hard time in Vermont.
Why not use local grapes already adapted to the climate?
"They make terrible wine," Rex said. "They make grape juice. They make grape jam. You can eat them on their own. People tried, in colonial times, to make wine from local grapes. It was heavy. It had an aroma of wet fur. God did not intend them to make wine."
Enter Elmer Swenson.
Kenneth Albert, the managing partner of Shelburne Vineyard, calls Swenson the "Johnny Appleseed of American Wine."
"He was a dairy farmer who, inexplicably, spent his life hybridizing grapes," Albert said.
Swenson crossed French grapes with American ones, first at his family farm in Wisconsin and later at the University of Minnesota, producing wine-worthy varieties that can survive cold winters and ripen during short growing seasons.
Albert said Vermont winemakers owe their very existence to Swenson, who died in 2004.
Much of what has been labeled as "Vermont wine" has actually been mead or cider. Albert said he planted his first grapes in the 1990s. Boyden Valley and Snow Farm Vineyard operated at the same time.
"It was the three of us and no one else producing grape wines until a couple years ago," he said. "We started with vines originally popular in the Finger Lakes."
Even those grapes, he said, had a hard time in Vermont's colder climate. In addition to the hardier hybrids, Albert said, Vermont got a boost from the advent of ice wine, a sweet style made from frozen grapes.
Albert said he sells about 3,000 cases a year.
"That's small," he said. "There are many wineries that are this size, but this is in the small end of things."
Many vineyards in the Finger Lakes, for example, do 8,000 to 10,000 cases a year, while others in that region reach 100,000.
Vermont seems to do well with dessert wines. Fondulas and Pitner both spoke well of the state's sweeter offerings. They also said they have been unimpressed with Vermont's reds.
"They're usually, typically just weak, not a lot going on," she said.
Rex and Albert, though, said there are reds poised to challenge that perception. One is the Cabernet Franc that won Neshobe River its medals. Another is Marquette, one of the hybrid grapes.
"It's medium-bodied, it gives you a nice mouth-feel," Albert said. "It's the first hybrid developed that has natural tannins."
As winemakers develop their products individually, Rex said they need to promote their brand collectively.
"My advice would be to concentrate not so much on promoting your own wines as promoting Vermont as a wine-producing region," she said. "That's step one. All materials should be concentrated on getting the word out."
Rex said Vermont can follow Oregon's example.
"Twenty years ago, they were in the same boat," she said. "Nobody knew that Oregon even made wine."
Oregon marketed itself as a producer of pinot noir and pinot gris, she said, and is now known for those wines. Rex urges Vermont vintners to emphasize dessert wines because that is what they can do best. Ice wines especially.
"If someone were to put an ice wine from Vermont in front of me, I wouldn't scoff at it," Weber said. "I'd be interested to taste it."
Weber said some wineries make ice wines by freezing grapes after harvest, so wines from regions where they can freeze on the vine will appeal to those who appreciate the style.
However, Weber said Vermont wineries will want to keep an eye on their prices. People buying wine from outside of Napa, he said, will not want to pay Napa prices.
"There's a $100 cabernet in Pennsylvania and every time I see it I wonder why," he said.
Albert said Shelburne Vineyards sells 99 percent of its wine in Vermont.
"None of the wineries here are yet exporting anything significant," he said. "Wineries outside California, Oregon and Washington do very little exporting outside their home state. You have to be a certain size and you have to find a distributor willing to buy from you."
Direct sales to consumers over the Internet are not necessarily an option, either, Albert said, as a winery would have to get a license in each state it ships wine to.
"I can't ship direct to consumers in Vermont because I haven't paid the $300 for a direct ship license," he said. "I think the future of Vermont wineries is selling to visitors who come to the wineries."
Albert said that Wisconsin and Connecticut, for instance, have such industries. Weber also mentioned such operations doing well outside of recognized wine-producing regions.
"There are wineries that sell, strictly in-house, thousands of cases," Albert said.
Erika Smatana, Baker Distributing's wine expert, said visitors frequently ask about Vermont wine.
"There's greater interest in wine in general," she said. "Wine consumption is up and it's outselling beer. People who drink wine who come to Vermont are interested in Vermont wine. People travel around to wineries in wine regions the rest of us don't even know about."
gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com
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