Grape Expectations

IT’S OFTEN SAID THAT GREAT WINE is made in the vineyard.

In recent years, producers of premium vinifera grapes in Washington state have taken big steps to make that statement a reality.

“Growers have really become tuned in to producing quality grapes instead of focusing on the quantity,” said Arbor Crest winemaker Kristina van Loben Sels. “Coming from California, I’ve been impressed with their efforts to optimize flavors and work with what’s best for each site.”

That might mean experimenting with trellising techniques training the vine so the fruit gets more exposure to light or using state-of-the-art instruments buried deep in the soil to indicate when the fruit needs water.

Still, no matter what measures growers take, they must labor within the constraints of Mother Nature and the very life cycle of the vine.

No one knows these challenges better than van Loben Sels and her husband, Jim, who manage a five-acre cliffside vineyard in the Spokane Valley, near Arbor Crest’s tasting room at the Riblet Mansion.

The site was planted more than 10 years ago largely for aesthetic reasons. Much cooler than vineyards in the Columbia and Yakima valleys, it was planted with sparkling wine in mind. Grapes used for bubbly are typically picked sooner than fruit that goes into still wine. And when you have a cooler-than-average site, that’s an important consideration.

So, what does it take to coax a bare, gnarled-looking vine into producing grapes that might eventually prompt people to raise their glasses and make eloquent toasts?

This year, we chronicled the cycle of a chardonnay vine at the Arbor Crest estate from its awakening in the early spring to the festive harvest party last month.

Photos Photography by Christopher Anderson STEP-BY-STEP Stages of life

Stage 1: Bud break is one of the first signs of life in the dormant vines. The timing of the beginning of growing season has a lot to do with the weather, but also the makeup of the soil. More dense soils will be slower to warm. At Arbor Crest, bud break is expected in late April or even early May almost a full month behind the warmer sites in the state’s main growing regions in the Columbia and Yakima valleys.

Stage 2: Just weeks later, the vine looks like an entirely different animal. It’s a mass of green leaves, tendril-like shoots and, if you look closely, teeny bunches that will eventually go into fine wine. At this point, these clusters are called embryo bunches. It’s common to spray for pests at this time, and to fertilize. By June, the embryos break into flower.

Stage 3: During fruit set, the grapes develop into something clearly recognizable. But these hard berries aren’t something you’d want to munch on, as sugars have yet to develop. That happens next, as the fruit matures during the long, warm days of summer. The ripening process called veraison occurs when the balance between sugar and acids begins to shift. The hard malic acid softens as the riper tartaric acid builds. At this point, some clusters might be dropped to force the vine to focus its energy on the remaining fruit. As Jim van Loben Sels puts it: “It’s like having one kid instead of triplets. That one kid is going to get more attention.”

Stage 4: After tasting the fruit for flavor and monitoring sugar levels with an instrument called a refractometer, the decision about when to harvest is made. The grapes that grow on the Arbor Crest estate pinot noir, pinot meunier, chardonnay, which are usually blended to make a sparkling wine are typically picked when the fruit is 22 percent sugar. Most grapes used in still wine aren’t harvested until they reach a 24 percent sugar level. Weather plays a huge factor at this stage of development, as growers hope the temperatures stay warm enough for the fruit to continue to ripen. Rain before harvest can dilute the flavors of the fruit and a frost as happened this year in mid-September causes the vines to drop their leaves, which stops photosynthesis and arrests the development of sugars in the grapes.

Once the fruit’s snipped from the vines, the winemaker’s work begins in earnest. But that’s another story.

the life cycle of a chardonnay vine, from early spring to a rewarding fall