Southeastern Winegrowers Hope to Dodge Storms

Some vineyards reported rain early in season; weather service says storms headed east, where harvest is still under way.


For some winegrowers in the Southeast, vintage 2009 has been a dream so far, for others it's been plagued by rain. Today's forecast of more rain has some of them concerned.

"Over here on the East Coast, we have to worry about something called a hurricane," said Dave Fussell Jr. of Rose Hill, N.C., where his family's Duplin Winery is located. Fortunately, at least until this point, the worry has been unwarranted.

Provided that everything goes as planned during the coming week (harvest is likely to wrap up Wednesday), Fussell said that Duplin will have enjoyed a smooth growing season. Muscadines average about 7 tons/acre, he said, the same amount Duplin has been pulling in since harvest started Sept. 8.

Pressed to describe a factor that set the '09 growing season apart, he said, "I think everybody would say there was something unusual, but we were just slammed with so many grapes that I couldn't pay attention."

Rain
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service indicated that trouble was headed east, taking the form of a cold front that has been hovering over the Central United States. As of Friday afternoon, much of Tennessee was under a flash flood watch, and the agency issued a flood warning for Morgan and Scott counties there, calling the downpour "a life-threatening situation."

A handful of counties in Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina also were under flash flood warnings.

Many wineries in the Southeast have been fearing heavy rains since May. Jim Law of Linden Vineyards in Linden, Va., said spring 2009 was very wet, resulting in a crop reduction of about 5%.

Veraison in this region came a few days behind schedule. Because flowering in June was drawn out with cool, wet weather, some vineyards also have seen uneven ripening -- a condition that can cause trouble, especially in reds.

"Every month of the summer weather got progressively better," Law said. "September has been extremely dry.… We just got uncommonly lucky, and we've missed a lot of the rain."

Law reported that his harvest began Sept. 2 with Seyval Blanc, and two-thirds of the whites are in, with much of the Chardonnay coming in this week. Crews there will start picking young-vine Merlot next week, followed by Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon around Oct. 15-20.

Native varieties
Of course in the East, winegrape crops aren't limited to traditional vinifera varieties. In addition to the well-known Cynthiana-Norton grape, growers in the area gravitate toward vitis rotundifolia, also known as Muscadine, which is native to the Southeast and typically more resistant to Pierce's disease and Phylloxera than vinifera.

The Muscadine cultivar Carlos, for instance, was the first variety ready for harvest at Muscadine specialist Duplin, which produces 325,000 cases annually. Currently the winery is harvesting Scuppernong, Fussell said, adding that the winery's vines are descendants of a 480-year-old vine, the oldest known grapevine in the world, which resides on Roanoke Island.

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