Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/230154
COLD HARDINESS According to Wisconsin native Dr. Michelle Moyer, assistant professor of viticulture at Washington State University in Prosser, there is currently no reason to grow hybrids in the top wine-producing areas of the Pacific Northwest. However, she said she thinks there is a place for hybrids in regions that are too cold for vinifera and where tasting room traffic can help sustain a winery financially. Such an area is the high desert region of Oregon, near Bend. According to Oregon State University, 2.2 million tourists visit the Bend area each year. But it gets only 1,800 growing degree-days annually, which is not enough to ripen most vinifera grapes. Kerry Damon, a Californian who once worked for Robert Mondavi Winery, was one of the first to plant hybrid grapes in central Oregon, in 2006. Today he is the ranch and vineyard manager for the Ranch at the Canyons development in Terrebonne, 20 miles north of Bend. "Interspecific hybrids fit very well here," Damon said. "They are early-ripening and most have late bud break." Damon's first hybrid vines were grown at the 4-acre Monkey Face Vineyard at Ranch of the Canyons. Cultivars grown at Monkey Face include other University of Minnesota grapes: La Crescent, Frontenac and Frontenac Gris, as well as French hybrids such as Marechal Foch, Vignoles and Leon Millot. Damon was the vineyard manager at Monkey Face in 2010 when it sold its first hybrid grapes Kerry Damon, who first planted hybrid grapes in central Oregon in 2006, says hybrids are a good fit for the region. – including La Crescent, St. Croix and Marechal Foch – to Faith, Hope and Charity Vineyards, also in Terrebonne. Faith, Hope and Charity now has its own 15-acre vineyard planted to four red and five white cold-hardy hybrid cultivars. In 2013, the winery took over management of Monkey Face Vineyard and uses all the fruit grown there to produce its wines. Winery owner Cindy Grossman, who moved to central Oregon from suburban Chicago in 2000, said the consumer reaction to the new, hybrid varieties has been "fantastic." "Our clientele are experienced wine drinkers from all parts of the country and they are impressed with the quality of the wine that our winemaker, Linda Donovan, is making from these cold-hardy grapes," Grossman said. For Dovovan, of Pallet Wine Co. in Medford, the fruit she is receiving from Faith, Hope and Charity is her first foray into hybrid winemaking. "I had never heard of these varieties before," said Donovan, a UC Davis enology graduate who also worked at Robert Mondavi Winery before starting her own customcrush facility in 2009. "At first, Cindy had to remind me which were white and which were red." While Donovan is still learning to make wine from Bend-area grapes, she is surprised by their quality. "You get very good aromatics on some of the whites," she said. "I'd have to say that La Crescent is the star. You can smell it down the hall when you open the tanks. It has a very nice lemony, sage aroma." Donovan is employing a technique that few hybrid winemakers have used: She's fermenting her AT A GLANCE + Although most wine grapes grown in the Northwest are vinifera, many wineries are experimenting with hybrids. + Cold-hardy hybrids do well in cold, wet regions. + Some vintners blend hybrids with pinot noir to add body and color. + Hybrids are allowing wine grape production to expand to new regions. w w w. v w m m e d i a.com Faith, Hope and Charity Vineyards makes Monkey Face White from hybrid grapes. J a n - Feb 2014 | V INE YA RD & W INE RY M A N A G EM EN T 69