Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/437957
8 4 V I N E YA R D & W I N E RY M A N A G E M E N T | J a n - F e b 2 015 w w w. v w m m e d i a . c o m From the 1980s, Kooyumjian's and Johnson's wineries let their Nor- ton fruit hang, sometimes as late as November, before harvesting. Both men claimed to pick their Norton grapes later than anyone else. "That's why some of the wines, like the 1988, were so highly awarded," Johnson said, "because all of a sudden here's a wine with riper fruit, softer acidity – more, you might say, like a traditional vinifera- based wine in that sense. It's all about getting ripe flavors, ripe tan- nins, less herbaceousness, less malic. Those are the keys." CANOPY MANAGEMENT To achieve those ripe flavors, exposure to sunlight is critical. "Back in the 1980s, we started pay- ing a lot of more attention to train- ing the cane, or positioning the canes and then removing leaves with water so the wines became very thin," he explained. Norton also has a high malic to tartaric ratio of around 2 to 1, the reverse of most red vinifera. How- ever, the use of malolactic fermen- tation alone to lower malic acid can leave the wine with a sour, milky taste. Both Kooyumjian and Johnson realized that malic acid levels need- ed to be reduced in the vineyard. In the early 1980s, Kooyumjian noticed that many made the mis- take of using sugar levels alone as a way of determining Norton's grape maturity – and harvesting too early. "When it got to 22 or 23 Brix, they said, 'It's ripe!' and didn't real- ly check anything else," he said. "So the simplest thing for me to do was to delay harvest and to base the harvest off tannin maturity, grape seed maturity and total acids in the grape, as opposed to just going by sugar." in the fruiting zone," explained K o o y u m j i a n , " s o t h a t c l u s t e r s themselves got more sunlight." Johnson said shoot thinning all the non-count shoots to open up the vine canopy to more light also makes a considerable difference. "I'm not aware of anybody else doing that," he said. Like Augusta Winery, Stone Hill also changed its trellis systems. When Johnson arrived at Stone Hill in 1978, the Norton vines were on a Geneva Double Curtain (GDC). "We changed over to a single bilateral cordon," he said, "primar- ily because it lends itself better to mechanization – especially shoot positioning and harvesting." Stone Hill mechanically pre-prunes and then follows up by hand. In the late 1990s, Kooyumjian also changed the Norton trellising at his Augusta and Montelle winer- ies from a GDC to a high bilateral cordon, single curtain, to facilitate the switch from hand harvesting to machine harvesting. "We have found that when we switched from hand picking to machine picking, the quality of the wines improved," said Kooyum- jian. "The reasons for that are that the clusters of Norton are really Tony Kooyumjian of Augusta and Mon- telle wineries has made Norton wines since 1980. Photo: Augusta Winery C M Y CM MY CY CMY K aacAdV&WMDelivery13S4C201401press.pdf 1 12/8/14 3:54 PM