What is Local Wine? Is Vitis vinifera Sustainable in the East?

I recently found out that this week is "Regional Wine Week" here in
the eastern 47 sates! The event has its own website at:
http://www.drinklocalwine.com/ . I tried to get the site owners to
link my blog, but they said I had to write something new. Since I am
ALL ABOUT local wine, I figured why not?
 
First, take a look at the blog post "18 regional grapes to try before
you die" by Richard Leahy at
http://www.drinklocalwine.com/18-regional-grapes-to-try-before-you-die.html
. This is a very interesting and informed look at some "regional"
grapes used in wine, but I have a problem with it. My problem with it
is the same problem I have with nearly all wine grown in America and
nearly all of the world: it is being made from grapes that ARE NOT
INDIGENOUS to the localities they are being grown. Essentially all
wine grapes are not grown in their place of origin. A few vinifera
are being grown for wine, no doubt, somewhere in Eurasia, a few New
York and Upper Midwest varieties are grown where they originated in
those regions (some listed by Mr. Leahy), Norton is now grown again in
Virginia, some of T.V. Munson's grapes are grown in Texas, and Lenoir
and Herbemont may be lurking somewhere in Georgia, but probably
99.999% of all wine grown in the world is being made from grape
varieties imported from somewhere else! The greatest offenders on
the list of "exotic species" of "invasive grape varieties" are the
famed Vitis vinifera varieties, including five of the grapes listed by
Richard Leahy in his review of "regional grapes". Yes, perhaps they
are being grown in those regions, but they are very much NOT from
those regions NOR indigenous. Richard tows the endless party line of
praise heaped on Dr. Konstantin Frank since he proved vinifera could
be forced to grow in the Finger Lakes, but I do not. I think Dr.
Frank may be responsible for more damage to Eastern sustainable wine
growing than any other person. He influenced many, many vineyard
owners by showing that Eurasian vinifera viticulture could (and by
suggesting they should) be transplanted to eastern North America. Yes
they could, and were, but at what cost?

The cost was enormous in sustainability terms. Vitis vinifera grapes
are phenomenally poorly adapted to the overall moist and warm eastern
North America summer and winter cold. Having evolved in the absence
of all the fungi (especially powdery mildew, downy mildew and black
rot) and pests (especially phylloxera - the bug that took down French
wine growing in the 1860's) that are present everywhere east of the
Rocky Mountains, the Vitis vinifera have no natural resistance to
these environmental pressures. How can they survive here? The answer
is chemicals and grafting (and burial in winter to survive the cold!).
The fungicides allow the vinifera to survive the scourge's of disease
and grafting on wild American root stocks allows them to survive
phylloxera on their roots. Chemicals also help reduce damage from
other insects like the grape berry moth and grape root borer, weed
infestation under the vines, mites feeding on leaves, and even can
"reduce predation" by birds and mammals. Take a look online at the
various spray guides offered by eastern extension agencies and wonder
why there are so many sprays listed (e.g. in Virginia:
http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/456/456-017/Section-3_Grapes-1.pdf ; others
that can be found at these links: http://pss.uvm.edu/grape/Links/ ;
see also "The Challenges of 2003" in Mark Chien's article at:
http://www.winebusiness.com/wbm/?go=getArticle&dataId=29788). In
short, by growing the least adapted varieties of grapes (the vinifera)
in the East, we have set up a system of maximum susceptibility to
almost every environmental pressure on the grapes. We have countered
this with the tools of the 'Green Revolution'
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution - especially the
'Environmental Impact' section). We still are uncertain about (or
unwilling to face) the human health impacts of this approach to
agriculture (see the 'Health impact' section of the last Wiki
reference).

In addition to the unsuitability of the vinifera to the East is the
enormous effort it takes to care for them. While Concord grapes are
grown along the Great Lakes and muscadines in eastern North Carolina
with minimal spray and machine harvest, the weakling vinifera require
grafting, careful trellising, 4-5 times as many trips (or more) with
the spray machine (see:
http://www.sites.ext.vt.edu/newsletter-archive/viticulture/08marchapril/08marchapril.html#III),
shoot positioning, cluster thinning, and netting - in many cases
provided by non-resident, low wage, migrant laborers from Mexico who
were displaced by NAFTA and the destruction of Mexican agriculture by
the north's agricultural-industrial-financial-university complex (see
'Hard Tomatoes Hard Times' by Jim Hightower for a review of the early
stages of the complex's development:
http://www.amazon.com/Hard-tomatoes-hard-times-Preliminary/dp/B0006C6S2G/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1318436421&sr=8-5).
These workers struggle to find work because they have NO PLACE to be.
Like the indigenous grapes of the East, the migrant labor force needs
its home to thrive in the manner it is best adapted to. No-one does
well living on the road all the time.

So what are alternatives to vinifera in the East? First, we have to
dig deep in our wine drinking souls and ask the hardest question: WHY
DO WE DRINK VINIFERA WINES? Here is a can of worms that can explode
into encyclopedic length ruminations! In short, I think it boils down
mostly to what is available and what we learn about wine. Wine
instructors, books, classes, guides, reviews, etc, etc, etc, virtually
all consider only vinifera wines with possible footnotes to other
kinds of grapes (often disparaged as 'hybrids' or 'labruscas').
Therefore, we only learn about vinifera wines and their stories of old
steeped in the seeming validity of time. Then we go to any wine shop,
store, government outlet, or winery and what do we mostly find? Vitis
vinifera wines! Once we get to this point we usually stop our thought
experiment and simply conclude that these are the correct grapes for
wine, they are the best or others would be used, and the experts know
best. But WAIT A SECOND! Isn't there a huge conflict of interest in
saying these are the only things worth buying when they are the things
you are selling and you have too much of them??? Ever heard the
phrases "name recognition" or "bandwagon marketing"? The people
selling most of this stuff in the USA made over a HALF BILLION GALLONS
of it last year
(http://www.wineinstitute.org/resources/statistics/article83 )!! No
wonder "wine choice" is being stuffed down our throats like fast food
burgers! What do you do with a HALF BILLION GALLONS of wine if you
can't move the inventory? Big agribusiness holds this inventory and
they want YOU to drink it! This means we have to continue our thought
process beyond the conclusion that vinifera wines are correct, best,
and that we should believe the experts and advertising. Let's see...

A long time ago, well maybe not so long ago, but before the
mid-1800's, there were no sprays. It wasn't until America sent
powdery mildew and black rot to Europe that sulfur and Bordeaux
mixture were used to control the diseases. In those "pre-spray" days,
how did any Americans make wine? It was made possible by the
varieties of grapes they had available which popped up in their back
yards seemingly spontaneously. To the lower James River estuary of
Virginia, Congressman Theodorick Bland brought a grape from Virginia's
Eastern Shore that later came to bear his name. The 'Red Bland' as it
was known went on to yield the Norton, Cunningham and Woodson grapes
of central Virginia. In central Georgia the Warren and Lenoir grapes
were found and later bred to make Favorite in Missouri. The Warren
was later used by Nicholas Herbemont in the 1830's in his successful
wine growing venture near Columbia, SC, so later took on Herbemont's
name. The famous Catawba grape was likely found on Burney Ridge just
east of modern day Fletcher, NC, in northern Henderson County near the
Asheville airport. The Alexander grape that became the basis of J.J.
DuFour's excursion into wine growing on the Ohio River at Vevay, IN,
was displaced there from its home near Philadelphia. The ranks of
these pre-spray grapes are large and many still exist. They exist
because they carry survivability to eastern conditions. In the case
of Norton, it can produce excellent fruit in dry years with no spray.
Many of the other pre-spray cultivars contain Vitis labrusca in their
pedigrees and benefit greatly from some fungicidal prophylaxis just
before and after bloom, but not the weekly dowsing through the entire
season many vinifera vineyards in the East get. Oh, you heard
labrusca-based wines are 'foxy' and for newbies? FORGET IT! Catawba
and Isabella have been around longer than Agoston Haraszthy
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agoston_Haraszthy )!! Do you hate
Welch's grape juice? Ever smell a British fox ripped open during a
fox hunt as the original users meant the term? Every have a Lake Erie
Delaware, Diamond, Catawba, Dutchess, Diana, Agawam or other
labruscana wine? Listen to THIS bandwagon call: MY CUSTOMERS LOVE
THESE WINES, and maybe one American knows what a British fox's scent
gland smells like so lose the 'foxy' term!!! Norton makes lovely wine
as do Lenoir, Herbemont, Favorite, Clinton, Eumelan, Noah; Munson's
Extra, XLNTA, Mericadel, Captain, and many others; as well as my new
grapes indigenous to central Virginia and northern Ohio. The quality
for wine is there in our wild stocks and is waiting to come out.

Anyway, what can be done? Here we are, saddled with an invasive
species infestation of monoculture Vitis vinifera in our vineyards
across the East and very few people are thinking about it critically.
Well, cut off the labor, shut down the trucks, make diesel expensive,
warm the climate, or some similar disruption and these vinifera
outlets may well fail because their precious, weakling vinifera won't
be able to get the inputs they need to survive. This is the time when
we will finally re-think eastern North American wine growing. We will
no doubt scramble for varieties that can make wine with minimal spray
and don't take endless labor to cultivate. There is another approach
to this old way, however, and it was clearly stated by the true hero
of American grape growing; Thomas Volney Munson. He wrote it all down
for you to read in his "Foundations of American Grape Culture," and
now it is available for free on Google books and in hard copy at the
Munson Viticulture & Enology Center in Grayson County, Texas, at:
http://www.tvmunson.org/books.htm . Self published in 1909, Munson's
almost-forgotten contribution is a simple guide to remaking a true
INDIGENOUS American viticulture and wine industry. The basic premise
is that individual operators and families operate small vineyards and
wineries based on their own wine grapes bred from their local wild
flora. Munson tells us how to make the grapes. He did it, I have
done it, and any fool with a shovel and rake can do it for the cost of
trying. Take your wild grapes, cross them with already disease
resistant, large cluster and large berry, self-fertile cultivars, save
the seed and grow it out, and you will have your own locally adapted
varieties for truly unique-in-the-world wine that is using the long
evolutionary treasure of disease and pest resistance held in your
local wild vines that is unique to your place. We really do not need
industrial wines, their marketing, and all the experts making livings
off their lore to make the wines best suited to our place. The
marketers and experts should go outdoors and grow some grapes and make
some wine.

We simply have to move beyond the socially constructed
paradigm of what wine should be and experience what can be. Whenever
possible, we need to drink local wines made by small producers from
disease- and pest-resistant grapes grown in our neighborhood. All the
better if they bred the grapes themselves!

As Marty Stouffer would say (sort of), "Enjoy Our Wild American
Wines!" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_Stouffer)
Cheers, C. Ambers