NC State Fair Wine Competition

The NC State Fair has named its 2010 award winners. The top wines as well as a link to the complete results can be found here.

NC vineyard profile

Raffaldini Vineyards & wine maker Stephen Rigby are profiled at Architects & Artisans in two stories. One on the vineyard, and one on wine making. They're worth a look.

NC Wine picnic and on Charlotte Talks

Members of the North Carolina Wine Growers Association at their Summer Tech Tailgate. Photo: HJB

Michael and Amy Helton, owners of Hanover Park Vinyard, were on Charlotte Talks, a Charlotte area public radio program today to discuss V. vinfera wine production in NC. You can hear the radio program here. Amy is the current president of the NC Wine Growers Association, which held their Summer Tech Tailgate this past Sunday at Westbend Vineyard. Turner Sutton, NCSU plant pathologist, and myself attended to discuss summer disease and insect pressure in grape production.

Developing grapes at Westbend Vineyard. Photo: HJB

Before the meeting got started, I took a walk through the vineyard at Westbend and was pleased to find very little insect injury. There was a bit of thrips injury on some clusters (a distinctive star shaped scarring), but little other damage. This time of year, growers should be on the look out for spider mites (it's been an excellent spider mite season thus far) and early Japanese beetle feeding. Japanese beetles will begin feeding on the upper parts of the plant.

I presented an overview of insect and mite monitoring in bunch grapes (find a link to this handout here) and Turner discussed the fungal and bacterial rots that are a continuous challenge to grape production in the southeast.

More information
Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium Bunch Grape IPM Guide
NC Ag Chem Manual wine grape spray program

NC Tech Picnic Handout
Charlotte Talks

Wine where you would least expect it

Veritas Vineyard & Winery, Afton, VA.

No, I don't mean Virginia!

Among my small fruit research and extension responsibilities are grapes, and in North Carolina, this includes wine/bunch grapes (Vitis vinfera) and muscadine grapes (Vitis rotundifolia). This Tuesday, the Virgina IPM Program and Southern Region IPM Center held a Pest Management Strategic Plan meeting at Veritas Vineyard near Afton, VA. The purpose of this meeting was to construct a PMSP for NC and VA wine grapes. This document will provide research, regulatory, and education priorities for the industry and a valuable tool for those of us in the university as we write proposals to address these priorities. Not too long ago, Virginia and North Carolina were thought to be strange places to find wine. There are, however, much more unusual "wine countries" to be found.

This morning, I was reminded of another wine experience I had about 9 years ago while an international student at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand. I chose Thailand and the Faculty of Economics exchange program because I was interested in rural development. During the school year, I took courses to better understand the dynamics of rural Thai societies, and in the summer, I had the unique opportunity to live with an NGO (Wildlife Fund Thailand, which apparently no longer exists) and learn about their development and preservation efforts. One of the locations I visited was GranMonte Vineyard & Winery, near Khao Yai National Park. They had just planted their vines the year before and had not yet begun to harvest grapes. Their main concern at the time was keeping the birds at bay, a common challenge the southeast shares. Now, several years later, they are bottling wine and drawing, at least, regional attention. My Virginia colleagues may not want to watch the video on their website, however! Thailand is always on my list of places to return to, and when I do get back, I will have to stop by and see how they have grown.