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Feature Article
In the Leelanau Peninsula AVA, Riesling is the last grape to be harvested, often hanging on the vine until after the last leaves have fallen.
Riding the Crest of Riesling's Resurgence: Leelanau Peninsula producers discuss dynamics
"We chose a southeast exposure so the vines begin to warm up in the morning. Riesling is the last variety we harvest and it's a miracle if there are still leaves on the vines when we pick it."~ Bruce Simpson, Good Harbor Vineyards
by
Eleanor & Ray Heald
November 17, 2006
Eleanor & Ray Heald (ERH): Including various styles, dry, semi-dry, dessert and sparkling, describe Riesling from Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula AVA.
Lee Lutes (LL): For young, dry-style and semi-dry Riesling from the Leelanau Peninsula, I'm looking for bright citrus, grapefruit, lime characteristics early in bottle development. The AVA is blessed with all the elements that allow Riesling to age well, developing peach and apricot characters.
Even after six months in bottle, I like to see our Riesling a little snug with crisp fruit and brighter high notes of apple, peach and citrus, then evolving over time to open up into the riper components of those same fruits, but moving away from citrus to other ripe tree fruits.
Although Black Star Farms is sourcing Riesling from Old Mission Peninsula AVA vineyards now, when we first started, all our fruit was Leelanau. Thus, I'm able to show an example from the 1998 vintage. Fruit flavors are different than what we saw early in the bottle, especially with honeyed richness and petrol (terpene) characteristics.
ERH: At what age do terpene qualities develop in Leelanau Peninsula Rieslings?
LL: It depends on the vintage and the vineyard. Generally, terpenes appear at about two years bottle age. Riesling was quite ripe in 1998 because it was a warm vintage. Yet, our 2005 from a warm vintage, while still very tight, is beginning to show terpene characters.
Wine Review
ERH: How does the particular vineyard impact the characters which Lutes referenced?"
Adam Satchwell (AS): In Leelanau, there's a wide variety of soil types. But speaking for Shady Lane Cellars, I have two major Riesling blocks in close proximity but the fruit from each is quite different.
ERH: And what's creating that difference?
AS: That's something I'm still trying to determine. My guess is that it's primarily exposure because soil types, soil pH, clones and time of planting are identical.
ERH: What are the exposure differences?
AS: Although both blocks are west-facing, one block is located in the corner of the property, so it’s more wind sheltered and slightly higher in elevation. It shows terpenes earlier on. Also, this block does not ripen as quickly as the other.
Charlie Edson (CE): I agree with Adam [Satchwell] that site is important. All of Bel Lago's Riesling is sourced from south-facing slopes. We have abundant shale on this site and the wines show a mineral element.
We make a late-harvest, sweet-style Riesling from this fruit, so we are looking for more terpenes, peach, apricot and honey characters to develop early in the bottle, but we do get citrus early on also.
On our site, we have marginal potassium ion (K+) in the soil. Thus, we get low pH at picking [slightly under 3 in 2004 and barely over 3 in 2005]. I've not attempted to correct this because I like the lower pH levels. It seems in riper vintages like 2005, that ripeness did not impact the pH much. With titratable acidity (TA) at 7g/L, the pH was 3.04 in 2005.
We rely on crisp acidity to balance sweetness in our late-harvest style.
Wine Review
AS: Although sugar levels and TA can be quite different in our two Riesling blocks, the pH, regardless of vintage, is 3.1 at picking.
Bruce Simpson (BS): Good Harbor Vineyards Riesling [labeled White Riesling and Leelanau Peninsula appellated] shows a lot of citrus and mineral notes.
ERH: To what do you contribute the minerality?
BS: It is more the exposure of the vineyard, that we planted in 1980, than the soil. We only make a late-harvest style so I want crispness and a pH in the range of 2.9 to 3 with a TA of 11g/L. Biologically, the wine is very stable and we crush without SO2 addition, but we never get really ripe fruit flavors and the wine remains more citrus than peach.
Wine Review
Shawn Walters (SW): I'm mirroring everything that Bruce [Simpson] said. There's a lemon drop character in Leelanau Cellars late-harvest Riesling. One of our goals is to make Icewine in limited quantity when possible.
Wine Review
ERH: What are other details about your Leelanau Peninsula AVA Riesling vineyard sites?
CE: The southern exposure is very important.
BS: We chose a southeast exposure so that the vines begin to warm up in the morning. Riesling is the last variety we harvest and it's a miracle if there are still leaves on the vines when we pick it. That's why sometimes we do get winter vine injury. The vine does not have sufficient time to store carbohydrates.
ERH: How do you describe the soil profile of your Leelanau Peninsula vineyards?
LL: Part of the reason that Leelanau is producing some very dynamic Rieslings is vine age among the established vineyards. Vine roots have reached deeper subsoils and the fruit is becoming more interesting. In sandier soils where younger vine roots have not penetrated deep yet, the fruit does not have the same flavor depth.
What's needed here are soil surveys, that go 20 to 30-feet deep. We only know our soils to a depth of about five or six feet.
CE: True, we've soil surveyed five to six feet deep in former cherry orchards. Everyone talks about the sandy soils but the soils are variable with clay, shale and fossils. There's a lot of gravely soil. Surface soil of our vineyards is sandy loam but deep tilling reveals shale loaded with fossils.
LL: On Leelanau, there are true glacial moraines, more than on Old Mission Peninsula AVA, which has more rolling hills and beach sand. The moraines have a huge variety of soils.
AS: For our newest block of Riesling, we dug 12-feet deep. The first 12 inches was a yellow-colored sand, then we hit gravel, then deeper colored sand to the 12-foot depth. What I found interesting was that the potassium (K+) content was off the charts and the sand is loaded with calcium ion (Ca2+).
ERH: Is this good or bad?
AS: I believe it's good because we like the Riesling that we've harvested.
ERH: So, if you were searching for a new Leelanau Peninsula Riesling vineyard, what soil profile would you look for?
BS: The first thing I'd look for is well-drained soils.
CE: But Bruce [Simpson], on Leelanau, I don’t think that you're going to find a site that's not well drained unless it was bedrock.
BS: Good air drainage is also important to avoid winter damage.
LL: I'd like to discover some gravel somewhere in the soil profile. We're seeing our best Rieslings coming from gravely soils that offer more of the mineral element and a nice structural backbone.
BS: Almost all vineyards on Leelanau are dry-farmed and that makes the root system work harder.
LL: That also creates smaller berry size and as a result a greater skin to pulp ratio for higher flavor concentration.
ERH: Can we assume that most Leelanlau Peninsula Riesling plantings are on 3309 rootstock?
BS: Pretty much.
ERH: If you replanted would you still use 3309?
BS: I would. It has proven to be a good rootstock for our soils and for Riesling. Trials by Dr. Stan Howell (ret. Michigan State University Horticulture Department) found that 5C was good but not better than 3309.
AS: I recently planted some smaller blocks with 3309 but also some 5C and Riparia Gloire to see how it would perform, but 2006 will be the first year that I will pick fruit from these vines so a performance assessment is a few years away. As far as vine health, they're all performing well. I see the most difference with Riparia where the vine size is slightly smaller.
CE: I have Riesling on SO4, 5BB, 5C, 3309 and 101-14. They are all performing well and I've had some of these for up to 20 years. If I replanted, I'd use 101-14 because of best vine size. More vigorous vines are on 5BB, at least on the spacing that I used. I'd tend to avoid using 5C because these vines seem to be more susceptible to crown gall.
ERH: What Riesling clones have you planted on Leelanau Peninsula?
LL: Our grafted vines were sourced from Herman Amberg Nursery in N.Y., so we assume they are the Germanic Clone 110.
AS: We planted ours about the same time from the same nursery and they are Clone 110.
ERH: Would this be your choice for planting another vineyard on Leelanau Peninsula?
AS: No, and not because I don't like it but I wanted more variety so I planted Clones 239 and 198 from Wiemer Nursery in N.Y., and Clone 49, an Alsace ENTAV clone from a California nursery.
CE: I also believe in a blend of clones and have clones 198, 110, 239, 813 and 90 planted. In the wine, the differences among the various Riesling clones are very subtle. In the vineyard, differences are also slight in berry size and cluster weight, with Clone 239 having the smallest berry size. Any flavor differences are purely organoleptic and I do not have any analytical data.
LL: Clone 239 has very small berries and clusters, with a weight of 3 to 4 ounces per cluster or about 4 clusters per pound. On average, the yield for this clone is one ton per acre (TPA).
BS: In the freeze of 2003, we observed that Clone 110 withstood the cold better.
ERH: On Leelanau Peninsula, were early plantings trellised using the Pendel Bogen system?
BS: Yes. But we've changed to a vertical trellis for mechanical harvesting. With Pendel Bogen, we'd lose a lot of fruit low on the vine. Now, we have two fruiting wires, the first at 3 feet and the second at 5 feet.
ERH: Does this system have a name?
BS: Not formally. I call it "what works for my harvester" because that's the spacing where all the beater bars are located. It also allows air movement during the growing season.
ERH: What about canopy growth?
BS: It's significant but I've tried leaf pulling and hedging and I didn't like the wine as much. I'm unconvinced that fuller sun exposure does anything for Riesling. As long as I can keep Botrytis down, I'm happy.
LL: I also machine harvest but my trellis is standard two-arm and cane pruned. With greater age, the vines are self regulating with respect to growth and yield 2 TPA most years. Clone 110 plantings yield 2.5TPA and sometimes 3TPA.
ERH: Our understanding is that cane pruning is preferred for bud fruitfulness in cool climate regions such as Leelanau Peninsula. Are any of you using cordon?
CE: I harvest about 2.5 to 3TPA with cordon training. For winter hardiness, I prefer cordon. Cordons allow more old wood.
ERH: Most Leelanau Peninsula vineyards are dry farmed, but are any of you irrigating?
CE: I need to irrigate in the vineyard part that has more gravel and the Riesling block is irrigated primarily to fertigate. Protracted dry periods are not uncommon in this AVA, so I irrigate to keep the vines from stressing too much.
LL: When Spring is dry, I do irrigate. Normally, we get sufficient snow that the soil moisture content is high going into Spring. There have been years when Riesling either started the growth phase late or we had less snow than normal. Then, vines begin to grow but then almost stall, particularly on very well-drained sites. That's when irrigation kicks the vine into a more aggressive growth phase.
Then later in the year, near veraison, if we've had a six to eight-week dry period, we’ll irrigate because we don't want the berries to color under stress.
This interview is the first in a two part series. In the second portion of our interview with the Riesling producers of the Leelanau Peninsula, our interviewees enlighten us about the various styles of Riesling produced in the region and the winemaking techniques used to make them. (Click here to read Part 2 of this winemakers’ roundtable discussion.)
~ Eleanor & Ray Heald, Regional Correspondents - Michigan
To comment on the Healds’ writings and thoughts, contact them at heald@appellationamerica.com
Lee Lutes (LL): For young, dry-style and semi-dry Riesling from the Leelanau Peninsula, I'm looking for bright citrus, grapefruit, lime characteristics early in bottle development. The AVA is blessed with all the elements that allow Riesling to age well, developing peach and apricot characters.Even after six months in bottle, I like to see our Riesling a little snug with crisp fruit and brighter high notes of apple, peach and citrus, then evolving over time to open up into the riper components of those same fruits, but moving away from citrus to other ripe tree fruits.
Although Black Star Farms is sourcing Riesling from Old Mission Peninsula AVA vineyards now, when we first started, all our fruit was Leelanau. Thus, I'm able to show an example from the 1998 vintage. Fruit flavors are different than what we saw early in the bottle, especially with honeyed richness and petrol (terpene) characteristics.
ERH: At what age do terpene qualities develop in Leelanau Peninsula Rieslings?
LL: It depends on the vintage and the vineyard. Generally, terpenes appear at about two years bottle age. Riesling was quite ripe in 1998 because it was a warm vintage. Yet, our 2005 from a warm vintage, while still very tight, is beginning to show terpene characters.
Wine Review
- 1998 Black Star Farms Semi-Dry Leelanau Peninsula Riesling $12 (no longer available). Winemakers agree that attractive terpenes have developed and the wine has held together well with a honeyed richness.
ERH: How does the particular vineyard impact the characters which Lutes referenced?"
Adam Satchwell (AS): In Leelanau, there's a wide variety of soil types. But speaking for Shady Lane Cellars, I have two major Riesling blocks in close proximity but the fruit from each is quite different.
ERH: And what's creating that difference?
AS: That's something I'm still trying to determine. My guess is that it's primarily exposure because soil types, soil pH, clones and time of planting are identical.
ERH: What are the exposure differences?
AS: Although both blocks are west-facing, one block is located in the corner of the property, so it’s more wind sheltered and slightly higher in elevation. It shows terpenes earlier on. Also, this block does not ripen as quickly as the other.
Charlie Edson (CE): I agree with Adam [Satchwell] that site is important. All of Bel Lago's Riesling is sourced from south-facing slopes. We have abundant shale on this site and the wines show a mineral element.
We make a late-harvest, sweet-style Riesling from this fruit, so we are looking for more terpenes, peach, apricot and honey characters to develop early in the bottle, but we do get citrus early on also.
On our site, we have marginal potassium ion (K+) in the soil. Thus, we get low pH at picking [slightly under 3 in 2004 and barely over 3 in 2005]. I've not attempted to correct this because I like the lower pH levels. It seems in riper vintages like 2005, that ripeness did not impact the pH much. With titratable acidity (TA) at 7g/L, the pH was 3.04 in 2005.
We rely on crisp acidity to balance sweetness in our late-harvest style.
Wine Review
- 2004 Bel Lago Leelanau Peninsula Riesling $9/375mL. Harvested at 17° to 18° Brix, the wine was bottled with a TA of 9g/L and 6.2RS upon addition of sweet reserve. It comes across balanced with subtle peach and apricot aromas and flavors.
- 2005 Bel Lago Leelanau Peninsula Riesling $9/375mL will be released in January-February 2007. Harvested at 20°-21° Brix, it has 6.7RS in the bottle. Citrus, lime and lemon characters are apparent in this young late-harvest wine with peach, apricot and slight pineapple notes developing in an attractive, lengthy rendition.
AS: Although sugar levels and TA can be quite different in our two Riesling blocks, the pH, regardless of vintage, is 3.1 at picking.
Bruce Simpson (BS): Good Harbor Vineyards Riesling [labeled White Riesling and Leelanau Peninsula appellated] shows a lot of citrus and mineral notes.
ERH: To what do you contribute the minerality?
BS: It is more the exposure of the vineyard, that we planted in 1980, than the soil. We only make a late-harvest style so I want crispness and a pH in the range of 2.9 to 3 with a TA of 11g/L. Biologically, the wine is very stable and we crush without SO2 addition, but we never get really ripe fruit flavors and the wine remains more citrus than peach.
Wine Review
- 2005 Good Harbor Leelanau Peninsula White Riesling $13.25 has a low alcohol of 10.5% and 3.5 RS. It was sorbated prior to bottling. It's highlighted by generous appley fruit with lychee notes. Apple pie spice notes complement a full, plump and generous mouthfeel.
Shawn Walters (SW): I'm mirroring everything that Bruce [Simpson] said. There's a lemon drop character in Leelanau Cellars late-harvest Riesling. One of our goals is to make Icewine in limited quantity when possible.
Wine Review
- 2005 Leelanau Cellars Winter Harvest Riesling Icewine $50/375mL. Picked at 44° Brix in early 2006, the bottled wine has 24%RS. Fermented on R-2 yeast, the well-balanced wine sports layers of flavors including honey, apricot, ripe peach, coconut, tropical fruits and lychee.
ERH: What are other details about your Leelanau Peninsula AVA Riesling vineyard sites?CE: The southern exposure is very important.
BS: We chose a southeast exposure so that the vines begin to warm up in the morning. Riesling is the last variety we harvest and it's a miracle if there are still leaves on the vines when we pick it. That's why sometimes we do get winter vine injury. The vine does not have sufficient time to store carbohydrates.
ERH: How do you describe the soil profile of your Leelanau Peninsula vineyards?
LL: Part of the reason that Leelanau is producing some very dynamic Rieslings is vine age among the established vineyards. Vine roots have reached deeper subsoils and the fruit is becoming more interesting. In sandier soils where younger vine roots have not penetrated deep yet, the fruit does not have the same flavor depth.
What's needed here are soil surveys, that go 20 to 30-feet deep. We only know our soils to a depth of about five or six feet.
CE: True, we've soil surveyed five to six feet deep in former cherry orchards. Everyone talks about the sandy soils but the soils are variable with clay, shale and fossils. There's a lot of gravely soil. Surface soil of our vineyards is sandy loam but deep tilling reveals shale loaded with fossils.
LL: On Leelanau, there are true glacial moraines, more than on Old Mission Peninsula AVA, which has more rolling hills and beach sand. The moraines have a huge variety of soils.
AS: For our newest block of Riesling, we dug 12-feet deep. The first 12 inches was a yellow-colored sand, then we hit gravel, then deeper colored sand to the 12-foot depth. What I found interesting was that the potassium (K+) content was off the charts and the sand is loaded with calcium ion (Ca2+).ERH: Is this good or bad?
AS: I believe it's good because we like the Riesling that we've harvested.
ERH: So, if you were searching for a new Leelanau Peninsula Riesling vineyard, what soil profile would you look for?
BS: The first thing I'd look for is well-drained soils.
CE: But Bruce [Simpson], on Leelanau, I don’t think that you're going to find a site that's not well drained unless it was bedrock.
BS: Good air drainage is also important to avoid winter damage.
LL: I'd like to discover some gravel somewhere in the soil profile. We're seeing our best Rieslings coming from gravely soils that offer more of the mineral element and a nice structural backbone.
BS: Almost all vineyards on Leelanau are dry-farmed and that makes the root system work harder.LL: That also creates smaller berry size and as a result a greater skin to pulp ratio for higher flavor concentration.
ERH: Can we assume that most Leelanlau Peninsula Riesling plantings are on 3309 rootstock?
BS: Pretty much.
ERH: If you replanted would you still use 3309?
BS: I would. It has proven to be a good rootstock for our soils and for Riesling. Trials by Dr. Stan Howell (ret. Michigan State University Horticulture Department) found that 5C was good but not better than 3309.
AS: I recently planted some smaller blocks with 3309 but also some 5C and Riparia Gloire to see how it would perform, but 2006 will be the first year that I will pick fruit from these vines so a performance assessment is a few years away. As far as vine health, they're all performing well. I see the most difference with Riparia where the vine size is slightly smaller.
CE: I have Riesling on SO4, 5BB, 5C, 3309 and 101-14. They are all performing well and I've had some of these for up to 20 years. If I replanted, I'd use 101-14 because of best vine size. More vigorous vines are on 5BB, at least on the spacing that I used. I'd tend to avoid using 5C because these vines seem to be more susceptible to crown gall.
ERH: What Riesling clones have you planted on Leelanau Peninsula?
LL: Our grafted vines were sourced from Herman Amberg Nursery in N.Y., so we assume they are the Germanic Clone 110.
AS: We planted ours about the same time from the same nursery and they are Clone 110.
ERH: Would this be your choice for planting another vineyard on Leelanau Peninsula?
AS: No, and not because I don't like it but I wanted more variety so I planted Clones 239 and 198 from Wiemer Nursery in N.Y., and Clone 49, an Alsace ENTAV clone from a California nursery.
CE: I also believe in a blend of clones and have clones 198, 110, 239, 813 and 90 planted. In the wine, the differences among the various Riesling clones are very subtle. In the vineyard, differences are also slight in berry size and cluster weight, with Clone 239 having the smallest berry size. Any flavor differences are purely organoleptic and I do not have any analytical data.
LL: Clone 239 has very small berries and clusters, with a weight of 3 to 4 ounces per cluster or about 4 clusters per pound. On average, the yield for this clone is one ton per acre (TPA).
BS: In the freeze of 2003, we observed that Clone 110 withstood the cold better.ERH: On Leelanau Peninsula, were early plantings trellised using the Pendel Bogen system?
BS: Yes. But we've changed to a vertical trellis for mechanical harvesting. With Pendel Bogen, we'd lose a lot of fruit low on the vine. Now, we have two fruiting wires, the first at 3 feet and the second at 5 feet.
ERH: Does this system have a name?
BS: Not formally. I call it "what works for my harvester" because that's the spacing where all the beater bars are located. It also allows air movement during the growing season.
ERH: What about canopy growth?
BS: It's significant but I've tried leaf pulling and hedging and I didn't like the wine as much. I'm unconvinced that fuller sun exposure does anything for Riesling. As long as I can keep Botrytis down, I'm happy.
LL: I also machine harvest but my trellis is standard two-arm and cane pruned. With greater age, the vines are self regulating with respect to growth and yield 2 TPA most years. Clone 110 plantings yield 2.5TPA and sometimes 3TPA.
ERH: Our understanding is that cane pruning is preferred for bud fruitfulness in cool climate regions such as Leelanau Peninsula. Are any of you using cordon?
CE: I harvest about 2.5 to 3TPA with cordon training. For winter hardiness, I prefer cordon. Cordons allow more old wood.ERH: Most Leelanau Peninsula vineyards are dry farmed, but are any of you irrigating?
CE: I need to irrigate in the vineyard part that has more gravel and the Riesling block is irrigated primarily to fertigate. Protracted dry periods are not uncommon in this AVA, so I irrigate to keep the vines from stressing too much.
LL: When Spring is dry, I do irrigate. Normally, we get sufficient snow that the soil moisture content is high going into Spring. There have been years when Riesling either started the growth phase late or we had less snow than normal. Then, vines begin to grow but then almost stall, particularly on very well-drained sites. That's when irrigation kicks the vine into a more aggressive growth phase.
Then later in the year, near veraison, if we've had a six to eight-week dry period, we’ll irrigate because we don't want the berries to color under stress.
This interview is the first in a two part series. In the second portion of our interview with the Riesling producers of the Leelanau Peninsula, our interviewees enlighten us about the various styles of Riesling produced in the region and the winemaking techniques used to make them. (Click here to read Part 2 of this winemakers’ roundtable discussion.)
~ Eleanor & Ray Heald, Regional Correspondents - Michigan
To comment on the Healds’ writings and thoughts, contact them at heald@appellationamerica.com
