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Archive for the ‘siegerrebe’ Category

Madeleine Angevine

Posted in madeleine angevine, puget sound wine, siegerrebe, vineyard, woodinville on February 24, 2009| Leave a Comment »


In my never ending series of grapes for the Puget Sound, next up is a grape called Madeleine Angevine.

Madeleine Angevine (MA) has been grown in the Puget Sound for close to 30 years. Bainbridge Island Vineyards has been growing it for most of that time and makes a really good wine out of it. MA has a bit of a checkered past. It supposedly came from the Loire valley in France originally and is thought to be an eating grape before there were hybrids like we have today from the USA that need minimal spraying and have the ability to last forever in the fridge.

Let’s back up a little and talk about the history of MA. Like I mentioned above, MA supposedly comes from the Loire Valley area and is still sold an eating grape in the Loire valley. As with many eating grapes in Europe, they are also 100% Vitis Vinifera just as wine grapes, therefore they can for the most part make decent wine. It has been speculated that MA is used in crummy years in the Loire to bolster thin wines because it does ripen so early, but there is no evidence of this happening.

Way back in the mists of time, a breeder named Moreau-Robert in the Loire valley bred MA by crossing Précoce de Malingre and Madeleine Royale in 1857. Then a guy named Barrington Brock in England somewhere around 60-70 years ago mixed up some vines in his nursery and another grape took on the name Madeleine Angevine. This vine is widely planted in England where it has quite a bit of success, but is completely different and is most likely a French/American hybrid grape. One big difference between he original MA and the one in England is that the English one has a strong muscat aroma. The vines we have in the USA are most likely the original French variety since the wines we make from MA are fairly neutral without any muscat aromas.

So here we are in the USA, it’s thought that MA came to the Pacific Northwest through Canada in the late 1970s. That’s when Gerard Bentryn started to plant it at Bainbridge Island Vineyards and it has spread throughout the Puget Sound basin.

IMHO, it makes a decent wine, but not great wine. Easy drinking and light. Not very complex. The best examples come from the cooler regions of the Puget Sound. If I were to grow it in Woodinville it might actually ripen too early most years to have any real complexity. Lopez Island Vineyards, San Juan Island Vineyards and Whidbey Island Vineyards all make great examples probably because it ripens so late for them. Like Siegerrebe it loses acids quickly when it hits around 20 brix. It also has thin skins so it is quite susceptible to powdery mildew. Clusters are fairly loose so botrytis isn’t usually a problem mainly because it ripens before the rains come here in the PNW. One of the chief benefits of the grape is that it does give a huge crop of grapes and you can grow 4+ tons an acre from it.

Again, would I plant it in Woodinville? Same as I mentioned in the Siegerrebe blog entry, if I had large acreage and wanted some insurance that I would get a crop every year, I would plant it. For backyard growers, I have to recommend it with reservations. It is pretty disease prone so you must maintain a good spray schedule. But if you are in a very marginal situation such as being on one of the islands, it may be one of the few grapes you can grow. I’m on the hunt for a highly disease resistant white grape for our climate and I thought Phoenix might be it, but in the first year that I had fruit, they all split in a down pour. Not one other grape did that!

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Puget Sound Whites? Starting with Siegerrebe

Posted in hollywood hill vineyards, Roussanne, siegerrebe, wine on February 17, 2009| Leave a Comment »

(image courtesy of Cornell University)

The Valentine’s day Wine and Cheese event was a big hit. We had over 50 people in our tasting room sampling our Roussanne, Mourvedre and Syrahs. The cheese was excellent and I think everyone had a great time.

We just finished bottling our Roussanne last week. I think it will be a big hit this summer if you like nice crisp unoaked wines!

A word on the weather we’ve been having… We just had a really nice couple of weeks, but it has still been cooler than normal so look for a delayed bud break from Oregon throughout Washington state.

If you’ve been reading here for a while, I’ve not talked about much white grapes. I guess the reason is that we have three fairly well established white grapes planted in many vineyards. Those are Siegerrebe, Madeleine Angevine and Muller-Thurgau. These vines were selected many years ago by a couple of intrepid growers in the late 1970s and they have stood the test of time.

I’m going to talk first about Siegerrebe (Zieg-ar-RAY-beh). Siegerrebe is one of the earliest of the grapes to ripen in the Puget Sound, only Madeleine Sylvaner ripens earlier. Siegerrebe ripens in early to mid September, in fact it can ripen so early we can make a late harvest wine here in the Puget Sound with it.

Siegerrebe was bred by George Scheu in 1929 in Alzey, Germany. He crossed Gewurztraminer and Madeleine Angevine I’m sure to have an earlier ripening Gewurztraminer style wine. Since Madeleine Angevine is pretty neutral, most of the flavor comes from the Gewurz parent. It tastes like a watered down Gewurtraminer, but that’s not a bad thing, in my opinion many Gewurztraminer can be a bit overpowering. It is more delicate than Gewurztraminer and makes an exceptional off-dry styled wine very similar to an Alsatian Gerwurztraminer. As I mentioned before it ripens so early here in the Puget Sound some years that we can make a late harvest dessert style wine from it. Bainbridge Island Vineyards has been making a late harvest Siegerrebe for many years and I have to say it is one of the best late harvest wines I have ever had. We have to thank Gerard Bentryn for being the first one to really plant Siegerrebe in the Puget Sound and promoting it. Now there are about six or seven wineries growing it on a commercial scale.

So how does it perform in the vineyard? I have not grown it much myself, although I am starting to plant about 1/4 acre of it for a late harvest desert wine project. We did have about 100 vines of it when I was at Maury Island Vineyards. It doesn’t have the overly vigorous nature that Gewurtraminer can have, (BTW, I would never plant it unless it was on rootstock to devigor the vines) it is still pretty vigorous and produces small clusters of grapes. Like I mentioned before, it is usually the first vine to ripen here, but can stay on the vine for a month or so to make a late harvest wine, sometimes with botrytis like a Sauternes. It has thin skins and wasps can be a problem in dry years when they try to suck the juice out of the berries.

Would I recommend planting it if you were starting a vineyard? Maybe, there are several caveats to why I haven’t planted it. I’ve been shooting for more of a Burgundy styled vineyard instead of a German one. Siegerrebe, Madeleine Angevine and Muller-Thurgau are mainly German grapes (Madeleine, although French in origin is used a lot in Germany). Having said that, I really love the late harvest wine that Bainbridge makes so I’m going to try my hand at it. I’ll have a crop in about two or three years. If I had more land, like 10 acres, I would have have it as part of a deversified vineyard and use it for a blend or by itself. 2008 was a year where I wish I had more diversification because the harvest was sooo late that Siegerrebe would’ve helped salvage something from the vintage.

The other big reason in the Puget Sound AVA to plant Siegerrebe is that it does ripen so early that it is useful in very marginal climates. The San Juan Islands and when you are located very close to the water it may be the only grape that ripens naturally.

All in all, it’s a good grape if you are in the Puget Sound and your location is too cool for some of the later grapes like Pinot Gris, Chardonnay or even Muller-Thurgau.

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