Winemaking in cottage country? (an excerpt)
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"One man who thinks he may have the key to grape wine success, for John Rufa and others, is Rufa’s pal Larry Paterson, a gruff, irreverent, and maniacal guy from Peterborough with wine on the brain. His calling card reads "Little Fat Wino," and he is the epitome of the non-traditional oenophile. Paterson on the subject of wine is like a bear on the subject of garbage, which is to say that while he gets the science of it, you sense that what he really wants to do is just roll around in the stuff. Paterson promised to blow my mind on the subject of cottage-country wine. He did not disappoint.
Paterson envisions hundreds of little cottage wineries growing grapes in all climates and making superb 100 per cent Ontario wines. How would these growers survive temperatures downwards of -35o C? Well, Paterson is a grower and his own grapes survive just fine, thank you very much. In fact he boasts of wine grapes that won’t even blink at -41o C.
Asked for a tour of these mystery vines, Paterson hops in his pickup, a twinkle in his eye, and suddenly we’re off. He’s fast but easy to follow, even along the curviest, hilliest Kawartha road. I just keep an eye out for the mud-caked ATV topped with the canoe he keeps strapped in his truckbed (when he’s not making, talking, or thinking wine, Paterson’s other passion is backwoods fishing). After half an hour of dirt road twists and turns, I’m pretty sure Paterson himself is lost when, suddenly, we’re at the outskirts of Peterborough, pulling up beside a small stand of vines. Paterson first walks me through a plot where he is trying, in vain it seems, to baby into life some European vinifera. No luck. The Pinot Noir is rotting on the vine, and the production is minimal to begin with, shocked and all but killed off by the harsh winds of winter ‘04/’05.
But then there’s the test plot of Minnesota hybrid grapes – vines developed in about as inhospitable climate as exists for the production of wine. These grapes are new breeds, so new they have numbers rather than names. Hybrid DM 8521-1 is the tough customer that survives -41o C in its home plot in Minnesota. These aren’t even what are known in the biz as “winter hardy” grapes; these are “winter? – you call that winter?” grapes. Paterson smiles his impish grin and hands me a grape off the vine. Mmmmm, that’s good 8521-1. And judging by the mini-winery in Paterson’s Peterborough basement, the science of coaxing subtle tones out of Minnesota hybrids is well underway.
The Little Fat Wino is too biased to give an honest opinion of his own hooch, and my tongue is nowhere near sophisticated enough to judge. Instead, I ask Richard Best, a renowned Ontario wine writer and educator, if he sees – well, tastes – a future for hybrid wines. Best begins by informing me that older and less hardy hybrid grapes have been making excellent wines for years. Chambourcin, Baco Noir, Vidal (the very popular icewine grape), and Seyval Blanc are all considered hybrids of European vinifera and North American vines. “When you do a DNA analysis,” he says, “you find all grapes are hybrids of some sort. Too bad there is so much prejudice against the French/American crosses.” And what of Paterson’s potential? “Larry is an tremendous winemaker,” Best says, implying that someday these Minnesota hybrids could develop into fine vintages, and Paterson’s mad scientist routine in his basement inspires hope for delicious, locally grown cottage-country wines.
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