alafarmnews

Alabama wineries foresee increased
demand for locally grown grapes
But the industry faces educational and legislative challenges

Randall Wilson, who along with his wife, Dana, owns White Oak Vineyards outside of Anniston, are now open to the public on Saturdays from 10 till 5 p.m. “Most people don’t realize what a technical process winemaking is. Making a wine you can be proud of for the retail market requires a lot more expertise than most people can imagine.

“It’s a very simple and natural process that is, at the same time, complicated and difficult to control. You can crush grapes and naturally occurring yeast on the skins start fermentation. Whether that fermented juice has a future as great wine or whether it spoils is a whole different story.

“I have to constantly monitor and adjust the sugar content, acid levels and several other parameters or I could end up with vinegar,” states Randall.

(L-R) Jahn Coppey of Wills Creek Vineyards, Kelly Bryant of Bryant Vineyard and host, Randall Wilson, tour the facilities during the grand opening of White Oak Vineyard. Each winery owner agrees that more grape growers are needed in Alabama to avoid them having to buy fruit out of state.

The physical change that wine grapes go through is a heat causing process; therefore, temperature control is also an essential element The physical change that wine grapes go through is a heat causing process; therefore, temperature control is also an essential element to good winemaking. “We’re underground here in the back of the winery; therefore, everything is kept at a constant temperature. In each tank there is a heat exchanger attached to a propylene glycol cooling unit. The temperature can be adjusted as it needs to be to properly ferment the wine. Specific wines require specific fermentation temperatures. For example, Cynthiana and Chambourcin grapes should be fermented at 65 to 75º and most white wines at 55º.”

Randall, who studied viticulture at California Polytechnic University, states that there is always some new and unforeseen task to tackle at a vineyard or a winery. “There are millions of things you have to do to make a little wine. You have to do everything the big wineries do only without the hired help. Each new crop brings its own set of learning experiences.”

You have to have top of the line equipment like electronic pH meters, bladder presses, crushing/de-stemming machines, juicing machines, musk pumps, plate filters, electronic cooling systems, bottling and labeling machines… and, on top of that, all the winery equipment is Italian made. Randall continued, “That’s about the only place you can find it and the instructions are written in Italian, which always makes putting something together that much more interesting.”

Randall points to a piece of equipment imported from Italy used to make the unique vintages people have come to expect from small wineries. The part of the winery holding these tanks is underground, thus keeping the room at a constant temperature.

The facility is also equipped with stainless steel tanks, brought in from the West Coast and Europe, with floating lids to keep contact with air to a minimum. These tanks vary in size from 57 gallons to 265 gallons with plans for 400-gallon tanks. “We try to buy everything else locally. For instance, we buy all our inputs for the vineyard from Calhoun Farmers Co-op; lime, fertilizer, fungicides, insecticides, wire, fence posts…the list goes on and on. Anything we need on the farm we can find at the Co-op.

All the wineries in the state have people that grow grapes for them, and we try to buy our grapes locally. Unfortunately, I had to buy grapes from Georgia this past year, and I wasn’t alone. I would much rather buy from an Alabama grower. Each winery in the state could use the grapes of 4 to 5 outside growers.

Janie Coppey, who with her husband, Jahn, owns Wills Creek Vineyards near Attalla opened their winery two years ago. Their tasting room is open to the public for free tasting on Fridays and Saturdays from 9 till 6 p.m. They are excited that an interest has been created for Alabama producers to grow grapes. “There is a fellow in Dekalb County who started planting 100 juice grapevines this year and could eventually plant as many as 100 acres of muscadine vines. A fellow who works part time with us in our vineyard has planted two acres on his own land. He’s planted Regal, Noble, Carlos and Magnolia grapes. For red wine we want the Regal and Noble, that is, when we can get our hands on them. There’s going to be more demand for grapes from new sources.

“We can’t produce enough on our property to make what the market demands. We were out of wine, lock, stock and barrel, for two months last year. We’re taking trips this summer to Alabama vineyards to see how they grow their fruit and possibly buy from them. We don’t want to buy from Georgia…we want Alabama fruit. Being out of wine for two months hurt us.”

Jahn Coppey pointed out that just recently he had someone phone him to say they needed 600 gallons of muscadine juice. “All I could say was ‘so do I.’” He continued, “I will pay $700 a ton for quality picked grapes. As far as profit potential for a producer goes, if you are hand harvesting it will cost you manual labor. Larger operations would use a mechanical harvester

(the Alabama Wineries and Grape Growers Association hopes to soon purchase a mechanical picker to be used by its members.)”

The Coppeys said that last year, off the first acre they planted five years ago and the three newly planted acres, they gathered 14,000 pounds of muscadines. Some of the older vines had 120 pounds per vine.

Randall added, “In theory, a person could plant 5 acres of muscadines, harvest five tons per acre, which is a good average for five to six year old plants, and get paid an average of $600 per ton. That’s $3,000 per acre before labor costs. Of course, you have to have a market for your product. If the grapes are grown properly, we are that market. Growing muscadines would be well worth the time and initial planting investment of a producer.

“All these wineries have to hire people to come do the labor. It’s a very labor-intensive industry. As sad a shape as our rural economy is in here in Alabama, we have a huge potential for growth and the more interest we can generate, the more potential we have to improve the lives of Alabama agriculture workers and of small Alabama farmers.

“We now have an association (The Alabama Wineries and Grape-growers Association) and have many people that want to open vineyards and/or wineries in Alabama. Without changing current laws, these people aren’t going to pursue the venture and the industry simply isn’t going to grow.”

In 1979, the Alabama Native Farm Winery Act was enacted to permit the establishment of wineries. The Act allowed for distribution of Alabama wines, to retail operations with licenses to sell wine, by the winery itself without the added expense of a wholesaler. This Act, in essence, put Alabama’s small wineries on a level playing field with the other wines of the world based on taste, quality and price by allowing the retail establishments to choose, not the giant wholesalers, which wines it sold. Unfortunately, it also put a bigger tax burden on wines from outside the state, a lawsuit followed and the Native Farm Winery Act was repealed.

Kelly Bryant, owner of Bryant Vineyard, near Talladega, regretted not forming the Association earlier. “We could have preserved the Farm Winery Act. A few of us took turns going to Montgomery to keep our cause alive but eventually the interest of the large distributors won out. The Federal government has a law in place for small wineries and a law in place for big wineries. All the state had to do to preserve the Act was to adapt these laws but they chose instead to throw the whole thing out. The Wine Institute of California and their lobbyist had a lot of influence in that decision. The ironic thing is that we actually do the distributors a favor by being in business because we create a bigger interest in quality wine. Instead of being grateful, they want to put their foot on our heads.” Bryant Vineyards tasting room is open to the public on Saturdays from 9 till 5 p.m.

Jahn agreed, “It is amazing that the largest winery in the world with 75 million cases in sales a year feels threatened and want to put us out of business.”

Randall continued, “Marketing flexibility is very important to these small wineries. We’re not about to let this issue go by the wayside. If our industry is going to grow, we’ve got to have some laws that don’t necessarily have to benefit the small guy but that should at least be neutral and not favor the wholesalers.

“There are two bills in the House and Senate right now that are very important to us. One of them has to do with the licensing fee that did pass the subcommittee of travel and tourism and, to date, I don’t know whether it’s been voted on by the full house yet. It looks like it will pass. The other bill, that has to do with the retail sales issue, was protested by the wholesalers, with their argument being that if we are allowed to sell to retailers then a big wine conglomerate from California can come and buy me out and circumvent the wholesale system. That idea is completely ridiculous and there is no case where that has occurred in the country. The last word I got from Representative Stephen McMillan was that they want to negotiate with us. There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed. I’ve got a good legislator here in Lee Fite who sponsored the licensing fee issue; he did it and did a good job. We’ve got some good people on top of this retail sales issue.

“Another argument that the wholesalers have is that they have enough control to make sure wine doesn’t get into the hands of children. How is our selling directly to retailers going to change anything? The only safeguard they put on their product is the padlock that’s on the delivery truck. The reality of it is that wholesalers could care less about public safety. Who do you think the target is of that $3.25 bottle of wine that they sell is? Teenagers, that’s who. The wholesaler’s argument on public safety is total nonsense. They’re distorting the truth about under aged people drinking our wine to protect their monopoly in the state.”

Janie stated that in 2003 the (then four) Alabama wineries accounted for .06 percent of all the wine sold in the state. According to the American Vintners Association, 2,650 of US’s 2,700 wineries produce less than 5% of U.S. wine. Most of these smaller wineries are family-owned and operated.

“Another very important consideration for the state is tourism. Alabama is missing the boat on winery tourism. If you take a look at our tourist guest book, we have people from Hong Kong, Taiwan, South America, Canada, France, Australia, New Zealand, California, Oregon, Wyoming, Iowa, Mississippi, and New York… everywhere. And none of our wineries are that easy to find; we’re all out in the boonies. All these people take that special effort because of their interest in regional wines. There are people whose vacation route is dictated by where the vineyards are. People visit vineyards. Virginia has about 70 wineries. Last year these little wineries brought in about 90 million tourist dollars. That interest is here and Alabama can profit from it. Restaurants, motels, gas stations…everybody benefits from tourist dollars.”

Jahn pointed out, “Trans-resveratrol is the chemical in wine that cleans your arteries and keeps wine drinking Europeans from having as many heart problems as Americans. Health conscious people know that red wine, in moderation, is good for your health. Our wines have about 18 times more trans-reservation than French wines. We achieve this high percentage because we use the hulls in the maturation of the wine. This gives muscadine wine that earthy taste for which it is known and appreciated.”

Randall concluded, “Grape production is an important alternative agricultural enterprise in Alabama and wines are a good example of a value-added product. But Alabama grape growers and winemakers face some unique problems that will require further public education and involvement of additional growers to fully overcome.”

For more information about grape production, contact the following:

White Oak Vineyards, Choccolocco Valley, 256-231-7998

Bryant Vineyard, Talladega, 205-268-2638

Morgan Creek Vineyards, Harpersville, 205-672-2053

Perdido Vineyards, Perdido, 251-937-9463

Wills Creek Vineyard, Attalla, 256-538-5452

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