Apologies for the long delay in uploading; life has again been rather rough of late. If you want to help out, you can toss a coin to the Wine Monk over at our Patreon page. Anyway, onto the show!
We’ve visited Florida once already for something rather strange, Avocado Wine, but it’s time we return, and try something equally strange and wonderful: the Blanc De Fleur from San Sebastian Winery. This is something truly unique and astonishing: a sparkling wine made from muscadine varietals, and one with very low residual sugar at that! The gang found this wine to be a fabulous summer sparkler, and we quickly tried to figure out just which Florida Man article to pair this wine with… or even, if this wine was a Florida Man headline, what would it be?
The Blanc de Fleur was made in the Traditional Method, which we discussed in our episode featuring the RJR Brut Cuvée. However, this wine is not quite as dry as the Brut; we never really sat down to figure out where this wine would sit on the scale of sweetness vs. dryness… because this wine was that tasty.
The Blanc De Fleur from San Sebastian Winery in Florida is a fun Classic Method sparkling wine made mostly from Carlos, one of the most common Muscadine varietals.
Welcome to Episode 49 of the Make America Grape Again Podcast, where we explore The Palmetto State, South Carolina. Our wine focus for this episode is the Lowcountry Red from Deep Water Vineyard, located on Wadmalaw Island. The Lowcountry Red is made from 100% Ison grapes; a red muscadinevarietal, grown in Charleston County, South Carolina. In this episode, featuring Peter and Sophia Gardner, we focus not only on the history of wine in South Carolina, but upon the use and theology of wine within the Eastern Orthodox Church which the three of us have in common. You see, Ison–the grape varietal used in this vintage–shares the same name as a major feature of Byzantine Chant… We also talk about synesthesia and wine tasting, which is a fascinating examination of just how subjective wine description can be-complete with how this wine tastes in song form.
The modern wine industry of South Carolina begins in 1953, with the establishment of Tenner Brothers, which focused on muscadine varietals. Next to open was Truluck vineyards in 1978. The owner, Jim Truluck, was instrumental in getting a farm winery bill passed in 1980, which allowed tastings and sales of wine on estate premises. Despite this, he closed his winery in December of 1990. Most ambitious was the attempt made by Oakview Plantation in Woodruff; to make a 600,000-gallon winery. Sadly, as this was prior to the farm winery bill, wholesalers opposed the winery. Montmorenci vineyards opened in Aiken in July 1990, and as of the writing of Wines of Eastern North America, by Hudson Cattell, was the oldest still-operating winery in the state. Deep Water Vineyard, formerly Irvin-House Vineyard, opened in 2012, and is situated on 48 acres of muscadine varietals.
Wine in South Carolina, like most of the deep south, is a difficult proposition. Hot and humid summers require growers to adapt their forms of canopy management so as to minimize direct sunlight on the grapes, Furthermore, these grapes are often harvested earlier in the summer, to avoid possible risk from Hurricanes which can strike later in the season. This humid climate in the lowlands of South Carolina means that most grapes grown in the state are muscadine varietals (such as in this particular case). There are also many fruit wines being made in the state. A few vineyards located in the mountains are growing vinifera varietals. Currently, the state has approximately 21 wineries, and there are no American Viticultural Areas in South Carolina.
This bottle was kindly donated for use in the podcast by Deep Water Vineyard themselves after I reached out to them. Thank you for providing this fantastic vintage!
The Lowcountry Red from Deep Water Vineyards is made from 100% Ison, sourced from their estate vineyard on Wadmalaw Island.
Welcome to our 31st episode, featuring Louisiana! In this episode, we will be drinking the Redneck Red, from Landry Vineyards. The Redneck Red is a non-vintage Muscadine wine (a species we met the last episode), made specifically from a Muscadine varietal known as Noble. Noble, I’ve noticed, is also often spelled as ‘nobel’ by many wineries in the deep south, but the two seem to be interchangeable.
The history of Louisiana wine began in the mid-eighteenth century, when wines were made by Jesuit priests for use in the Eucharist. No records survive of what these wines were made of, or how good they were. The main focus of the wine industry in the area seems to have been around orange wine–that is, wine made from oranges, rather than grapes, in Plaquemines Parish. The last of these wineries, Les Orangers Louisianais, closed in 1987. This winery closed due to a combination of a hard freeze killing their orange trees, the end of a $1000 exemption in State licensing fees, and the passing of a law that forbade wineries from selling their products at the wholesale and retail markets: state-sponsored prohibition in action. Three years later, this prohibition was ended through the passing of the 1990 Native Wines act, which once again allowed wine sales at retail and off-licensed premises. Today, thanks to this law, there are four commercial wineries in Louisiana that collectively produce about 20,000 gallons (75,000 liters) of wine per year. There are, as of yet anyway, no American Viticultural Areas in the state of Louisiana.
The climate of Louisiana is extremely hot and humid, and viticulturists in the state face Pierce’s disease, powdery mildew, and various other grapevine diseases. Many of these maladies strongly affect vinifera wines more than other varietals, which is why most varietals grown in the state of Louisiana are Muscadine or French-American Hybrid strains; most vinifera wines are made from juice or grapes imported from out of state. Both of these aspects will be discussed further in later episodes focusing on Louisiana.
I acquired this bottle online through the winery website.
The Redneck Red is our introduction to the Muscadine varietal Noble.
Welcome to Episode 30 of the Make America Grape Again Podcast, where we explore North Carolina through the lens of one of the most unique indigenous grape species in the US: Muscadine! Specifically, we drink the Hinnant Family Vineyards Scuppernong, made and grown near Pine Level, North Carolina. The Scuppernong grape, as it turns out, is also the state fruit of North Carolina.
Muscadine grapes consist of various varietals within a unique genus of grape known as Muscadinia rotundifolia (although some botanists disagree that it should be a separate genus… but I’m going to trust whatever Gary, our resident botanist says on the subject.) Native to the American Southeast, Muscadines have been cultivated extensively for fruit, juice, and wine production for hundreds of years. Indeed, the oldest cultivated grapevine in the world is a Scuppernong vine in Roanoke, Virginia, known as the Mother Vine. It should also be noted that Scuppernong is one of the most abundant Muscadine varietals used for winemaking.
North Carolina has a vibrant winemaking history. In the mid-19th Century, there were some 25 wineries in North Carolina, with extensive independent vineyards, to such an extent that North Carolina dominated the national market for American wines at the time. The American Civil War ended that market dominance, via damage to the industry through the loss of manpower and scarce capital, alongside various revocation of winemaking licenses due to regulatory retribution following the war. Prohibition killed the final bits of the wine industry in North Carolina until the industry was born again in the 1950’s.
This revitalization began with the Scuppernong grape itself; when ten farmers in Onslow County planted twenty-five acres of this historic grape as the result of a promise made by an out-of-state winery. This winery canceled the agreement when the grapevines started to produce, and so Raymond A. Harsfield opened a winery, called Onslow Wine Cellars, located at Holly Ridge. Scuppernong lead the charge in the rebirth of the wine industry in North Carolina, with French-American hybrid varietals following in their wake. The first Vinifera grapevines were planted in North Carolina in 1980. Today, the North Carolina wine industry is booming, with four American Viticultural Areas (Haw River Valley AVA, Swan Creek AVA, Upper Hiwassee Highlands AVA, and the Yadkin Valley AVA), over 400 vineyards, and around 200 separate wineries. Indeed, today North Carolina ranks tenth in both grape and wine production in the United States.
This bottle was acquired from Total Wine in Phoenix by yours truly, and there is an amusing anecdote associated with this bottle–find out more in the podcast! The podcast also now has a Patreon: check it out here if you wish to support our habit of talking about what we drink.
Gary is in his happy place with our North Carolina wine of choice for season one: the Hinnant Family Vineyards Scuppernong brings back fond memories.
Make America Grape Again Podcast 