Page 12—Grower and Marketer, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, Dei
Winemaker ‘Glories’
Abound In Southeast
Pennsylvania Vineyard
ANDY ANDREWS
Lancaster Farming Staff
BAINBRIDGE (Lancaster
Co.) What glory is wine
making in the East?
Ask Bill Gulvin, winemaker
for Nissley Vineyards,
Bainbridge.
Gulvin, who’s been pressing
grapes into fine wines for 24
years, said the glory about East
winemaking is “the variety.”
Gulvin has spent years work
ing out solutions of the
drinking and marketing type
for consumer taste in the East,
in places a rural palette. For the
most part, people want
crimson-colored, “fruity”
wines.
“People want wines that are
simple to conceive and simple
to pronounce,” Gulvin said dur
ing a tour in October, near the
end of harvest season.
Gulvin noted that many of
Nissley Winery’s best-selling
wines are the sweet Rose's
(making up about 25 percent of
total sales), three native Ameri
can wines (Concord, Niagara,
and Fantasy), and the raspberry
and cherry wines.
The key is finding the right
varieties that will grow readily
with good fruit set and quality
under soil and environmental
conditions that can ordinarily
challenge many vineyards.
But for the consumer, Gulvin
said, it’s “much harder to find
good, well-made native Ameri
can wine that is sweet and
fruity.”
Mark Chien, Lancaster
based Penn State viticulture
agent, said the preference for
the sweet, fruity wines popular
at wineries such as Nissley is a
regional palette. But Nissleys
bottles wines that appeal to
even the classic urbanite “wine
snobs,” including such classic
dinner wines as Vidal Blanc,
Seyval Blanc, and
Chambourcin.
Chambourcin, Chien noted,
is one of the best wines in
Pennsylvania.
J. Richard Nissley founded
the vineyard and winery near
Bainbridge about 21 years ago.
I ne best wine—called “free run”—comes out first,
before the wine press is activated. Some wineries
separate this Juice from the rest and market it as pre
mium wine.
The former bridge contractor
started with a half acre on the
hilly, steep-sloping land with
good drainage common and
vital to quality wine grape
production.
. The business expanded to 46
acres in a short time. The estate
now encompasses more than
300 acres. Some of the build
ings at the vineyard originated
in the late 1700 s.
An old tobacco bam was
converted and an addition was
placed to expand the bam to a
press room and bottling plant.
Several experimental viney
ards were planted in 1972 using
an umbrella kniffen system,
using two wires with the canes
of the vines looping over top,
hanging like the name suggests
an “umbrella.” Wire bread
ties tie the canes.
Now the vineyards encom
pass 46 acres of grapes with 13
varieties and one seedless table
grape.
One acre of grapes, accord
ing to Chien, the viticulture
agent, can amount to a harvest
of 3-7 tons. Each ton yields
about 140-180 gallons of wine
and about 700-900 bottles of
vintage.
For the grower, it is impor
tant to select the right variety
for the right soil, environmental
conditions, and the right mark
et. Importantly is to watch for
disease and insect pressure,
Chien noted, and to fill up the
empty pockets in the rows.
“Any empty space is lost
revenue,” said Chien.
“We’ve been telling the
grape growers to fill it,” said
Tim Elkner, Lancaster County
horticulture agent, on a tour of
the vineyard in mid-October.
The type of wine produced
will depend on the strength of
the acid, pH, weather condi
tions at harvesting, the actual
fermenting process and the
steps involved, fermenting
materials in other words, lots
of factors.
The vineyard uses an over
the-row grape harvester.
Harvests begin in late August
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imber 11, 1999
After harvest, the grapes are moved to the press room by bins. The fruit is
shoveled into a device called the “crusher-stemmer,” which removes the
stems and crushes the berries. Mark Chien inspects the crusher-stemmer.
Some off the material that settles in the tanks, called tees, can _r pro
cessed using a complex Lees Filter. The material is pressed through the filter*
ing system to obtain additional juice.
The leftover material, or pomace, is transported to a simple manure spread
er. The material is spread at the vineyard. While the nutrient value is low,
according to Elkner of the extension office, the organic material makes a good
soil additive.