Fairhaven Vineyards plants old vines for a new life in eastern Texas

VINEYARD
.L. Winters is holding forth in
his tasting room, a plain but
pleasant Morton Building situated
off Highway 80 in East Texas,
just a couple miles west of Big
Sandy. Not Big Sandy the rockabilly
guy, but Big Sandy, Texas, where
Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith
was born. But there isn't much
about Winters that mirrors those
sorts of Texas clichés (football,
wild rockabilly music); he's intense
about his vineyards and winery, yet
he's not boastful and doesn't spin
any tall tales.
Like any other vintner with a
new winery roof over his head,
a young vineyard outside and a
nascent business to hatch, Winters
is earnest about what he has, and
focused upon what he hopes to
accomplish. It's not like viticulture
in Texas is easy, but he didn't try to
plant his Fairhaven Vineyards brand
among the more recognizable soils
46 VINEYARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT NOV - DEC 2011
of the Texas Hill Country or the
Texas High Plains, the two bestknown
AVAs in the state.
Starting in 2004, Winters began
planting grapes that others had
forgotten or never known, varieties
that he believed held the key to
Texas' present and future vinous
hopes. He did it far away in eastern
Texas, at a spot that's closer to
Louisiana than Dallas, and is even
FAIRHAVEN VINEYARDS AND WINERY
Opened: 2009
Location: Hawkins, Texas, in the Sabine River Valley
R.L. Winters of Fairhaven
Vineyards sees a future for
forgotten varieties in Texas.
Photo: Sam Smead Photocreative
By Doug Frost MS, MW
Fairhaven Vineyards plants old vines for a new life in eastern Texas
farther away from the state's top
wineries and vineyards. Maybe he
wanted to head off to a quiet corner
and work this thing out before he
got boisterous about it.
But if there's no typical Texas
braggadocio to him, there is still
a determined spirit. Winters has
a story to tell: He's got vines that
nobody else has, and he wants to
tell people how this came to be.
Principals: R.L. Winters, owner/winemaker; Elena Koulich, consulting enologist
Vineyards: 15 acres planted, with expansion acreage solely devoted to American
hybrids
Production: 1,150 cases in 2010, with production for 2011 projected at about the
same level, in spite of the drought.
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TASTING THE FUTURE
A tasting at Fairhaven tells the
story of where the winery started
and where it’s headed.
When Winters pours his wines
for visitors, he begins with the
well-known varieties. He's got a
pleasant little chardonnay, evenly
weighted between tropical notes
and tangy citrus. His cabernet sauvignon
2010 is clean and fruity, with
a little bit of sweetness masking
the tannins that the grape so often
over-delivers in Texas. There is a
merlot blend called Ariadne that's
dusty-dry as well, yet carries fresh
red cherry fruitiness, too. The Callisto
Rose is a fun blend of herbal,
minty syrah and sangiovese.
Along with mainstream varieties like merlot,
Fairhaven produces several hybrids.
Photo: Sam Smead Photocreative
Next he moves into the hybrids,
such as seyval blanc, blanc du bois,
chambourcin and Norton, and each
one is correct, fruity, fresh and not
at all marred by overt vegetal hybrid
character. The Fairhaven Blanc du
Blanc (a 50-50 blend of blanc du
bois and seyval blanc) offers some
light and lively seyval blanc notes,
but as Winters pointed out, "Seyval
dies like flies from Pierce's.”
Chambourcin is bottled on its
own and also in a blend called
Aliona, with some strawberry
extract. He uses chambourcin
to make a Port-style wine called
Circe. "But chambourcin goes
down to Pierce's disease like a
rock," Winters noted. "It even gets
black rot."
Pierce's disease is endemic in
Texas. Everybody knows it, but
hardly anybody likes talking about
it because the industry still isn't
quite sure how to deal with it, or
if things are getting better, or if
they're going to get worse. Winters
has his own answer in the next
set of wines he shows me – and it
involves some varieties that most
folks have never heard of before.
After pouring a Norton for dramatic
pause, Winters brings out
the 2010 Lomanto. The wine is
everything I'd hoped it would be:
bright cherry and plum notes with
texture, structure and flesh.
He follows with nitodal. Nitodal?
Yep, it's another grapevine Winters
has propagated from among the
Thomas Volney Munson hybrids
found here and there in central
Texas, and it's another vine he
is trying to coax into commercial
life. Munson (1843-1913), a Texas
grape breeder and the genius who
more or less rescued the wine
world from phylloxera, bred more
than 200 such hybrids, including
nitodal. Fairhaven’s Nitodal 2010
gushes with fruit: black raspberry,
black currants and something like
black currant leaves.
e-mail: sue.rak@doubleavineyards.com
BREEDING ‘SUPER VINES’
Winters is working on creating
as many clean versions of these
grapevines as he can, along with
clones of black Spanish. He's studied
Munson's books and papers,
and is trying to learn to breed vines
DOUBLE A
VINEYARDS, INC.
VINEYARD
GROWERS OF QUALITY
GRAPEVINES
We grow a full line of American, Hybrid, Vinifera and Seedless
grapevines. Call for our catalog or to place an order today.
We now also carry Blue-X vine shelters. Call for a sample.
Currently taking orders for the Spring of 2012.
phone: (716) 672-8493 fax: (716) 679-3442
website: www.doubleavineyards.com
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VINEYARD
that can survive and even prosper
in Texas' often-unforgiving climate.
Like most Texas growers, Winters
began with vinifera, then
moved away from it due to "a lack
of ability of the vine to adapt to
the heat, humidity and Pierce's."
But only a few hours to the north
in Denison is the Munson Memorial
Vineyard, founded in 1975 at
Grayson County College, and many
of Munson's creations still thrive
there.
"I stumbled onto them,” Winters
explained. “In 2004, we started
researching their Pierce's disease
tolerance; they have no specific
resistance, unlike blanc du bois.
The bacteria can live in the plant
body but the plant has few symptoms.
We looked in very great
depth at what Munson had done
and tried to follow back to the
source vines. Out of 270 cultivars
that he bred, there were about 150
that had good potential for winemaking."
Still, Winters said, "A lot of the
evidence was anecdotal. We were
working from notes taken more
than 100 years ago." He searched
the backyards of hobby growers,
too, and found more Munson vines,
some "scrounged from collectors
of obscure vines from all over the
country."
HIS IDEAL VINEYARD
This may be the role Winters
was meant to play: As a master horticulturist,
his education, career and
passion have always been for plant
breeding, and, he said, "There are
several plants that are perfect for
breeding, like day lilies and grapevines.
I enjoy wine and I wanted
to do breeding and I love research,
so this is everything rolled into one
line."
The land, purchased in 1998, is
ideal, too: "I felt the gentle sloping
topography, the soil type (24 inches
of sandy loam over deep beds
of pure sand) and the potential to
deliver large quantities of surface
water were definitely there,” Winters
explained. “The soft breeze
that works its way through the
vineyard from the south valley, the
48 VINEYARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT NOV - DEC 2011
Winters (left) supervises the placement of one of Fairhaven’s new hybrids in field trials.
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wildlife, the incredibly high water
quality, the wildflowers that flourish
on the north perimeter, all of
it adds up to a place born to raise
wine grapes."
Well, that depends upon which
grapes. Vitis vinifera falls to
Pierce's disease, but another species,
Vitis lencecumii, grows wild in
the surrounding hills; Munson used
that species in his own research.
Even Albert Siebel, creator of so
many of the best-known French-
American hybrids, utilized Vitis
lencecumii in his work. Winters'
plant science knowledge has aided
him in the rescue and/or development
of "about 200 new varieties.
We use a strict regime of a 122°F
hot water bath for 25 minutes, followed
by a direct application of
3% IBA (indole butyric acid)," he
explained. The propagation beds
are bottom-heated with high-pressure
mist irrigation. Winters’ antiviral
treatments are also believed
by some to destroy the Pierce's
bacteria, but that's still speculation.
Grapes are hand-harvested, with
average yields of 4-6 tons per acre.
"Routinely, we will sort up to half of
any given harvest," Winters said,
"to separate the most pristine of
the clusters for whole cluster fermentation."
Reds are fermented at
around 82°F and the whites at 60°F.
Reds are fermented with Lalvin
ICV D254; the whites are produced
using Lalvin K1 (V1116). The high
TA levels endemic to hybrids are
partially controlled through malolactic
fermentation.
VINEYARD
"In keeping with our devotion to
things related to the history of the
American hybrid," Winters said, "we
have limited our production to new
American oak barrels."
Fairhaven Vineyards added a winery to its operations less than two years ago. Winters
uses only American oak barrels. Photo: Sam Smead Photocreative
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VINEYARD
In addition to grape and wine
production, the business has
expanded to include a grape vine
nursery and a thriving vineyard
design and installation business;
Winters has clients throughout
Texas.
A TOUGH YEAR
With the contributions of his
consulting enologist, Elena Koulich,
things have gone well for Winters
in the slightly less than two years
since he opened the winery side
of Fairhaven Vineyards. The winery
has won a number of awards
for well-known hybrids like chambourcin;
the Dallas Morning News
wine competition gave the Lomanto
a bronze medal last year, and it's all
helped to attract visitors and shoppers.
But 2011 has been cataclysmic
for the vineyard, with record heat
and drought. "We've lost about
50 VINEYARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT NOV - DEC 2011
An average cluster of Lomanto weighs
14.5 ounces, while some come in at an
astounding 18 ounces.
60% of the crop," Winters said.
"We cannot get enough water to
the plants, and with such intense
sunlight, it literally cooked the
grapes on the vines. We did our
canopy shaping and thinning, and
the only reason we got the Norton
grapes that we did was that we let
the vines sprawl. We literally have
100-year-old native trees standing
dead in the woods, and every passing
week there are more and more
of them, even the really big trees.
The wood has lost its resilience.
Some of the native weeds have
died.
"We've lost some of the hybrids,"
Winters added. "We will be able to
replace them, but it's heartbreaking
to go through all this work and lose
them to the sun."
FROM PAST TO FUTURE
Winters said he believes that
with these plants, "All the genet-
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ics are there to come up with a
highly Pierce's-tolerant new grape
variety for the two-thirds of our
state that has Pierce's." Some of
these grapes are the same varieties
– now forgotten – that produced
wines before Prohibition: extra,
nitodal, delicatessen, armalaga,
Mrs. Munson. "Those seem to be
the best potential varieties," Winters
said, and he is convinced that
Lomanto's history in Texas, even if
unknown to all but a few, proves its
hardiness in this rugged place.
Winters has decided that his
future and Texas' viticultural future
are the same, and that he must
convince other Texans to adopt
these vines in order for everyone
to move forward. With this idea in
mind, his vineyard work has grown
into a nursery business. (It might
even keep things in the black while
he's waiting for the Fairhaven
brand to take off). Winters calls his
grapevines the Heritage Series: "A
pioneering effort to create superhybrid
grapes."
OK, there may be a touch of
good ol' Texas hyperbole in that
description, but these are grapes
that have proved themselves
against heat, drought and Pierce's
disease, even crawling through this
year of hell. Though they have lan-
New vine production in 2010 was at 186,000 1-gallon containers. Fairhaven uses container
production to extend the planting season for the new vines to 12 months in
most Southern states. The attrition rate for these containers is less than 3%.
guished for a century, ever since
Munson cared for them, the greatest
evidence is that they're still
alive – and there’s something to be
said for that. If those varieties don’t
work out, Winters has plenty more:
wine king, America, Jaeger, Sala-
VINEYARD
do and Wynona. Any one of them
could prove to be of great benefit
to the Texas industry, or maybe
even to other states. Or maybe not.
It isn’t that there aren't tasty
versions of better-known vinifera
wines grown in Texas. There
are, but there are already millions
of liters of vinifera grapes grown
in other places that can be just as
tasty (or tastier or more age-worthy),
and at prices that suggest that
Texas may not be growing grapes
such as chardonnay or cabernet
with the same gusto a few decades
hence.
Winters’ stubborn determination
to find success through little-known
varieties, planted in new locations,
demonstrates a new sense of energy
and purpose among Texan winemakers.
As vast as AVAs such as the
Texas Hill Country are, they still represent
only a piece of the state, and
surely each region will find its own
solutions to the challenges presented
in the vineyards. Fairhaven
seems to be working things out for
its little plot of East Texas, and that
work could end up being beneficial
in other regions where Pierce's disease
is a threat to wine.
Doug Frost, MW, MS, is a Kansas
City author who has written three
books – Uncorking Wine (1996), On
Wine (2001), and the Far From Ordinary
Spanish Wine Buying Guide
(2011) – in addition to writing about
wine and spirits for many national
publications. He is also the wine
and spirits consultant for both United
Airlines and Continental Airlines.
Comments? Please email us at
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