Friends of Gardening--The Fruit of the Vine--Harvest Moon Vineyard at Kincaid

By Gwen Podeschi, Christian County Master Gardener

Cooling September nights signal the end to another Illinois growing season, with farmers waiting out the rains in order to bring in the harvest. Frank Maras is in the process of completing his tenth harvest of a crop not usually found on the rich prairie soil of Christian County—grapes. "Our first plants went in the ground in 1999. I'm not sure why I started the vineyard. Out of the blue one winter, I got to thinking about doing something a little different and did some research. My granddad moved to California and grew grapes there, but I don't know if that's what really inspired me." At the time Frank and his father put their first plants in the ground there were around seven wineries in the state. There are now over seventy, but the Maras family hasn't joined this group. "My full-time job as mechanical electrical engineer doesn't allow me the time to go into wine-making. So we grow the grapes and market them." Customers include wineries throughout Illinois.

"Illinois vintners have been taking wines to California and competing out there. They're bringing back gold medals," he says proudly. "We're told, 'You grow grapes [in Illinois] that aren't grown anywhere else and they make good wines that are unique.'" A two-acre vineyard is tucked into the soybean fields just north of Kincaid, consisting mainly of three varieties of grapes, Foch (red), Seyval and Vidal (both white). It's said that grapes don't really like fertile soils, but Frank's biggest caveat is that they don't like wet feet. His own fields appear to be full of happy vines.

The vineyard was christened Harvest Moon Vineyard in 2001 and Frank's wealth of knowledge about viniculture has increased through the years. Frank, senior, lives close by and takes on a lot of the day-to-day care of the plants. The vines are planted in blocks and supported on a wire and post trellis system, with green netting protecting the crop from winged critters.

"We seem to have an unspoken agreement with the deer," Frank explains. They bed down in the ravine and they'll go after new plants like crazy, but they've left the tops of the established vines alone and so it works out all right so far." Japanese beetles are more of a challenge. He laments, "If we could only train them to do the leaf-thinning [essential to directing the vine's strength into the fruit and into encouraging a crop that is ready for harvest] the way we want it, it wouldn't be too bad." Recently, he's been experimenting with applications of milky spore to discourage the insects and is evaluating its effectiveness. "We've learned a lot about their life-cycles, and the waves they seem to come in," he says of the pesky insects.

February begins the active growing season at Harvest Moon. Pruning takes place in the first or second week of that month. Weeds are kept under control with a mower. "When we first started, we were mulching the vines, but that's way too labor intensive." Working in the vineyard is a chance for Frank to get away from the humdrum of telephones and office life. By August/September, the grapes are ready to harvest. Not all of the crop goes to wineries, though. "Some folks come out with five-gallon buckets to get enough to make jelly and jam," he says. "We have some orphan rows—varieties that we've tried and decided not to plant more of. In fact, we have a row of Swanson Red table grapes that has really taken off in the last couple of years. We started seven rows of these and they didn't seem to want to go anywhere, so we took out six. My dad likes to have these for gifts and special treats for friends and family."

Recent rains have caused a bit of concern for the Maras team. Their vines take up part of the farm acreage that lends itself to vineyards (hillsides are great), but a lot of rainfall dilutes the fruit's juice and messes with the sugar and acid content that is so important in the quality of the final product. When asked about the ingredients that will produce a certain type of wine, Frank just says, "That's all part of the wine-maker's magic."

I learned a bit more about the technology used to evaluate grapes from home wine-maker Dennis Lynch of Taylorville. He told me that experienced vintners use a tool much like a kaleidoscope to evaluate the juice for sugar and acid content. The juice is placed in the device and held up to the sunlight, and the resulting appearance tells the story of a grape's quality.

"I got a lot of my basic supplies from a Springfield store early on, but there are great online sites now, too." He starts most of his wines from kits, but he has worked before with unpasteurized apple juice from an orchard near Sullivan. (Pasteurization kills the bacteria necessary for wine production.) Dennis has a corner of his basement reserved for his wine-producing operation. Good friend Tommy Altersberger from Pana introduced Dennis to homemade wine and winemaking. "He used to bring some wine along to deer camp. I was interested and my first kit was a Christmas present from my wife." He has experimented a little with combining different fruits, like blackberries, but mostly stays with the more traditional grape kits. "That first kit was white zinfandel and we enjoyed it for Thanksgiving and Christmas."

"I'd like to be able to set a goal of making 150 bottles of wine every year," Dennis says. "It's supposed to take 60 to 90 days from starting the kit until the wine is ready to go into the bottles." Many of Dennis's products have familiar names—like merlot or cabernet sauvignon—but one of his favorites is the German wine Gewurtzraminer, the sweet white wine with the unpronounceable name! New supplies and equipment can be sought out online (visit www.eckraus.com for a good example of what can be found online). Once bottled, the wine is ready for family and friends, but Dennis recommends that the better merlots and cabernets age a minimum of one year in the bottle before being opened. Fruit wines have a shorter shelf life and should probably be consumed before their anniversary date. "I thought I'd try to keep a bottle of each wine I've made. I don't know if I have every single one, but I've tried." He spends winter days cleaning bottles and getting ready to start on the next year's wines.

Dennis strongly recommends "hopping on the wine trail" to visit the wineries of Illinois. He especially enjoys visiting the Southern Illinois area, where places like New Douglas and Alto Pass are becoming household words promoting the state's wine industry. It's a unique vacation experience that more Illinois folk should take advantage of.

"They say that the old coal miners used to pool their resources and buy a whole carload—that's rail car—of grapes, and get together to make wine," Dennis replies, when asked about home wine production. Local winemaking lore abounds in Christian County and one of the tales told around the county centers around the Italian immigrants in the Kincaid area. In the midlands, it seems that Illinois wine production has come full circle. The Mediterranean cultures where wine was born sent local vintners to the area in search of employment and opportunities found in America. With them they brought traditions of making and enjoying wine that have inspired modern growers and producers to put Illinois on the map of American vineyards and wineries. When you get a chance, enjoy an Illinois wine. You will be in for a pleasant surprise.

NOTE: I'm always looking for gardening stories and gardening friends to feature. If you know someone whose garden would be enjoyed by our readers, please let me know. Topics I'm hoping to cover in the fall and winter could include holiday plants, bird-feeding stories, and winter garden surprises. Thanks! My phone number is 824-5695.

Captions:

(bunch of grapes) Ripe Vidal grapes await the harvester's scissors at Harvest Moon Vineyard, Kincaid.

(pole) Frank Maras' vineyard covers a local hillside with plants supported by wood posts and wire trellises. Fine green net covers the crop to deter the birds from enjoying the grapes before they can go to the vintner for bottling.