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Bacchus would be proud as Missourians use autumn as an excuse to revel in wine-filled times with good friends.
While they celebrate, University of Missouri researchers work to improve vineyards and the product of the fruits of their labor.
“The grape and wine industry in Missouri is not just important because we’re manufacturing grapes and we’re making a product, but also because of its importance to tourism,” said Ingolf Gruen, director of the University of Missouri Institute for Continental Climate Viticulture and Enology (ICCVE). “A lot of people come to Missouri just for the purpose of going to bed-and-breakfasts, visiting wineries, tasting wine, so tourism is a large aspect of the wineries.”
MU ICCVE faculty research and teaching teams work on viticulture (grape production) and enology (wine production), involving students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
The Missouri Wine and Grape board uses a tax on every bottle of wine to help support this effort for the future of the industry in Missouri. Success in wine starts on the vine.
The ICCVE hopes to pinpoint new cultivars that offer the best in both traits like disease resistance and taste when those grapes are transformed into wine. The research is currently in its third year of a 7-year study to evaluate 70 new varieties.
The long span of time will balance out the impact of Missouri’s variable weather on vines, and wine taste tests each spring aim to measure the palatability of a crop.
“We identify varieties that perform well in all different extremes of weather, and we’re going to get high-quality lines out of those grapes,” said Marco Li Calzi, MU researcher and enology program leader. “I’m pretty confident that we’re going to have some answers about potential grapes and new varieties that can be grown here in Missouri.”
Missouri wine and grape growers produced more than $1.6 billion in total economic value to the state in 2009, almost triple of what it made in 2005, according to an ICCVE study.
Yet, Missouri’s continental climate presents significant challenges for grape production. Temperatures that range from extreme cold to blistering heat increases the need for hardy grape varieties that also resist mildew and fungal diseases.
At the same time, varieties need to fully ripen in Missouri weather and develop proper acidity to preserve freshness and taste in the end product.
“It is very expensive for grape growers to experiment, so that’s a service we do for the wine industry, and our purpose is to serve the Midwest wine industry,” Li Calzi said. “With every new vintage you don’t know what to expect, and there’s quite a large variability from vintage to vintage and this makes wine very fascinating.”
With any luck, these new varieties will join Missouri grape mainstays like Norton and Chardonel, adding to Missouri’s distinctive wine palate. Experimental wines created at ICCVE also look to expand Missouri wine tastes.
Li Calzi draws on his Italian heritage to adapt winemaking styles like that used to make Italian Amarone. To make this wine he dries grapes on mesh racks for about a month until they dry to a particular sugar concentration. This creates a rich wine with an alcohol concentration around 15 percent, higher than normal.
“All the components in the grapes are concentrated, which make it a full bodied wine with aging potential that is very long,” Li Calzi said. “Some Amarone’s last for 20 years, and I think by using local grapes we can make an wonderful product.”
Li Calzi said that new wines like this have potential to broaden the love of Missouri wine, adding the breadth of drier, less sweet wines to Missouri’s current wine menu.
“The first approach to wine usually is when people start drinking sweet wine, but after they keep having interesting wine they eventually become dry wine drinkers,” he said. “We’re trying to improve the culture of the wine, but also educate students, growers and people.”
Find out more about MU ICCVE at http://iccve.missouri.edu.
(University of Missouri telvision producer Kent Faddis wrote and produced this piece.)
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