Interesting News
This doesn’t look like much, but that doesn’t make it any less unusual.
Mount Pleasant Winery’s farmers plant the final rows of Pinot Noir at Campo de los Vientos.
And here’s the full press release:
MOUNT PLEASANT WINERY PLANTS THE REGION’S “UNGROWABLE” GRAPE
After More Than a Decade, Missouri Winery Plans to Produce Pinot Noir
Despite the belief that Missouri is not suitable to grow Pinot Noir and Mount Pleasant Winery’s past trials in growing this finicky grape, the winery has reason to believe they can successfully produce Pinot Noir, the most difficult wine grape to grow. After an incredibly wet spring, the winery was finally able to plant its Pinot Noir vines the week of June 23, 2008. Growing Pinot Noir is an experimental, specialized five-year investment for the winery.“Growing Pinot Noir may be a challenge, but I believe it is worth the risk,” said Chuck Dressel, president of the winery. “Pinot Noir is the diva of the grape world. However, I have confidence in our vineyard crews, winemaking personnel and the growing site.”
Pinot Noir’s very specific growing requirements include warm days and cool nights. Missouri’s sweltering summer climate and freezing winters have long been deemed unsuitable to produce a successful Pinot Noir crop.
When Mount Pleasant Winery produced Pinot Noir in the early nineties, Dressel believed it was one of the best wines they had ever produced. Yet, as many predicted with Pinot Noir in Missouri, the crop lasted only a few years. The freeze in the winter of ‘96 wiped out the crop. Since then, Mount Pleasant has searched for an ideal place to grow Pinot Noir in the Augusta American Viticulture Area.
After more than a decade, the winery has found the ideal spot to grow the fastidious grape. They call the site Campo de los Vientos. It is on a very high hill with great sun exposure and a wonderful air current. The excellent location, combined with changing weather patterns, makes Mount Pleasant’s winemakers very optimistic for producing a delicious Pinot Noir.
“Campo de los Vientos sits above the morning dew that settles into the valley and never seems to get the ‘mugginess’ that St. Louis knows so well,” said Dressel. “Due to the lack of humidity up on the field, we can get the desirably cooler nights that can really make a difference during the ripening season.”
Mount Pleasant is the largest Missouri winery to practice sustainable viticulture, an integrated system of wine grape growing that is economically viable, socially supportive and ecologically sound. Because of Mount Pleasant’s sustainable practices, the winery is counting on the soil having better nutrient levels and better water holding capacity to help the vines survive.
“I guess you could call us rebels,” said Mark Baehmann, vice president of winemaking & vineyard operations. “Some may say it can’t be done, but we believe we can grow a great Pinot Noir.”
Tags: Mount Pleasant Winery, Pinot Noir
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July 16th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Ooooh!!! Well, I love Mount Pleasant, and I love Pinot Noir, too bad I’ll have to wait a few years to try it…..
July 21st, 2008 at 8:24 pm
It’ll be interesting to see if they can grow this grape. I toured the location a few months ago and it’s pretty ideal for Pinot Noir however it will ultimately be the weather that dictates the success of the Pinot.
Best of luck to Mark and his staff.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:55 am
That’s pretty interesting, this has definitely been a strange year for grape growing. Our nortons are looking magnificent right now, we should be harvesting about the 2nd or 3rd weekend of September hopefully. They were looking quite iffy after the incredible rains we experienced. They sure have bounced back though.
We planted some seyval earlier this spring after the majority of the heavy rain and they have exploded, I assume we’ll be expanding that project next spring:)
I’ll be forwarding this article, thanks for posting it.