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Horton Vineyards' winemaker Mike Heny tastes a small portion of the 2004 Norton wine that is aging in oak barrels at the winery. The wine will sit in French or American oak for up to a year or longer before being bottled.
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Norton, like most red wines, spends a good amount of its early life maturing in oak barrels, such as these at Chrysalis.
The Norton grape buds burst into bloom at Chrysalis Vineyards.
Jennifer McCloud, president of Chrysalis Vineyards in Middleburg, works in one of her vineyards with a rapidly ripening crop of Norton grapes, the same grape Thomas Jefferson used to grow.
BELOW: Dennis and |
MISSOURI WINE of questionable lineage, but often attributed to a grape born of wild, native parents, or possibly an accidental hybrid pairing in Virginia of a wild mother and European father, was proclaimed as the "best wine of all nations" in 1873 at an international competition in Vienna, Austria.
Subsequently, wine grape crops were ripped up nearly everywhere across America as the roots of the temperance movement gathered legs, ushering in Prohibition in the early 1900s. Among the casualties was a proud American wine crafted from a grape known as the Norton Virginia Seedling.
Fortunately for wine enthusiasts of the 20th and 21st centuries, this American original apparently owes its popular resurrection as a drink for the masses to the Catholic Church in Missouri, which continued to grow the grape and produce the wine for its sacrament of Holy Communion.
Dr. Daniel N. Norton of Richmond first publicly announced his namesake grape in 1823. Theories abound on how he "discovered" this variety and whether or not Dr. Norton actually knew what he was dealing with when he identified the grape. Some accounts report he thought he was looking at some kind of hybrid that had at least a partial European pedigree.
Scholarly work continues on this unique grape's origins and evolution.
Taxonomically, the Norton is classified as a member of the wild native American grape species Vitis aestivalis. Researchers conducting DNA testing have reportedly confirmed the grape is at least partially derived from wild aestivalis , but haven't pinned down the other source of parentage.
The grape has been found to be genetically identical to a variety known in Arkansas as "Cynthiana." To further complicate things, the online Wikipedia encyclopedia contains the statement that this "noblest of American winegrapes" was also cultivated by the Cherokees.
"According to James Mooney's book 'History, Myths and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,' Vitis aestivalis was called 'the Summer Grape' and used in some of the Cherokee sacred rituals," Wikipedia reports.
Jennifer McCloud, owner of Chrysalis Vineyards in Middleburg and a winemaker who's earning renown for her Norton wines, explained that Dr. Norton was acquainted with William Prince, a premier horticulturist in Flushing, N.Y., who provided nursery plant materials in Colonial times and the early 1800s. Prince described the Norton vines and grape in a comprehensive 1830 document outlining hundreds of offerings in his commercial nursery.
McCloud added, "We had heard that, in 1824, cuttings were received at Monticello from Dr. D. Norton of Richmond.
"I first figured that Norton must've communicated with Thomas Jefferson at some point since these two gentlemen were really among the great founders of American viticulture . The Princeton University research librarian first responded to my query with 'Nope, there is no record that Jefferson knew or met with Daniel Norton.' But when I told her what we were doing in Virginia with the Norton grape, she suggested we look at Jefferson's 'Garden Book,' which tracked the horticultural comings and goings at Monticello," McCloud explained.
Checking with Monticello, she learned that, sure enough, in 1824 there was a notation about cuttings received from Dr. D. Norton, secured by Thomas Jefferson's Richmond agent. The interesting point is that the cuttings were not sent to Thomas Jefferson, they were sent to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, his grandson. Norton was within a couple of years of age as Jefferson's grandson and, in retrospect, it makes sense that Norton would've been working with his contemporary.
Once Norton's Virginia Seedling was listed commercially for sale in 1830, the grape was established in Missouri, Arkansas and other states beyond Virginia, McCloud said. The Hermann area of Missouri, home to many fine wineries, had Norton planted in substantial amounts by 1840, according to reports from wineries in the area.
McCloud calls herself a "Norton evangelista," but if she is the evangelista, Orange County vineyard owner Dennis Horton is Virginia's Norton prophet. A native of Missouri, he moved to Virginia in 1989 and brought the Norton grape back with him, establishing several acres of the vines on a sun-soaked slope in his spacious vineyard.
"We really owe thanks to Dennis for having the foresight and, really, taking the risk of bringing this grape back to Virginia," she said.
"It was a no-brainer from a winemaking and grapevine-growing standpoint," Horton says. It took about three years for his first crop to come in, and Norton has been back in Virginia ever since, with Horton Vineyards now producing 2,500 to 3,000 cases of Norton wine annually.
McCloud wasn't first, but she now has the largest planting of Norton in Virginia--38 of her 67 acres of grapes. Most of her vineyard is at Locksley Estate, where the winery also is located, with the balance at a farm contracted with the winery.
Both Horton and McCloud use a "Geneva Double Curtain" trellising arrangement for their rows of Norton vines. This style of trellising spreads the vine open, allowing ample air to circulate through the vines and optimum sunlight to reach both the leaves and the clusters of grapes.
McCloud, though, says she has been switching to a different form of trellising--single high wire--that will allow the grapes to be harvested mechanically, thereby lowering her vineyard labor costs and allowing her to produce Norton wine at a better market price point.
"We don't plan on limiting ourselves to 38 acres. If everything goes according to plan, my goal is to have a bottle of Norton on every grocery-store shelf in Virginia," McCloud said.
Her 100 percent Barrel Select Norton wine won a gold medal in Los Angeles, and the Norton Locksley Reserve was just awarded the top prize in the recent Dallas international wine competition, which featured thousands of wines.
McCloud explained she was looking to start a vineyard after a successful entrepreneurial career in Florida, and she attended a seminar on alternative wine varieties where Horton was talking up Norton. She tried the wine and her "Wow!" factor went through the roof.
"It just floored me. I'd never tasted anything like that before. Not everybody likes Norton, but that doesn't matter. If it was so innocuous or pedestrian that everyone liked it, I don't think it'd have such tremendous potential to be a really great wine.
"I'm enamored with the flavor, the great grapey flavor. It's unique, but agreeable; different but attractive. To me, these are important characteristics of a great grape.
"I think it's a flavor that speaks to America. It's kind of wild, kind of aggressive a little bit, yet over time it tones down while keeping some of the fruitiness. Norton has fruit in spades and good acidity. Those two factors provide great ability to age," McCloud explained.
Horton says the Norton grape was "the backbone of the Virginia wine industry prior to Prohibition" and today remains "probably the only American grape that makes a higher-quality dry red wine."
He likes that it is naturally hardy and resistant to the many afflictions that can beset wine grapes in the Old Dominion. It is "really, really resistant to rot, deterioration and mildew," he said. And it's a hearty grape variety. While it likes a long, late growing season, cold winters don't seem to faze it much.
Virginia summers can be tough for growing grapes, especially the farther you get from the highlands around the Blue Ridge. High heat and humidity can present a host of problems related to viticulture, especially when growing finicky vinifera grapes, such as traditional French cabernets and chardonnay.
The hybrids, such as chambourcin, vidal blanc, seyval and others, tend to be a little more forgiving. But, when it comes to ease of maintenance in the vineyard and managing a grape crop that seems to know how to behave in Virginia summers, there's nothing like a native.
Horton notes that many vinifera must be strictly managed on a spraying schedule of at least every two weeks, or after each heavy rainfall, if diseases are to be kept out of the vineyard. This equates to 10 to 12 time-consuming, costly spraying sessions. His Norton, though, requires only three sprayings annually--once at pre-bloom, at bloom and then a final post-harvest spraying.
"From a cost-of-production standpoint, I don't know of any other grape that would get near to it," Horton said. "And from the marketing end, it'll make a nice bottle of wine that can be relatively inexpensive."
Horton also makes an intense port wine from Norton, a wine that has "sip slowly in front of a fire on a cold winter night" embedded into its character.
In football, "hang time" refers to the seconds that elapse while a ball is in the air after being punted. In winemaking, hang time refers to how long the grapes hang on the vine to give them ample opportunity to mature and develop the flavors that will later translate into excellence in the bottle.
In terms of hang time, Norton is a Virginia all-pro grape, to continue the football analogy, usually hanging on until the first frost of mid- to late October.
Horton explained the Norton grape is one of the few grapes that will actually achieve naturally the desired sugar levels for making wine, ideally with a Brix rating (a sugar measurement) of about 24, which will yield a finished wine of about 13 percent alcohol.
Winemaking involves considerable chemistry and the right balance of sugars and acids are needed to create a wine that will have proper alcohol content along with an acid content that will help preserve the wine and keep it from spoiling. Conversely, wines with excessive acid levels are not palate-friendly.
The Norton grape, when tasted before full ripeness, is very acidic. Unlike many wine grape varieties that have vineyard managers worried about too much acid dropping out as the grapes mature, the Norton grapes need a little help. One of the types of acid that is high in the grape is malic acid, hence most winemakers put the wine through a secondary malolactic fermentation that softens these acids and makes the wine easier on the palette at a younger age.
Some reports also tout Norton as having higher than usual levels of resveratrol, which is one of the compounds linked to the health benefits of red wine.
Another characteristic of the Norton grape is that it has a large number of seeds and a thick skin. McCloud says the seed and skin-to-juice ratio is higher than most grapes.
Horton said Norton is harder to deal with in the winery than in the vineyard, which is the exact opposite of the labor-intensive European vinifera imports
Both Horton and Chrysalis typically blend their Norton wine with wine crafted from other grapes, often tannat or petit verdot. Horton also uses Mourvedre, according to his winemaker Mike Heny.
Keeping at least 75 percent of the volume Norton allows the vintage to be labeled Norton. Blending helps balance the high acidity and fruity flavors.
Heny said Norton is slow to start fermentation, but once going "wants to build to a roar. We slow down fermentation, chilling the tanks."
Before beginning fermentation, Horton crushes the grapes and they then undergo a three- or four-day "cold soak at temperatures of 50 degrees or less. This helps extract color from the grape skins and firm tannins from the seeds. Including its primary fermentation, it spends up to 10 days on the grape skins before being pressed and eventually transferred to oak barrels for aging, Heny explained.
McCloud describes unblended Norton as sometimes leaving a "hole in the mid-palate" in terms of structure and texture. She notes that the flavor and aroma can be exquisite, but the help in slightly pulling down the acidity by blending helps round out the taste, shoring up the mid-palate with tannins and structure in a wine that still has "gobs of flavor."
Both Horton and McCloud describe Norton in terms often reserved for what some wine enthusiasts term "Big Reds," or wines that are not designed to be drunk for a few years and truly improve with age out to a decade or more.
McCloud stresses that the fact this Virginia native grape produced a wine that was proclaimed to be the best of all nations at one point in the late 1800s must've been a great source of pride to a then-young America.
"It's ours, not some European import. It speaks to America with its wild, grapey flavor. It's wild, like us. We should be proud of how we're restoring it. It's our contribution to the world of great red wine," McCloud exclaimed.
Norton was designated Missouri's state grape in 2003, and the grape is catching on in other states as well, with New Jersey wineries winning awards in state competitions with Norton wines.
So, if you happen to be at a wine festival, or somewhere where Virginia wines are being poured, consider getting acquainted with an old Virginia native, one that literally had "roots" sunk deep in the Old Dominion as far back as Colonial times.
KEN PERROTTE of King George County is The Free Lance-Star's outdoors columnist and a freelance writer. Contact him by mail at The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va., 22401, or by e-mail to his attention at gwoolf@freelance star.com.
