"Harvest" news and stories

While grape growers in the northern hemisphere are just winding down harvest, the southern hemisphere is six months ahead of us. It seems we should still be drinking our 2005's, 06's, and 07,s, but I've just opened a bottle of the 2008 Veramonte Sauvignon Blanc Reserva, a gorgeously fresh and lively wine from Chile's Casablanca Valley.

Ordinarily I think of Sauvignon Blanc as a summer wine because its bone-dry acidity and grapefruit flavors zing through your palate and refresh a thirsty mouth like no other wine can. But dry, unoaked varietal Sauv Blancs are mostly meant to be drunk young in order to stay fresh--so the younger, the better, and when the southern hemisphere 2008s roll out in the fall, it's best to catch them while you can.

Many producers in New Zealand and Chile use a new harvesting method of picking grapes over a longer period of time at different levels of ripeness, which gives the wine a heady combination of raciness and curves. Pick too soon, and Sauvignon Blanc, already a vegetal varietal, is too green, too grassy. Pick to late, and the wine is flabby and flat instead of full and round. The combination picking results in a multi-dimensional wine that has the best of both worlds: flinty minerality and ripe body.

Along with "organic" beers -- yesterday's topic du jour -- another phrase far more brewers have been throwing about recently is "wet hops."

Why wet? Well, the name is somewhat self-explanatory. Typically hops are dried before they are packed, shipped and stored to await the brewing process. Hops is a plant (the flower of a plant technically), and anyone who's ever forgotten a fern for too long knows plants become distinctly different when they're dead. The theory behind wet hops is that as soon as the flowers are picked oils, resins and flavors begin to dry up, so by going direct from the bine to the brew kettle, your hops will pack more punch.

The trick works -- beers brewed with wet hops hold more of their distinct flavors -- somewhat begging the question, Why doesn't everyone do it? Well, price is a factor. And unless your ale needs some serious hoppiness, a lot of that subtlety is going to be drowned in malts regardless. Also hop varietals can be pretty picky in where they will grow. But even when everything else works out, the schematics are a pain. Every hour those hops hang out, dryness sets in: They have to find their way to the brewery in a hurry. So brewers looking to use wet hops need a field nearby and the dedicated manpower to make it happen.

After the jump, hear about an accessible example of a beer brewed with wet hops: Sierra Nevada Harvest Ale.

When last we left fruit beer reviews, I doled out major praise to Bar Harbor for balancing blueberry fruit flavor while maintaining a solid level of traditional craft beer appeal. Based on a recommendation, this weekend I thought I would take a stab at Louisiana brewery Abita's Strawberry Harvest Lager. After my first sip, I realized it would be perfect... for a counterpoint example of why fruit beers often get a bad rap!

The nose is an overwhelming burst of strawberry. It's too much by any standards (except maybe for Kool-Aid Man: Oh yeah!), but what's most unfortunate is that it isn't a nose full of fresh Ponchatoula strawberries as the bottle promises. Instead, the berries reek of sugary cream reminiscent of a sweet strawberry yogurt bar. It all sits on a subtle palette of malt, but if not for the carbonation, one might be hard pressed to tell based on aroma that this is beer at all.

Over the past few weeks, headlines concerning food shortages and poor harvests have become more gloomy. In today's New York Times there is an article that depicts the global food crisis with greater urgency. According to the article, rain in the Midwest and drought in Australia are responsible for lower yields in wheat, corn, rice, and soybeans. With much of the world depending on American farmers, the problem seems as though it will only escalate?

Perhaps, Cuba has a solution to this problem. Yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer had an article praising Cuba's urban farming program for being able to supply much of Cuba's vegetables. It also provides 350,000 jobs with considerably high pay. Futhermore, it has increased food options for a country that was heavily dependent on a diet of rice and beans and canned goods from Eastern Europe. With a population that is 80 perecent urban, it would only make sense for them to develop an urban agricultural agenda.

Since the majority of people in the United States live in urban areas, it seems like this model might help relieve the current food shortages. Can cities like New York City adapt the Cuban program? The article reveals that Cuba's urban farming program is driven by the employees' incentive. 80 percent of the profits go to the workers! Are we still talking about a communist country?

I'd like to wish our Canadian readers a very happy Thanksgiving! For those of you not in the know, our Canadian friends celebrate their bountiful harvest each year on the second Monday of October. Other than the date, they celebrate in much the same way that we do down here in the United States, with an abundant spread of food and the resultant post-dinner coma. Enjoy!

Photo link