A Conversation with Lucie Morton
[On February 22, 2024, Kim and I had lunch with Lucie Morton during the 2024 Virginia Vineyards Association Winter Technical Meeting at the Omni Hotel in Charlottesville. Lucie is an internationally recognized viticulturist and ampelographer, winner of the Virginia Wineries Association Lifetime Achievement Award (2018), the first woman to graduate from the Montpellier viticulture program (1974)*, author of seminal books on grapes and vine management¡ Lucie has lent her expertise to many new wineries and vineyards over the years, throughout Virginia and the United States. I did not electronically record the conversation. This post is a paraphrase of the conversation using my notes of the visit. I have tried as much as possible to be faithful to what was said and the tone in which it was conveyed. We are thankful to Lucie for her time and candor.]
Q. Others have written extensively about your contributions to the Virginia wine industry and to grape science in general, so we are going to try to focus on the future for our conversation. But of course the past informs the future. In 1971, you were a fresh college grad and your father asked you to look into the idea of planting grapes at Morland Farm. Back then there wasn’t a farm wine industry in Virginia. You have observed that back then there were only 50 acres of Concord grapes growing in the state destined for Wild Irish Rose. So, taking the career path you did – through Montpellier and learning from the early pioneers like Philip Wagner, Hamilton Mowbray and others – must have been a real leap of faith. What gave you the sense that something was going to happen in Virginia? Did you have a backup plan in case this effort didn’t pan-out?
A. I always believed in the great potential of Virginia wine. I never really had a Plan B. When we planted our first vines at Morland, we only had three acres and planted mostly French hybrids. My dad had read that grapes were a very profitable cash crop, and he was looking for a tax deduction. We had our first harvest in 1975. I taught myself how to make wine at home using Philip Wagner’s book.# Back then, I also taught classes in winemaking and vineyard work on the weekends. My class actually paid me to learn pruning and picking skills from me in my vineyard. My students included Felicia and John Rogan, who started Oakencroft Vineyard in Charlottesville and Doug Flemer, who runs Ingleside Plantation on the Northern Neck. Another story from back then: a friend of mine had a dinner party where a dispute arose whether the wine being served as in fact a Hungarian Chardonnay as it said on the label or some other wine. The dinner host appealed to me to decide. I am an ampelographer, trained to identify grape plants by the characteristics of their leaves and berries. This was also a time before the invention of digital cameras. Several weeks later I received an envelope from Hungary with dried and crumpled leaves inside. Even with those crumbs, I could spot Chardonnay by the vein structure and settled the dispute.
I have always been an independent consultant; it gives me the freedom to say anything I want. And people will pay for me to consult on their properties which feeds my love of travel. I’m even in a movie – telling the story of the discovery of the Cunningham grape and other American grapes helped save the French wine industry from the phylloxera epidemic in the 19th Century but was then banned.Ï« Where I am now has evolved over the years – My whole life is organic.
Q. Speaking of hybrids and American grape stock, how is the Cunningham experiment going? What’s the latest? I take it that you have tried some Cunningham wine from the Old World. How do you describe it? What makes Cunningham a good fit for Virginia?
A. I brought over some Cunningham root stock which is still in quarantine at Cornell. I expect it to be released from quarantine this Fall. Once released, I plan to have the vines propagated at a nursery in Missouri and then re-introduced at Morland Farm. I have had Cunningham wine in Madera where it was dessert wine. I can also be made dry. The largest planting of Cunningham is in Brazil which I just visited. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to taste the wine.
Q. Based on your advice, I revised parts of my blog to de-emphasize the conflict between vitis vinifera and hybrid grapes.
A. That’s good. I hate that either-or story line. The industry needs both.
Q. The latest Commercial Grape Report shows that by far most grape plantings in VirginiaÇ‚ are Vinifera. Given climate change and Virginia’s normal weather challenges do you see a hybrid’s adaptability leading to greater plantings in the future? What is holding them back?
A. The prominence of vitis vinifera grapes is market-driven. People are more familiar with Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay and wines from those grapes are more in demand than Chambourcin or Chardonnel. I recently had some Concord wine and it forced me to rethink that grape as a producer of value wine. The market is evolving. Young people see hybrids are greener – needing less sprays and less attention than higher-maintenance vinifera vines. Vinifera is difficult to grow. We have to recognize that both vines have to coexist. Vinifera supremacy doesn’t work. Take Rosemont Vineyard in LaCrosse; their whites and rosé wines are all hybrids while their reds are vinifera. On a side note, we will always have to graft our rootstock anyway to prevent or control phylloxera. Phylloxera never goes away.
Q. I have asked a number of winemakers whether there is such a thing as a “Virginia terroir.” I’m interested to hear your perspective on this. I know you told Fred Reno that terroir is soil and climate, but with your research with Bubba Beasley and others at Pollak showing that a single clone could present different color and flavor in a single track, what does that say about a Virginia terroir?
A. I think Virginia wine has more of a European vibe. We generally grow on smaller spaces just because of our terrain. The prominence of estate wines – from particular places, grown and produced on-site is a European approach. - a family estate instead of a branded mass-produced wine.
Q. Travelling around the state, we’ve encountered a number of wineries that are experimenting with different varietals. I know your guidance to your nephew was not to plant vinifera out at Morland. Putting market pressures aside, if you had your own vineyard to plant, what would you be looking to plant? By the way, what is going on out at Morland? Just grape growing or wine producing too?
A. My nephew John Morton runs Morland now that it is back in our family. I don’t think there are plans for us to open the vineyard to the public or make wine. I am all about the grapes rather than the wine from the grapes. I certainly enjoy a good wine, but my expertise and passion is in the grapes and vines. I am happy that my daughters like wine. My daughter in San Francisco loves to tour the Napa wineries.
I like that young people continue to enjoy wine. We need to be careful with our resources that we don’t overreact. A couple of years ago a young lady was arrested by Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control (VABC) officers on suspicion of making an underage purchase of beer. Six plainclothes agents eventually stopped the panicked student with guns drawn. She was only buying water for a sorority fundraiser. This was a gross over-reaction to me. %
References.
* Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique, Montpellier, France
¡ E.g., Pierre Galet, Lucie T. Morton (trans.), and Leon D. Adams, A Practical Ampelography, Comstock Pub Assoc. 1979; Lucie Morton, Winegrowing in Eastern America, Cornell University Press, 1985.
# Philip Wagner, American Wines and How to Make Them (1st ed 1933) Alfred A. Knopf
Ï« Vitis Prohibita (2019) directed by Stephan Balay
Ç‚ Around 82% are in Vinifera grapes, 14% hybrids and 4% American grapes like Norton and Niagara). 2022 Commercial Grape Repor.
% Bill Chappell, Felony Arrest of Student Who Bought Water Riles Many In Virginia, July 2, 2013, National Public Radio, accessed at https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/07/02/198047492/felony-arrest-of-student-who-bought-water-riles-many-in-virginia
Comments
Post a Comment