- [Announcer] Montana Ag Live is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture.

MSU Extension.

The MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture.

The Montana Wheat and Barley Committee.

Cashman Nursery and Landscaping.

The Gallatin Gardeners Club.

And the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

(bright music) - Good evening.

You're watching "Montana Ag Live," originating today from the studios at KUSM on the very dynamic campus of Montana State University, and coming to you over your Montana public television system.

I'm Jack Riesselman, a retired professor of plant pathology, happy to be your host this evening.

I want to say something.

Welcome to Montana Ag Appreciation Week.

Tonight at 6:00 PM as this program starts, is the beginning of Celebrate Ag Week here on the campus of Montana State University.

If you haven't seen the program, go online, find out about it.

I guarantee you, if you want to attend some of the activities, you'll have a very good time.

Now, tonight's program.

How do you really want to celebrate Montana Ag Week?

Well, I would like to start with a glass of wine celebrating Ag Week and tonight's guest, there's nothing better, is Larry Robertson, a board member of the Wine and Grape Growers Association here.

And we have a little wine taste to celebrate Ag Week, and to have a good time this evening.

And I guarantee you we will have a good time.

If you have any questions about grapes, and growing grapes in the state, tonight would be a good night to ask them.

Before we get there, I want to introduce tonight's panel.

Way to my left is Uta McKelvy.

Uta is our extension plant pathologist.

She's been here many, many times.

Very knowledgeable about a lot of different things.

So if you have disease questions, yeah, We'll get a good answer.

Larry Robertson.

Larry is a board member with the Wine and Grape Growers Association.

Very enthusiastic about growing wine grapes in the state and producing what we're going to be sampling tonight.

So Larry, welcome to the program.

We'll get back to you in a minute.

Tim Seipel, our weed ecologist?

No, weed scientist.

Okay.

We'll get that out.

And of course, Abi Saeed.

Abi is of course our horticulturalist, and we always have a lot of questions about horticulture.

I think the growing season is about over, but there may be a few things that you may want to ask her about what to do with some of the plants going into fall.

Answering the phones tonight are Nancy Blake and Sherry Kloss.

As I've told you many times, if you don't phone in questions, this program is very, very boring.

So get those questions in tonight, and we'll do our best to answer them.

Larry, it's all yours.

Give us a couple minutes about the wine industry here in the state of Montana.

- Okay.

The biggest thing to realize I think is that over the past 10 to 20 years, wine's changed so much.

We've gotten so many new varieties.

Six to eight new varieties.

The University of Minnesota has produced a lot.

Even Cornell, some cold-hardy varieties.

But folks that haven't tried Montana wine for 20 years or something, there's nothing the same about it anymore.

We have Marquette from the University of Minnesota in 2006, was really one of the first really good red grapes that makes really good wine by itself.

That's the most widely planted grape in the state.

But there's several white grapes in that also.

The big issue we have is we don't have enough grapes in the state for an industry similar to say Minnesota or Iowa.

They'll have 600 to 1,600 acres in the state.

We just have 50 acres of grapes in the state, but we've been experimenting with them for 40 to 60 years.

And so over that time, we found what grapes work best on each site.

We found where they won't ripen.

I worked with USDA NRCS for years as a specialist helping put some vineyards in.

And we actually found out where they won't ripen consistently.

You have to have a very good site, but anywhere from Eureka to Hamilton, Columbus to Miles City and down to Clark Fork, within those areas, if you have upland south facing, southwest facing sites, boy, those are prime candidates to where they're out of the frost pockets so they don't get as cold, but then they get really intense sun to where we can consistently ripen grapes on good sites.

- Okay, so I'm about ready to taste this.

So this is Marquette?

- [Larry] No, this one here, I wanted to bring, it's from White Raven Winery.

It's an old French-American hybrid, Leon Millot.

- Okay.

- We had a lot of those.

We had a lot from Wisconsin old varieties too, but we had some interspecific hybrids, they're called.

Marechal Foch is another one that's usually blended with this.

The older grapes, a lot of times we had to blend the varieties - [Jack] Right.

- To be able to get the different layers and the wine you want by themselves weren't the greatest.

Leon makes a really good wine by itself.

And Dan does a really good job up there on Leon.

So this is good with or without food.

It's just a nice dry red.

- It is good.

Let's bring up, I have a vested interest in wine.

There's no doubt about that.

So if I have the control room show, this is something that's in my basement.

It's a small wine cellar and this is just part of it.

I haven't shown the big bottles, which I also really enjoy collecting, have a bad habit.

I like to look at them and as my wife says, "We need to be drinking more."

I try, but anyway, this is very nice.

So with that, let me switch over to Abi.

This person has, and it was from Helena last week.

Clematis, and it is not doing well.

Any clue as what would be causing problems with clematis?

- So from what I know, it'd be good to know more context clues.

So with Helena, you have a really awesome extension agent.

Her name is Sofia Franzluebbers.

She would be a good person to take a peek, but from what I know about Clematis, they like shade along the base of the plant, and then they like really full sun along the top part of the plant.

And so if you have it really exposed or too shaded, that could cause issues with it just not thriving, just not doing well.

That could be an issue.

And sometimes people will grow additional plants around the base to help provide more shade.

But I would say if it's not one of those things, if it's not a soil issue, reach out to your extension agent and she can help you get to the bottom of what could be going on.

- Okay, thank you.

Bob, from Bozeman here, quick question.

This person wants to know what kind of yield can you get from an acre of grapes?

So is that pounds?

It's not bushels.

- It's three to four tons per acre.

And each ton of grapes makes about 150 gallons of wine.

And so the return just on the grapes can be five to $8,000, but if you put it into wine, and add value, that goes up to $40,000 or so per acre.

So we're not used to that kind of high value cash crop everywhere.

- So if I wanted to get in the wine business, which I don't want to do, I just wanna drink.

- [Uta] You don't want to get in that side of - - [Larry] It's a lot of work.

- It wouldn't be healthy for me.

Bottom line is, what's it cost to get in, and start producing wine?

And I know, just a rough figure.

- Well, just the trellis alone's maybe 15,000 an acre.

The property's the most expensive.

That's where bringing the next generation back to the farm where you don't have to purchase the property makes it much more of an economical proposition.

But the biggest cost that you actually have, the vines are only four to $5 a piece, so that's not a huge price.

The trellis, and then the fencing for deer has to be steel.

- Well, how many vines per acre, roughly?

- Typically six to 700 vines per acre.

- [Jack] At $5 apiece, that still adds up to a chunk of change.

- Yeah, it's still a lot of money.

The issue comes though is all the labor that's involved.

That is probably the biggest expense.

Brian and Roxann, Willow Mountain, bring pruning crews out from Oregon.

And we need more vineyards to keep them busy longer to be able to rotate.

But that's a real issue is the labor, which could be without all the pesticide use that we don't need to do.

Normally it's 750 hours of labor per acre, but we get away with probably five to 600 hours.

But if you don't do that, you don't get the quality and chemistry if you do not do the work in the pruning, light canopy management, thinning, things like that.

- [Uta] How many years from planting to your first harvest?

- It takes three years.

The third year you can get a light crop.

And by the fifth year, you're in full production.

But that's only if you do very good grass and weed control because the first few years is critical to get the grapes established.

Once they're established, they've got such deep roots, you can reseed that and not worry about it.

But the initial years, that's our biggest problem with folks getting them established.

- So by the way, I like that wine, but going ahead with another question.

Say at Columbia Falls, there was a 40 acre patch came up for sale.

And a young man or a young lady wanted to start a vineyard there.

Does farm credit establish money or loans for the wine industry here in the state?

- That's one of our issues is that no bank will land on grapes.

We don't have enough record of yield and enough vineyards to get crop insurance.

Brian and Roxann, Willow Mountain, are working on crop insurance because until now we were just considered farm and ranch, where farm vineyard is a quarter of the cost.

But there's still the issue of being able to get crop insurance and then that's things we have to work on then to have our producers not only more grapes, but then to record with FSA crop yields and all of that to get a database.

It's going to take a lot more grapes before we could establish viticultural areas.

- I've got a couple questions here.

I need to move on to somebody else.

But quickly, is the industry expanding in the state?

- It's trying to expand, but without more grapes, it's very difficult.

And so we're really trying to educate folks and try to... We're doing some videos.

We got a video grant.

Part of that will be to try to attract 20 to 40 acre vineyards to be able to increase that production before we can really get traction.

- All right.

Let's move over to Uta.

And then Tim, you want to get that show and tell that lovely plant that you get?

- [Tim] Yeah.

- Uta, one of the questions we always had, and we've had two or three of these so far this fall, we haven't answered it, potato scab.

- [Uta] Yes.

- You have a sample.

- [Uta] Yes.

- You want to show it to people, and tell them how to make potato vodka out of it?

- Well, I'm not going to address that, but maybe we can bring somebody on next time who could tell us more about that.

But yeah, what a timely question, as we're bringing in this year's harvest and putting it in storage and then using it, we come across some odd storage diseases.

And so this year is an example of a common scab of potato.

You can see these kind of wart-like, pimply structures on the skin.

This is caused by a pathogen that just lives in the soil.

The disease is favored by soils that are alkaline, and also when the plant is stressed during tuber formation.

So when we have hot, dry conditions, I mean dry soils, and warm soils while the tubers are forming, that's when we're more likely to get scab.

Now, this is not very pretty, but it shouldn't affect the edibility of the potato.

I cut this one open for diagnostic purposes, but you can see it looks perfectly fine on the inside.

So basically you just peel it, you cut it out if they reach a little deeper and you just proceed with your normal potato processing.

May that be mashed potatoes, or a vodka.

I don't know what your preferences are.

But in terms of preventing this, so because it's a soil-borne disease, so we should think about crop rotation.

So you want to avoid growing potatoes in the same spot in your garden year after year.

Better rotate two to three years out of potato.

You also want to avoid growing things like carrots, for example, in those spots, because they can also be like alternate hosts to that.

And then disease-free certified seed potatoes always are a good start.

And then might be worth, if this is a persistent problem, doing a soil test, check what the soil pH is, and then maybe look into treatment options for lowering the pH, should it turn out that you have alkaline soil.

So neutral to slightly acidic soil pH reduces the risk of scab.

- So before we get to that lovely plant, Larry, I've killed the first one.

I'm ready for the second one.

(panelists laughing) Tell us about this grape.

- Now, this is the Marquette grape.

- [Jack] Okay.

- Now the most widely planted grape in the state.

It's from the University of Minnesota.

It was really one of the first grapes that could stand alone by itself to make a really nice wine.

And now this has been aged before they put in the bottle over three years in a neutral oak after it's been used once to where it's not as strong.

It's more the micro oxygenation then that really brings out the flavors in it.

But this is a 2022.

- Okay.

I like it.

- [Speaker] Very nice.

- Of course, I like red wine.

Not partial to whites, but I'm willing to sip a few.

Yeah, definitely.

All right, it's your turn.

- All right.

So I brought this large plant with me today.

You'll see it as we head down the street.

I found this out on the Madison today.

This is common mullein, and it has very soft papery leaves, lots of hairs on it.

Some people have referred to this as toilet paper sometimes.

It is a biennial plant.

It grows a big rosette in the spring, in the first year.

Second year it shoots up this super long flowering stalk.

Why did I bring it on today?

We've been on the hunt for palmer amaranth in Montana.

And one of our agents in the eastern, southeastern portion of the state said, "Will you ask people and show them what mullein is, because they've been bringing it in as palmer amaranth.

And it's actually, you see a lot of hairs on it.

It's not palmer amaranth.

It's more likely mullein.

It actually is kind of, in this part of the state, we see it all over the place.

But in the southeastern portion of Montana, it's not that common, but it's starting to show up more and more and people try to keep it out a little bit.

- [Jack] I see it all over.

- [Uta] What colors are the flowers?

- The flowers are really bright yellow.

Really bright yellow.

They're pretty actually... It's interesting.

It's not native.

I think it might be on a couple county noxious weed lists.

It was brought to North America as a piscicide, actually.

People used to use this to poison fish in the 19th century in fish weirs, and that's why it was brought to North America.

- [Abi] And have you heard of like mullein tea and things like that?

- Yeah, it does have a lot of ethnobotanical uses and things like that.

So it's both a weedy plant, and one that has a lot of interesting uses to it.

- And are there any reservations for using the leaves as toilet paper?

- No, I don't think so.

- Good to know.

- If we come back into a COVID-type situation, you can always go for the mullein.

- While I have you up, I like this question.

It came from Bozeman, and it says, "I see Tim's back on the panel tonight.

He must not be cooking weeds.

Has he figured out how to make wine out of any weeds yet?"

- Oh yes, you can make dandelion wine.

Absolutely.

Yes, it depends on what you call a weed, but you could definitely add a few things in there.

Galium aparine, catchweed, real sticky.

You can actually make that into a wine too.

- Okay.

Kind of a funny story about having Larry here, and a little bit of the history of wine in the state.

Many years ago during COVID, Dave Baumbauer was sitting where you were.

And Nina was moderating that evening.

And a call came in from Helen, and it said, "What's the best grape to grow in Montana for wine?"

And Baumbauer and his facetious self said, "Nothing.

If you want to grow wine grapes, grow them in California, or someplace else."

There's a grower out of Mile City by the name of Bob Thayton.

And he called in immediately and within two weeks, we had Bob on the program drinking wine with us.

So that's kind of how some of this got started.

On the grapes scene, how are grapes pollinated?

- Yeah, so most grapes that we grow in our vineyards and commercially and in home gardens are self-pollinated.

So they are able to, just the pollen's able to move into the stigma of the flower and fertilize them.

Sometimes wind can be a little bit helpful, but because we've been breeding them for thousands of years to do this, that's the most convenient way.

When you're talking about wild grapes though, those are pollinated by small insects.

So often a bee species like sweat bees often pollinate wild grapes.

- Good answer.

Okay.

Larry, what's the value of a ton of grapes here?

- Well, right now, a ton of grapes for Montana is roughly $1.50 to $2 a pound, - [Jack] Okay.

- In that range.

They have been selling at too low of a price over the last several years, so we've been trying to raise that up.

For the bigger vineyards, Willow Mountain and Larry Stewart up in Eureka, they've come out to about $1.83 a pound cost of production.

And so we're really recommending and trying to raise the price up a bit, because if you can't have it, at least the cost of production are over, no one's going to raise grapes.

And so we get spoiled with some of the grapes you can buy in Washington 85 cents a pound, but they go up to $10 a pound.

So you get the quality when you're buying such low price grapes.

But we've been working on trying to get some of these vineyards sustainable and be able to sell the grapes to stay in business.

- My question.

Are there growers that are growing grapes that are not producing wine?

In other words, are there commercial grape growers?

- Yeah, there's a lot of grape growers.

We have a lot of small vineyards that can raise some really good quality grapes.

But for anything of any size, Willow Mountain has 20 acres.

Larry Stewart in Eureka has six acres maybe or seven, but most of the others are an acre or less.

And so we don't have enough grapes to supply the wineries we have right now and people run out of the wine.

And so a big push that we're looking at is how can we incentivize planting vineyards?

New Mexico put a few million dollars recently just into planting vineyards because they realize all the economic impact that vineyards can have, basically revitalizing rural communities all over the world.

This is Gene Presser at Dayton.

You can see Flathead Lake in the background, a real prime spot.

To compare, this is up on the hill, so it's got good air drainage.

Mission Mountain Winery, that was in Dayton.

They tried raising grapes.

The little spot they have that's up high enough, but it's all sodic soil over pH nine in that flat.

And of course, nothing grew other than that little spot that was four or five foot higher in elevation got out.

So they just did a winery without realizing years ago that they couldn't grow grapes there.

- All right.

The phone's quiet.

And we've got a lot of interesting panel members here tonight.

So if you have questions, get on the phone.

And while we're at it, Abi has always said you can't grow sweet potatoes in Montana.

So you see this, Abi?

(panelists laughing) What is this?

- That is indeed a sweet potato.

And we definitely can grow sweet potatoes in Montana, but tell the story about this one, Jack, 'cause this is not the usual sweet potato that you grow.

- You trapped me.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

So my wife has sweet potato vines in a flower pot out front.

And this past week we cleaned up some of the vegetation and so forth and removed the soil so we could put new soil in next year.

And lo and behold, the sweet potato vines, ornamental sweet potato vines, produced some very nice sweet potatoes.

They're not as sweet as a sweet potato, but our golden retrievers actually love them.

So I can grow some type of - - Absolutely.

And we certainly can, and that's the issue.

So if you're growing the sweet potatoes that are meant for eating, they're bred for that.

They're much sweeter.

They have more of that sugar content.

Whereas these, although you can still eat them, they wouldn't taste as good.

And we certainly can grow sweet potatoes in Montana.

We just have a shorter, more condensed growing season, so we are kind of competing with the clock often.

- Okay.

So we both win.

- Yes.

I like that compromise.

- [Uta] All right.

- Larry, what makes Montana wine unique compared to say California or even New York type of wines?

- Well, New York, California have a lot of the different types of grapes.

California is a vinifera, Mediterranean-style grape that's only good to maybe five or 10 degrees.

Cold-hardy grapes are, if take like Pinot, and some of the viniferas, and cross those with riparia, that's a river bottom grape grown all the way in Canada.

That's what gives cold-hardy grapes their cold-hardiness and disease resistance.

And so over the last 80 years, they've been breeding grapes since that time, and it's taken 40 to 60 years to really get to the point where you start getting some grapes.

And just recent last 20 years, we've exploded with the amount of new varieties.

- Okay, so could I ask, so what's the difference between a muscadine and a grape?

- Well, muscadine is a type of grape that is grown more in the southwest.

- Okay.

- Or I mean the southeast.

The southeast.

- Yeah.

- But a muscadine typically wouldn't grow up here.

They're not cold hardy down very far.

And so all the grapes change as you get into the different climates, but Canada grows a lot of these same grapes.

You just have to have that upland site that's not in a cold frost pocket.

- Okay.

Thank you.

From Red Lodge, interesting comment and question for Tim.

The caller has quite a bit of mullein on his hillside that drains into Rock Creek.

They want to know if the fish are at risk if the plants roll down into the water.

- I don't think so.

I think it's dissolved enough.

The way that people used to use it in the 16th, 17th, 18th century is they would build fish weirs that would then trap the fish in certain areas, and then use the concentrated verbascum as a piscicide actually in that context.

So I think it's probably all right.

I don't think there would be enough concentration.

And given that Rock Creek flows pretty good, I think it's pretty dissolved.

- Yeah, I would agree.

I've got a question for you in a minute, Abi, but I'm going to go back to Larry, and ask him, "Where do you get your labor?"

- Right here, for me.

(panelists laughing) And most of the small vineyards, they do their own labor.

When you only have a half acre to an acre, you still have... I have 400 vines.

And so it's still an extraordinary amount of work when you're needing to go through the vineyard maybe five to six times throughout the season for various things.

But like I said, for the 20 acres, there's no way you can do it yourself.

So Brian and Roxann have hired crews, pruning crews, that are very, very efficient that come out and can go through that whole vineyard in very quick time.

It's not cheap.

It costs tens of thousands of dollars on a 20-acre piece, but that is one of our issues as far as having that labor available.

Bitterroot College is interested in even some classes.

We're looking at possibly getting some beginning viticulture classes and having more folks trained.

And eventually, a lot of that has to happen for the industry to grow, is to get some in-state labor.

But a lot of our labor does come from cherries, from Washington, Oregon, and it's a vacation for them usually to come out and to work.

- So I'm not going to volunteer for the labor part, but if you have tastings, call me.

- [Larry] Yeah.

- Yeah, I'll volunteer for that.

- We're starting to do some Montana food wine pairings.

- Okay.

- We had one at The Barn on Mullan last spring.

This coming March, we're going to have our conference concentrate on Montana wine food pairings, and then we're going to have the food wine pairing dinner at the end.

The last time it was well represented, people wanted to know when the next one was.

But when you have a 15 ounce beef tenderloin with bearnaise sauce and crab as the main course along with our wines, they were very impressed.

And so you have to educate folks by having them try it.

- Yeah.

- Sounds good.

I have a question for you in a minute, but I got shortchanged on the white.

- [Larry] That's just coming around.

- Okay, a question for Uta from Columbus.

This person wants to know with your German heritage, what is your favorite wine?

German wine.

- [Tim] Do you want me to answer?

- Yeah, let's pawn it off to Tim too.

It's been quite a while that I've had a good German wine, but I think, I guess I have fond memories of Federweisser, which is that first wine that I guess you probably can explain it better than me.

It's a foamy sparkling wine that gets straight to your head.

You drink it in the fall, and you eat it with a good flammekueche.

So like kind of a pizza, but not a pizza, like a French pizza essentially.

That's what I'm going to go with for tonight.

Tim, how about you?

- Okay.

As a Franconian descendant, I would say Silvaner, Bacchus, and Muller-Thurgau.

And maybe fourth place would be Riesling, but I'm not such a Riesling.

I'm a dry Riesling person, but... - I do like Riesling, but I've never heard of the other ones.

- [Uta] Me neither.

- Interesting.

Yeah, that's the common region.

Northern Bavaria produces a lot of white wines called Franconia.

And they're concentrated on those sorts.

- Yeah, we really need to go on sabbatical to really lean into the beer and wine industry there again.

- And actually Montana, white wines are really better suited because you harvest them a month early so you don't get any of the fall frost with those.

And so white wines, we've got a lot of new ones that we're putting in.

- So what is the growing season for most?

How many days does it take to mature most grapes in Montana?

- Well, that's one of the issues is the growing degree days, we don't have enough for a lot of our grapes.

And so part of that is growing degrees are static.

You just get 35 of them for an 85 degree day over 50.

But we're farther north, especially Eureka, where we have longer days of that heat that we don't pick up.

And so we feel that's part of the reason why we're ripening these without as many degree days as they say are required.

And then some of our locations, like under the Billings rims, there's a lot of places that are just intensified heat.

Paradise and the lower Flathead with all the rock that holds the heat there, there's a lot of places that we can really be successful.

- What happens to a grape that is being pollinated?

If you have say an early June frost, which is not unheard of here, does it really set back or destroy that year?

- It depends on how cold it gets.

Typically you're down to 28, 29 before you get damaged.

- [Jack] Okay.

- Our frost of course can hit us, but a lot of times, it's some of those really cold winter weathers that can flatten everything to the ground.

And I've had folks say, "Well, gee, see, their grapes aren't viable in Montana."

Well, that starts growing with 50 shoots and you take it down to two, you've got it up five feet onto the cordon and 12 foot down by July 4th.

So you miss, it's no different than hailed out winter wheat crop.

The next year, we've already got the trellis built the year that we got froze, and then we're back into grape production.

- So Larry, this spring, we had another, we had a late frost in June.

And that impacted a lot of our fruit.

How did that impact your grapes?

- It didn't impact mine whatsoever because I'm Polson and then Finley Point on the lake.

But the experiment station down in Corvallis really got nailed on a lot of things with that early frost.

- Absolutely.

- Myself, I didn't get the frost.

I had deer get in, and they ate all my primaries of my L'Acadie Blanc.

But grapes are weeds, it came back robust, the secondary and tertiary buds, and regrew everything.

But I've got one third the production I normally would.

- I imagine those grapes are also quite attractive to bears.

- I've had bears.

They tried to dig under my electric fence.

Electric's the only thing that will deter them.

I used to put in electric fences with equip on orchards to deter bears.

They were dealing with grizzlies a lot of the time.

But ours, we knew the fence worked, because boy, they dug some big holes trying to get under.

- Back to celebrating Ag Week.

This is an interesting white wine.

Tell us about it and I'm going to say, I detect really apple tones to this one.

- This one here was my first harvest.

And so it was a little younger than what I wanted to pick it.

The problem with this grape is it's a super ripener.

The last couple of weeks it increased a half a percent of sugar a day.

- [Uta] Wow.

- And towards the end it can go up to three quarters of a Brix or a percent sugar a day.

That's why it only is grown Nova Scotia where it's cool.

Where it gets too warm, it runs away, and they can't deal with it.

So this one has more apple.

And so I had to use some semi-sweet to it to be able to balance the acidity and bring it out.

As it gets riper, the success of harvest, I'm getting better at that to determine.

It'll bring out other citrus and even grassy flavors when it gets to full maturity.

And then I'll be able to produce some dry wines, which really then can give you the character of the grape fully.

But then also sparkling I intend to make with it too.

- So do you walk out with the sugar meter?

Do you go out and put a little... Could So how do you measure the sugar content in a grape?

- Well, it's sort of tough just in picking them and getting a good representation going up and down the rows, picking below the bunch on the side, shaded ones, sunny ones.

It's really hard.

But then you just put it in a baggie and crush them up and just use a refractometer to look at the Brix.

- To look at the Brix?

- The percent sugar it'll tell you.

The refractometer.

What I'm going to need to do since this goes so fast, and there's less ripe and more ripe ones, I'm going to probably start picking a row and processing it the whole row, and then finding out exactly what it is and then be able to adjust to balance that with more ripe grapes down the road if I picked a little early on just one row.

- Okay.

I like that, by the way.

And I'm not a white wine lover.

I think it's really good.

- [Larry] It actually won Best of Show this last spring at our convention, the best white.

- I agree.

As I've said earlier, even before, whites are not my favorite.

Maybe a glass or two in the summertime before breakfast is not bad.

- This is a perfect one in the summer because it's very easy drinking.

Too easy drinking.

- [Abi] It is a little too.

- And it's only nine and a half percent.

And so it's great in the summer.

You can take this all afternoon, and it's not high enough alcohol, and enjoy it.

- So this would be good for a white wine spritzer, right?

A little bubbly water in there, mixed?

- I have done that before with it to add some spritzer to it, but I'd rather eventually make some sparkling out of it.

That's what it's actually used the most for in Nova Scotia is sparkling wine.

- And on that note, we had a question, "Can Montana growers utilize the same grapes that are growing in say Vermont?"

And this is a question that was sent in, and I think we can, is that correct?

- Yes, actually, there's a nursery in Vermont that supplies, Northwest Vine Supply, that supplies a lot of our vines besides Double A Vineyards.

They're in New York, Vermont.

That's where the nurseries are, even though they might be bred in University of Minnesota.

- Larry, I'm curious just about the wine-making infrastructure.

So you grow the grapes and you harvest them.

Do you ferment and turn it into wine?

Is that what every wine grower in Montana does?

Or is there some other system?

- Well, there's not as many that have their own vineyards and make their own wine.

There's three or four, maybe.

All the extra smaller vineyards and grapes, there's a lot of other smaller wineries that pick those up, and it's really a competition.

It's getting very difficult because there's just not enough for everyone.

So that's where the need comes in is to promote our low disease pressure, getting away from the West Coast or Midwest to Montana.

They'll already have the equipment.

They'll have everything set up and know where they can hit the ground running.

And so we hope to entice more folks to plant some actual acreages because a half acre does not grow much, many grapes.

- But you make your own wine?

- Yes, I make my own wine.

I actually have my winery in my basement, a very small winery.

I'm the only licensed winery in the world to where I pasteurize everything and steam it.

It's too much work for anyone else to do it, but it does pull out a lot of the flavor.

So I'm sort of the different kind of guy.

- So there are a lot of Montana wines available at local stores and stuff.

Where would people go to - - There's getting to be more.

I'm in the Good Food Store and Super One and some of the other wineries, Willow Mountain has quite a few outlets.

I'm not sure where they all are, but we are getting out in some.

It's very difficult.

We can sell the state of Montana liquor stores directly, but it's very hard to get out when the distributors are distributing when we don't have the quantities necessarily.

Willow Mountain's the only one that can supply really large quantities.

That's what they require.

And they also want wine that already has traction, which is very difficult for us to show.

If you can't get on the shelves, how can you gain traction?

So there's a lot of things going on that are inhibiting us from really getting true expansion.

So we've got to look at some other incentives and some other ways that we can try.

And the best way is to, we're having a wine, beer and spirits conference, Caras Park next year.

We can sell bottles now at these events.

So that we're going to promote, it's August 24th, 2027, but that's going to be a way that we're going to be able to promote our Montana wines and people are going to be able to buy bottles because we were able to pass the law to be able to sell bottles.

- All right.

We got a ton of questions.

We're going to shorten up the answers here.

How much water does it take to grow grapes?

- Well, you're talking per vine, it averages anywhere from eight to 12 gallons a week.

But what we need, I think we're over irrigating a lot of our grapes because once they get established, and those root systems get so developed, I was tearing out a Verona grape that wasn't suitable and I just let go.

I watered it once in July, and then it was a real hot summer through all those hot months, and it didn't show any drought stress whatsoever.

It produced just like when I irrigated it.

So there's a lot of things we have to look at that, but it's a fraction of what hay or, that's where we can get some pretty big water savings.

- All right, thank you.

Praying mantis.

This person's seeing a lot more.

Quickly, why this year?

- So I've heard that a lot in a lot of places around the state and a lot of the ones that I'm getting photos of are usually the European mantis.

Those are non-native mantids.

They are established in some pockets around the state.

But I have a feeling that the reason you might be seeing more is that there was increased survival over the winter.

We had a very warm winter.

In addition to that, we've had a very long growing season, so you could be seeing the mature adults more around this time of year, whereas last year, we didn't have as long of a growing season.

So they're unfortunately not our native mantids.

We do have two native species.

They're pretty small and nondescript, but the ones I'm seeing are the European mantis.

- [Tim] Do they sell them for bio control?

- They do.

A lot of people will buy those egg cases and release them in their landscapes and they can end up surviving.

- Tim, quickly.

Is it too late to spray and control dandelions with 2,4-D in the yard?

- Yeah, I think it's getting... Well, maybe in other parts of the state, but it's been pretty cold here.

Things are still green, but it's so wet and there's snow.

I think it's almost gone.

I think the period is... It's been down to 22 a couple nights, I think it's - - [Jack] 21 this morning.

- 21 this morning, yeah.

I think the window's closed, just about.

- [Jack] So wait till next fall?

- Yep, wait till next fall.

You can spot spray in the spring, but it never works as well in the spring as it does in the fall.

- [Jack] Okay.

- [Uta] Sharpen your diggers for the spring.

- Yeah, sharpen your tools for the spring.

- Uta, this person has some chickpeas they bought.

They have some black spots on them.

Are they safe to eat?

- That's a great question.

Well, I'd say depends on what causes.

Oopsies!

Okay, welcome to next round!

I'd say it depends on what causes the black spots.

I'm not going to say go ahead and eat it.

I'd say we should have a closer look at those chickpeas to figure it out.

So in Montana, the most prominent foliar disease that can also go on the seed is Ascochyta blight, which can be asymptomatic on seed, but it can also cause brown spots.

I think it's probably fine to eat, but I'm not - - [Jack] I wouldn't worry about them.

You cook them.

- Yeah.

- [Jack] It's just a little bit of added different protein, in my opinion.

- [Tim] Could be staining from kosha.

- Yeah, okay.

So now we're getting serious.

We're into some sparkling wine.

And tell us a little bit about this one.

- Well, this is a very special sparkling wine because Roxann McGuire is such a chemist when it comes to wine.

She's really figured out the right blend of white grapes.

There's three white grapes in this.

And they do the traditional champagne method.

But this is really, I think, the best sparkling I've ever had.

But the chemistries, you have to get the right chemistries and then... - That really looks tasty.

- Yeah, the big thing in their description, they have to handle these bottles a minimum of 34 times when you're going through the different process of - - [Abi] Should we cheers this one, maybe?

- Of making sparkling.

It's really a very, very extensive process.

- Well, I'm going to say it to celebrate Ag Week.

- Yeah, let's cheers.

- Cheers to the celebrating Ag Week.

- And to Montana wine growers.

- And to Montana wine growers.

- There we go.

- To "Montana Ag Live" and yeah, cheers.

(glasses clinking) - Now I've lost my place, but I'll find it here.

This caller from Bozeman wonders if they can use leaves in her yard as mulch around their Caragana.

- Absolutely you can.

The thing to keep in mind, and Uta would remind you of this too.

If they're diseased material, don't reintroduce them back into the yard.

But if they're disease-free leaves, absolutely you can use them as mulch.

It's a great thing to do.

- [Tim] Good way to get rid of them.

- Absolutely.

- [Larry] I challenge someone to kill a Caragana.

- I hear that if you don't want them killed, they are not going to survive, but if you really want them killed, they're impossible to kill.

They do have a shallow root system.

- Oh, interesting, yep.

- So we've had two or three callers from Havre, Butte, so forth and so on.

They want to know is there opportunities for making wine in Montana commercially, say from choke cherries, rhubarb, blackberries, so forth and so on?

- Well, a lot of people make fruit wines.

And rhubarb is the most common wine made from fruit that's not grapes.

But the problem with fruit wines is that they don't have the right acidity, sugar, so you have to manipulate everything with the fruit wine.

Grapes are the only fruit that they have the right acidity and tannin and sugars.

And then they have natural yeast also on the outside of the skins.

That's how they made wine 6,000 years ago, is they collected it all in the natural yeast, then fermented it.

And so a lot of fruit, as people realize the Flathead cherries, our climate again with the cool nights really heightens the flavor for a lot of our fruits, and are well known for it for the cherries.

It does the same thing for the grapes.

Hybrid grapes and cool hardy grapes have typically more flavor and more acidity than vinifera California grapes.

But that increase in flavor really can come out in a lot of our wines.

And then as far as when we harvest and the ways to do with some of the acidity, that's why sparkling really works well because you can fully ripen that grape and it still has the acidity.

California makes sparkling.

They've got to really harvest it unripe to be able to get the correct acidity, but then they don't get the flavors developed.

So we have a very good advantage to be able to get them fully ripe, all the flavors, and then still have that acidity that we need for our sparkling and white wines.

- Okay, here's a tough one.

Thank you, by the way.

And by the way, that is really good.

- [Uta] Yes, it is.

- Yeah, I mean, I'm not a champagne lover and I cannot tell the difference between Dom Perignon or Korbel.

This I like.

I really - - [Larry] It is very... It's exceptional.

- Yeah, it is exceptional.

I would agree with you there.

From Wisdom, interesting.

I don't think anybody can answer this.

This person has some small grapes that mature almost every year in Wisdom and Wisdom is up.

Well, how do you identify those grapes?

- So there are some genetic testing labs for a variety of different fruit crops.

So you can probably reach out to a viticulture specialist probably somewhere in the country, but there are some genetic testing labs for some fruit varieties if you're not sure exactly what variety it is, if you want to replicate it.

- [Jack] Okay, good.

I mean it... - [Uta] Ha, she gotcha.

(panelists laughing) - Not the first time.

Okay, from Red Lodge, this caller is wondering once the vineyard is established, how long until the vines produce a harvest, number of years.

And how that compares with other wine-growing regions in the United States?

Interesting question.

- The establishment period and time is the same across the country.

It takes the first year to plant, and you let everything just grow wildly to build roots.

The second year, you've got enough roots and vigor to start building the cordons that go up onto the trellis.

Then that's ready the third year for a light crop.

You don't want to overcrop it that first year.

But by the time the fourth and fifth year come around, you should be full maturity and full production if you've done a good job with your weed and grass control.

- On that note, what do you use for grass control?

- Myself personally working with folks, I don't care what you use, tillage, herbicides, whatever it is, it has to be done in order for that grapevine to establish, and to be able to produce.

I've seen many vineyards where the grass wasn't treated.

They have a hard time even getting a cordon up to the top.

I've recommended to tear it out and start over and this time control grass.

It's that critical.

- [Jack] Okay, thank you.

- Yeah.

- This caller has tried two weeks to get this in, so it's from Hamilton.

This question has, or this person has a flower bed with Asiatic lilies.

So does that make sense?

On the west side of her house, the plants bloom for the first year or two, but they've stopped.

Plenty of leaves, no blooms.

Why?

- So sometimes overcrowding can limit the amount of flower production, so potentially maybe digging out some of them and spacing them out a little bit apart, that could be helpful.

Other things could be a balance of nutrients.

So sometimes if there's too much nitrogen, you're going to have way more just green leafy production instead of flower production.

So maybe getting a soil test, reaching out to your extension agent, getting a soil test, and maybe dividing it up and spacing them out a little could help maybe encourage flowering.

- Okay, thank you.

This person is somewhat interested in trying to locate more Montana wines, because they're fascinated by the industry.

They want to know why they cannot buy them at farmer's markets, because if you have a tasting room, you can buy them there.

What's the difference between a farmer's market and a tasting room?

- Yeah, we were looking at trying to get permission to go to farmer's markets.

And in the process, we were able to sell bottles for our special permits.

We get 12.

And so right now all we can do is where they allow it, is use one of our special permits to attend.

We would like to be able to go to any farmer's market.

And of course you're not going to be selling glasses.

It's typically going to be small taste so that you can sell bottles.

And that's very popular in other parts of the country, and it's our own produced agriculture.

There's a lot of things that we really need to look at, because we're tied to agriculture.

The rest of the liquor industry is not.

They can get any type of input any time of the year by picking up a phone.

- So we're running low on time, but quickly.

The wine industry in California is in trouble.

They're overproducing, way too much wine.

Some wineries are being put back into alfalfa and so forth.

What's different about Montana wine?

How are you going to maintain the industry here?

- Well, like a lot of other states do, you get enough production to where you have an industry.

People that do travel across the US, since every state has their own wine industry, they want to sample what that state can do and what that local wine is.

And that's where we fit in.

We've got a long ways to go before we could ever saturate the market with how many grapes we need to plant.

But Montana being a tourist designation, our agritourism, people will see that once they understand we can raise some really nice grapes and make some really good wine, they're already coming to Montana.

To have that in addition to be able to do everything else is pretty special.

- Okay, I hear the music saying, "We got to get out of here."

I will comment.

I mean, I like the red wines and I am a red wine lover.

I've never been that fond of whites, but both that white and the champagne is absolutely delicious.

That champagne is very unique, and to produce that here in Montana is, I would say, very special.

- [Larry] Yes.

- So with that, Uta, thank you for being here again.

Larry, thank you for coming in.

I learned a lot.

It's always fun to have a glass of wine on TV.

There's nothing wrong with that.

- Come back soon, Larry.

- [Jack] Yeah, you still have some left.

So with that, folks - - [Larry] Cheers.

- [Jack] We're going to be out of here next week.

Dale Veseth from the Malta area will be here talking about his donation.

So with that, folks, appreciate everything.

We're out of here.

Have a good week and good night.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Montana Ag Live is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture.

MSU Extension.

The MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture.

The Montana Wheat and Barley Committee.

Cashman Nursery and Landscaping.

The Gallatin Gardeners Club.

And the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

(gentle music)