Bill Riley has waited nearly 30 years for grapes this good.

The founder of Maury Island Winery picked his Pinot Noir grapes on Oct. 11. With nights in the 30s, with rain and winds forecast, he measured the grapes’ brix, thought “it’s now or never,” and harvested the deep purple clusters.

That question — to pick or to wait — is being nervously weighed this week by several Island growers.  

At least eight small vineyards have been planted since 2000 — most in the last five years. Those owners with vines old enough to harvest are measuring sugar levels — that’s called brix — and acidity to see how much more ripening they can squeeze from the weather and into their fruit.

After a wonderful growing season, after all the classes, pruning, weeding, irrigating and chasing off of raccoons, they’re looking for an answer: Can Vashon fields produce wine-worthy grapes?

Start-Up Vineyards

Riley admits, “It’s an enological frontier out here: We’re still all trying to figure it out.”

Steve Buffington, perhaps the youngest of the new growers, also has the youngest vines. But he’s “made grapes” for years.

“From 1996 through ’03, I used to go over and pick grapes and prune in Prosser,” he said.

He found a site on Wax Orchard good for both orchard and vineyard.

“I knew the quarter-acre between house and road would be for grapes. It has hot, poor soil, good sun, no hardpan, was somewhat protected from the wind,” he said.

You need a lot of time and a chunk of money, he noted — he budgeted $3,000 for trellising, vines and wiring.

He also went to conferences offered by WSU’s Extension Research Unit in Mount Vernon.

He planted “mostly whites — Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris — and some varieties all the rave in New York: Corot Noir and Noiret. I’m probably the only one who didn’t plant Pinot Noir,” he said. 

But Henry Haselton did, inspired by a Beachcomber article about the Monument Road Pinot Noir bottled by Ron Irvine of Vashon Winery. When Haselton realized that his place on 216th was just uphill from Monument Farm, he called Irvine.

“I said, here’s all this land, it has good exposure, sandy loam soil that drains really well,” Haselton recalled. “Ron said he drives by our place all the time and was already thinking this spot would be good for wine grapes.” 

Taking Irvine’s advice, Haselton planted a quarter-acre in four varieties that prefer cooler climates: Pinot Noir and Pinot Noir Precoce, plus two whites: Chasselas and Siegerrebe. 

He doesn’t want to make the wine himself — he’ll let Vashon Winery do that.

“I just want to put the land to what it will do well,” Haselton said.

Growing more local wine grapes

Ron Irvine has used local grapes when he can get them — Jim Stewart of coffee-bean fame has provided grapes from his Back Bay vineyard for years. 

But the truth is, only about 1 percent of the state’s wine grapes are grown around the Puget Sound. Irvine would like to do better.

“My goal is to use about 20 percent local grapes. Right now it’s about 5 to 10 percent,” he said.

“Wine is in vogue now, and so is eating local. Think of this as ‘drinking local,’” he joked.

He has no vineyard of his own. What he calls “the Sunny Slope on Monument Road” has good sun, wonderful drainage, all sand.

“But my soil has hardpan with clay, so it tends to be a little heavy and wet,” he said.

“If you were to say to me, ‘Gee, I’ve got a great site, what do you recommend?’ I’d say, it depends on your site,” said Irvine. “You need good sun not just in July and August, but throughout the entire growing season, April through the end of October.”

He suggests using a weather data-logger that, for under $200, will count up what are called “heat degree days” over a site’s growing season. Each day earns a certain number of heat units, depending on how warm the site gets. These units, tallied over an entire season, reveal how much warmth — ripening power — the site provided. And microclimates can make a real difference: for instance, a sunny, south-facing slope can raise heat degree values by 25 percent.

“Plug it into your computer and track temps for a year or two,” he recommends. “You want a minimum of 1,600 degree days, with a best-case scenario around 2,100.”

Watching for Ripeness

Northward on Cedarhurst, retired psychiatrist Chuck Torrey has been postponing harvest of his Pinot Noir, waiting for its brix to rise. “We’re on the edge of ‘can’t do it here,’ but I’m determined to make it work. And I know Ron’s trying to keep in touch with growers because he wants some local grapes.”

On Oct. 11, “with the weather closing in, no warmth in sight, and the grapes looking likely to deteriorate if left longer,” the Torreys picked their Pinot. Their 108 vines yielded 800 pounds of grapes with brix sugars at 21.2 — “an ample crop,” he said. “The ripening could be better, but it’s close enough.”

Torrey planted his first vineyard in 1993 in the Bay Area.

“It’s a good hobby for retired doctors because you get to go back to the lab,” he said. “You follow the brix and the acidity and the pH. You want a sugar level brix from 20 to 22. But the numbers don’t tell the ripening: You have to get out there, check out the seed color, taste the grapes.” 

Torrey planted five years ago and pressed his first vintage last year. He grows half Pinot Noir; the rest are Zweigelt, Agria and St. Laurent.

“I’m determined to be a pioneer and make it work,” he said.

Bill Riley of Maury Island planted a mixed bag of varieties back in 1980, but he tore them all out in 2000 — “too many mistakes, too many lame varieties and too much really lousy wine,” he confesses. “I went back to Bainbridge Island Winery, took their seminar in grape growing and bought some Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris cuttings.”

His currents plantings slope to the southwest on gravel loam that drains “excessively well,” he said. He fenced around the entire property, fenced and netted against wildlife, then applied to the state for a winery license, which he received last July.

With the help of this writer and several friends on Oct. 4, Riley’s six rows of Pinot Gris were harvested, crushed and pressed, yielding more than 250 pounds of juice. By next year, that will become 60 to 70 bottles of wine.

“If it’s an exceptional Pinot Gris, it will be ready to drink by late spring 2010,” Riley said. “At that point, I may decide to re-ferment it for a sparkling Crémant, which will take another year to be ready.” 

A week later, he harvested his 12 rows of Pinot Noir. Asked about the results, he said, “I’m very happy. The brix was up to 21.5, and I got more grapes than ever: 650 pounds. And though this is the first year I’ve tracked heat degree days, this site achieved 2,389 degree days.”

“Growing wine grapes on Vashon? I think it’s more than possible.”

— Karen Dale is an artist, gardener, garden writer and blogger. To read about and see the Pinot Gris harvest, visit Dale’s blog entry at blogs.vashonbeachcomber.com/gardenon.

Maury Island Winery will be open by appointment hopefully by spring 2010.

For more information on growing wine grapes in Puget Sound, visit http://maritimefruit.wsu.edu/ and read the page, “Growing Wine Grapes in Maritime Western Washington.”