Ohio: Oldest Brand-New Appellation in America

A press tsunami for the Big Wine got off in earnest, transforming the focus of California’s premium districts and creating a new business model based on fame which soon eclipsed the hidden gems of the American East. California had minute quantities of serious table wines, but so did Ohio.

by Clark Smith
July 24, 2009

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It’s embarrassing. The more I learn about the Ohio wine industry, the more I wonder how I could possibly have known so little. Here we have a well established region, venerable in history and solidified in quality offerings, condemned to obscurity by gross ignorance.

Get this. Ohio’s first wineries emerged when San Francisco was still a Mexican-owned mudhole called Yerba Buena. In 1861, when Charles Krug opened its doors as Napa’s first commercial winery, Ohio was already established as the nation’s leading wine producer. I am not making this up.

The reason is simple. Economical California agriculture was impossible until irrigation technology was ushered in by the Electrical Age. In 1820, the Ohio River Valley’s natural advantages held the upper hand.

Southern Ohio has plenty of rainwater. That’s essential for non-irrigated crops, but can be bad for grapes. Grapes need water in the Spring, then dry conditions in the Fall. The Ohio River Valley provided both -- thin, fertile soils perched on well-drained bedrock above the Ohio River’s moderating winterkill protection. Here the Catawba grape made its debut as a light rosé of immense popularity, more often than not fortified with brandy or Kentucky whiskey to suppress re-fermentation so it could be made sweet without exploding. (Before sterile filtration was invented after World War II, off-dry table wines weren’t possible.) With its fresh fruity aromas and pretty pink color, Ohio Catawba created a consumer rage.

It wasn’t to last. The labor shortages of the Civil War were hard on Ohio Big Pink, and experienced vintners migrated north to trade up for smaller plantings of premium grapes, joined by German immigrants who settled the Lake Erie Islands, which despite their northern latitudes could sustain premium wine grapes due to the moderating influence of the lake.

Soon dozens of wineries had fanned out along the escarpment south of the lake forming the renowned “Lake Erie Grape Belt.” This region played a major role in U.S. wine production until Prohibition. No kidding.

So what happened? Cheap California port and sherry, that’s what. The post Prohibition wine consumers were port boozers and bottle-a-month sherry sippers, not today’s connoisseurs cracking into reserve Cabernet every Sunday. And once the Bureau of Land Reclamation provided water for Fresno and Kern County, Ohio couldn’t possibly compete.

Read Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. It wasn’t vinous excellence that catapulted California to the forefront. It was cheap water, cheap land, low disease pressure and cheap labor, all converted into dollar-a-gallon muscatel, tokay and other sweet, fortified wines which comprised over 90 percent of the State’s production for the next thirty years. Displaced Oklahoma immigrants picking for a dollar a ton. These conditions wiped out any chance of recovery for the Ohio industry in the Thirties, and it wasn’t until the Sixties saw a renewed interest in serious table wine that the Grape Belt’s Concord contracts with Welch’s Grape Juice gave over a few acres to experimental vinifera plantings for premium high-ticket classic European-style offerings.

A press tsunami for the Big Wine got off in earnest, transforming the focus of California’s premium districts and creating a new business model based on fame which soon eclipsed the hidden gems of the American East. California had minute quantities of serious table wines, but so did Ohio.

Ill Winds and Good

Besides its natural rainfall and fertile but well-drained soils, Ohio’s position on the 41st parallel confers a cool growing season combined with over an hour more summer daylight than the Napa Valley receives. These advantages come with a price. In summer, wilting humidity gives rise to an array of mildew pressures which challenge growers constantly. But the principle vine hazard anywhere East of the Rockies is the Alberta Clipper which blows winter Arctic air off the Canadian Shield, cracking open woody tissue in all but the hardiest of vines. The prized Vitis vinifera varieties from which classic European wines are made, are also the most winter-tender.

While advances in site selection and perhaps the effects of global warming have opened up the Ohio River Valley to its share of impressive vinifera, most of the premium action in Ohio is focused on the south shore of Lake Erie, an appellation which also extends into Pennsylvania and New York.

Standing between its south shore and these Canadian bone chillers, Lake Erie evaporates massive quantities of water into the deadly winds, raising temperatures as much as 40 degrees Fahrenheit. “Right down by the water is safest, but in summer it’s too cold there to ripen,” advises Regional Advocate Arne Esterer of Markko Vineyards (more about him later). “You need a well drained site high enough above the lake to ripen, but close enough for winter protection. You want to plant where you can just see the water.”

Weirder still, planting must be on North-facing slopes. The sunnier South-facing aspects will come out of dormancy if there’s a week in February of warm weather, and then they’ll get murdered when it turns cold again. Early push also exposes the warmer spots to more Spring frost hazard.

These unique sites below the Lake have one more decided advantage. Warm, rising air off the summer lake surface sucks dry air from the south, creating a daily mini-Mistral which dries out the vines and suppresses mildew. “We’ve taken a hundred years to work it all out,” crows Esterer.

Local Flavors: Each of the four AVAs we sampled showed distinctive regional flavor characteristics.

The Ohio River Valley includes Indiana and Illinois, and takes advantage of the well-drained soils 1,000 feet above the river. Lacking a large body of water, these vineyards are more plagued with winter injury, and much of the best wine is from the more hardy French-American hybrids, including some really remarkable Chambourcins, Vidal Blancs and Nortons. Cabernet Franc and Riesling make refreshing, high acid styles which are great palate cleansers for the daily catch.

Being totally surrounded by water, Isle St. George has the longest growing season mildest winters and most moderate summers in Ohio, an environment very similar to Long Island, with which it shares very light sand and gravel soils which readily shed its considerable rainfall. Its wines exude fully developed ripe perfume, tropical fruit and musk melon, and the long season can soften acidity and add rich, oily texture.

These islands lie in western Lake Erie, with vineyards spread out along the escarpment south of the Lake from Sandusky to Buffalo, all entitled to the Lake Erie AVA, not to be confused with the Lake Erie North Shore DAV on the Canadian side of the lake. Just East of Cleveland, the Grand River Valley appellation encompasses vineyards within two miles of Grand River. More than perhaps any other region we have covered this year, these wines display, across varieties, a signature aroma we have seen nowhere else: a heady magnolia blossom character that pervades the nose. Its source is a mystery to everyone I talked to – something in the summer air. Besides this character, the wines tend toward likeable, feminine textures with refreshing but not driving acidity.

To the East of Grand River Valley is the not-quite-nascent appellation of Conneaut (“CON-nie-ott”), which extends to the outskirts of Erie, PA. Here we did not encounter the overriding florality of the adjacent area. Instead there is a native mustard savageness, very dense flavors of tamarind and honey, and a highly energetic minerality to the wines.

One cannot discuss the wines northeastern Ohio without including a sidebar on Arne Esterer of Markko Vineyard, its guiding light and spirit leader for some thirty years. It is immediately apparent to any novice wine drinker, upon encountering his late harvest Chardonnays and sur lies, full malolactic rieslings, that Arne ain’t runnin’ with the traffic.

Yet there is much genius in his free-swinging experimental approach to this challenging terroir, with its astonishing intensity, savage flavors and biting acidity, and Arne’s style inventions and vineyard innovations have spawned a whole generation of followers. Not for everyone, this group certainly produces the most interesting, terroir driven wines of the State, and for sheer personality have few rivals anywhere.

The soils around Conneaut are finely-particled patia clay and silt loam which give excellent root nutrition. Something about this part of the region results in higher sugars, peach / honey flavors and exceptional concentration, perhaps even too intense for some tastes. “If there is a consistent flaw in Lake Erie wines, it’s their intensity,” confesses Esterer in an ironic tone that reveals he’s not about to apologize for it.

Further east into Pennsylvania, the soils become lighter --sandy, gravelly light soils which shed autumn rainwater, resulting in an extended growing season and very flowery wines.

The biggest challenge for me in writing about Ohio was the sheer diversity. For ready reference for readers, I organized below the results of wines achieving Best-of-Appellation status into functional consumer-based categories based on reason-to-buy. Individual notes for each of these offerings are available on the Best-of-Appellation wine list and on the wine lists for the individual wineries. Blue Book varietal profiles are delineated on the AVA pages for Lake Erie, Grand River Valley, Isle St. George, Ohio River Valley and Ohio State.

This is not a short list. The wine regions of Ohio have provided us with overwhelmingly convincing proof that their venerable status as world class players is well deserved. If your taste runs to classic vinifera wines of aromatic intensity and good acidity, I cannot name a region in the New or Old World which offers such varietal and stylistic diversity, whether you’re in search of a special collectible for your cellar or a jolly good drink that will amaze tonight’s guests.

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Dry and Off-Dry Generous Whites for Current Consumption
Raven's Glen, Ohio, Chardonel 2008 White October"
Raven's Glen , Ohio, Traminette 2008 Autumn Spice"
Grand River Cellars, Grand River Valley, Chardonnay, 2008
Ferrante Winery, Grand River Valley, Chardonnay 2007
Chalet Debonne Vineyards , Grand River Valley, Chardonnay 2007
Ferrante Winery, Grand River Valley Chardonnay, Reserve 2007
Ferrante Winery, Grand River Valley, Gewurztraminer 2007
Firelands Winery, Isle. St. George, Pinot Grigio 2008
Ferrante Winery, Grand River Valley, Pinot Grigio 2007 "Signature Series"
Grand River Cellars, Grand River Valley, Pinot Gris 2007
Chalet Debonne Vineyards, Grand River Valley, Pinot Gris 2007
Presque Isle Wine Cellars, Lake Erie, Pinot Gris 2007
Grand River Cellars, Grand River Valley Riesling 2008
Chalet Debonne Vineyards, Grand River Valley, Riesling 2008
Ferrante Winery, Grand River Valley Riesling 2007 "Signature Series"
Presque Isle Wine Cellars, Lake Erie, Vidal 2008
Ferrante Winery, Grand River Valley, Vidal Blanc 2007

Dry, Crisp, Energetic, Palate-Cleansing Whites
Maple Ridge Vineyard, Lake Erie, Chardonnay 2007 "Select"
Presque Isle Wine Cellars, Lake Erie, Riesling 2008
Kinkead Ridge, Ohio River Valley, Riesling 2008
Ferrante Winery, Grand River Valley, Riesling 2007 "Golden Bunches"
St. Joseph Vineyard, Grand River Valley, Riesling 2007
Old Firehouse Winery, Lake Erie, Riesling 2007
Markko Vineyard, Lake Erie, Riesling 2006
Klingshirn Winery, Lake Erie, Riesling 2007
Laurello Vineyard, Grand River Valley, "Josephine" 2007 White Blend

Savory Dinner Whites for Asian Food and Fruit Preparations of Meat
Presque Isle Wine Cellars, Lake Erie, Gewurztraminer 2007
Klingshirn Winery, Lake Erie, Pinot Grigio 2008
Markko Vineyard, Lake Erie, Riesling 2002 "Select Reserve"
Presque Isle Wine Cellars Lake Erie Sauvignon Blanc 2008 on
Kinkead Ridge, Ohio River Valley, "Revelation", 2008
Old Firehouse Winery, Lake Erie, Seyval Blanc N/V
Presque Isle Wine Cellars, Lake Erie, Traminette 2007
Henke Winery, Isle St. George, Vidal 2008

Collectible Whites which stand to improve in the Cellar
Presque Isle Wine Cellars, Lake Erie, Chardonnay 2007
Markko Vineyard, Lake Erie, Chardonnay 2006 "Homage"
Tarsitano Winery, Lake Erie, Chardonnay 2005
Marrko, Lake Erie, Chardonnay 1999
Markko Vineyard Lake Erie, Chardonnay Reserve 2006
Firelands Winery, Isle St. George, Gewurztraminer 2008
Markko Vineyard, Lake Erie, Riesling 2007
Tarsitano Winery, Lake Erie, Riesling 2006
Chalet Debonne Vineyards, Grand River Valley, Riesling, Reserve 2008

Reds for Current Drinking
Henke Winery, Ohio River Valley, Chambourcin 2008
Harmony Hill Vineyards, Ohio River Valley, Chambourcin 2007
Laurello Vineyard, Grand River Valley, Cabernet Franc 2007
Burnet Ridge, Lake Erie, Cabernet Franc 2007
Klingshirn Winery, Lake Erie, Cabernet Franc 2007
Harmony Hill Vineyards, Ohio River Valley, Cabernet Franc 2006
Tarsitano Winery, Lake Erie, Cabernet Franc 2005
Presque Isle Wine Cellars, Lake Erie, Noiret 2007
St. Joseph Vineyard, Grand River Valley, Pinot Noir 2007
Markko Vineyard, Lake Erie, Rose 2005
Liberty Vineyards, Lake Erie, Red Blend

Collectible Reds for the Cellar
Marrko, Lake Erie, Cabernet Sauvignon 2006
Markko Vineyard, Lake Erie, Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 Reserve
Presque Isle Wine Cellars, Lake Erie, Chambourcin 2007
Presque Isle Wine Cellars, Lake Erie, Merlot 2007
Henke Winery, Ohio River Valley, Norton N/V

Dessert Wines
Grand River Cellars, Grand River Valley, Vidal Blanc Ice Wine 2007
Chalet Debonne Vineyards, Grand River Valley, Vidal Blanc Ice Wine 2007
Ferrante Winery, Grand River Valley, Vidal Blanc Ice Wine 2007
Laurello Vineyard, Lake Erie, Cabernet Franc Ice Wine 2007