RIGA 2006 THE QUEBEC EXPERIMENT

1. RIGA 2006THE QUEBEC EXPERIMENT ALAIN BREAULT VITICULTURE A&M INC 520 MONTAGNE ABBOTSFORD ,QUEBEC J0E 1A0 COQUINE@ENDIRECT.QC.CA 450-379-5302

2. I am a grape grower and a nurseryman in Quebec for 24 years. Last year Mariette and I bought an apple orchard on a mountain side ,since that believe me the apple trees are pruned very short .The planning is now of course to plant grape vines everywhere. As you already realise ,my first language is not english ,it is more like a french dialect so if my language offend or insult you I am not always responsable • Geographic situation of Quebec province in Canada. It is in the east of Canada and centered around St-Laurence river . USA is the south border , Ontario and Hudson bay are in the west side , one third of the northern part is made of tundra and is limited by the Ungava bay and strait . East side we see Labrador , New Brunswick province , Maine state and St-Laurence gulf • Quebec is populated by 7,5 M people , 6M speak a kind of french in use in the 17 th century . It is also said that there is 9 M people in USA who have a quebequer name .All that started very slowly around 1600 with few colonist. After a century only 5000 colonist from Britanny and Normandy were establish . So the main occupation for 4 century outside agriculture was to replicate ourself as fast and as far as possible. At one point the colony of Nouvelle France was 20 time bigger than New England in superficie but 5 time less populated . Almost everybody have some mixture of Irish and indian too.

3. Climate is continental with however some maritime effect from Hudson Bay ,great lakes and St-Laurence river when not frozen .In vine growing area the temperature extreme could be -33 to +33 C frequently and -36 and lower averaging every 10 years .Water is 1,2 M and well distributed all year long but a bit less in winter.Degree-day accumulation varies from 1200 to 800. • History of Quebec as I see it and to make it simple is that we were and still be a colony .Our first master was the French empire of course. In 1756 the British empire ‘’liberated’’ us from the french and they created the Canada dominion. After WW2 they traded the Canada for our help during the war .The new master of Canada now is an empire so powerfull that the real hidden boss can put a village’s idiot as front for president . • Viticulture and commercial’s scale winemaking seriously started in 1985 with 5 licences to sell locally (Quebec) made wine from locally grown grape vines. The wine at that time was not very good for many raison but was easy to sell anyway because of the novelty

4. It was ‘’discover’’ then that Seyval blanc ( SV 5-276 )could be a enough reliable cropper if buried with soil in winter. The shoot are not bended to the ground in the fall, instead the vines are grown with a very short 10 to 15 cm trunk and very low cordon. Enough buds survive the winter if a 20 to 30 cm of soil are mechanically put over the vines .Yields of 3 to 5 tonnes per hectare are usual from the 3rd years to the 15th , after that the decline is fast . • That technique is not easy but it was the only one possible on large scale vineyards 20 years ago. We found out too that Vidal ( Vidal 256),Chancellor (S-7053)and very few other are giving good result. • All other variety being french hybrid ,viniferas , american hybrid , Amurensis hybrid etc we tried failed miserably because the vines must have very special characteristics . First it must be very fertile because most of the buds rot under ground in winter , those left alive should have big bunches and the shoot must grow upright. Some diseases resistance is also a necessity and of course a saleable wine is the goal.

5. The main problem with that system is the high production cost .It is true that burying and unburying vines is quite easy but to do so the land must be relatively flat and flatlands are not found on best sites , it is incompatible . So a lot of crop is lost without a good way to protect from May frost . Remember that the fruiying buds are very close to the soil where it is the coldest. Another limitation so far is the small number of varietys that could be grown usefully , a few french hybrids and that’s all. • After few years the soil structure is worsening and it become less and less alive. Also the shape of the vines become bigger and more complicated to pruned and many many vines are pulled out entirely or partially when unburied because of weird asymmetric shape. • What is new in Quebec and other cold areas in North America is what we call the new hardy vines from Minnesota . Since 1992 I think a lot of research has been done after we realize that it is possible to grow hardy vines in really cold climate . Of course in Minnesota they new that much earlier

6. There is actually more than 500 hectares of grape in Quebec ,half are in commercial scale vineyards which numbered about 50 now. Of them about half are mostly in hardy vines .The expension rate is much faster now since we have Swenson’s varieties like Sabrevois ,St-Pepin ,Louise , etc or more recently those from the University of Minnesota breeding program : Frontenac ,Frontenac gris and soon Marquette • The wine purchase level in Quebec is officially 120M litres per year . Less than 1% is quebec grown so there is room for expansion as long as the wine is good and the price is right to begin with . Before we got the vines from Minnesota those two conditions were not often potentially there . Now the main fact from my point of view that could brake the expansion of vineyards number or surface is the limitation in the diffusion of knowledge mostly with the winemaking techniques • I think the best thing we could do in the future is to created special products with these special vines. Trying to imitated Bordeau wine or Chardonnay wines only put us in competition with everybody in the world and they have to start much better conditions to do so. Instead we can continue to elaborate product they cannot do easily . We need special , original , inimitable products like icewine from Frontenac gris.

7. To conclude , my perception of the viti-viniculture in quebec is that there is two viticulture side by side , one is loosing ground every year other is still young but has a great future. Some very exciting product have been made recently and the waiting list for customers is staggering . That speak for itself , the customer is king • Alain Breault Abbotsford 1nov. 2006 downloaded from vinograd.info