(gentle guitar music) - [Narrator] Today on "Oklahoma Gardening," we are back among the grapevines as C&H Garden Vineyard brings in the harvest, we then follow it to Sabatia Winery, where they turn Oklahoma grape juice into wine, and then we learn more about a large moth you've probably seen around the garden, and finally, Shelly Mitchell shares how to process another unique fruit.

Underwriting assistance for our program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry, helping to keep Oklahoma green and growing.

- So if you're looking for an easy, low maintenance perennial.

(bright music) We have two different types of flowers on one plant.

(bright music continues) Capsaicin is what gives the pepper its heat.

(bright music continues) Today we are in Jones, Oklahoma at C&H Vineyard and joining me is Harley Duncan, who is one of the owners and operators.

You and your wife are doing this and it's quite a backyard hobby you've got here.

- Yeah, thank you.

- It's turned business, right?

So tell me a little bit about your beautiful vineyard, if you don't mind.

- Well, we started it as just something to do in our retirement and then it started taking on a life of its own until it's turned into this.

We were originally just gonna do a hundred vines or so and now we've got over 1500, so.

- [Casey] Oh my goodness and several different hybrids.

Tell me a little bit about what you have here.

- [Harley] We have two hybrids.

Chambourcin, which is a French-American hybrid and then we have Seyval blanc, which is also a hybrid.

Then we have three viniferas, Cabernet, Muscat, and Riesling.

- All right.

So it is harvest season.

We're towards the end of summer.

In fact, you've already harvested some, correct?

- We have harvested all of our whites.

- Okay, and where are we at now in harvest?

- So we're probably a week, maybe two weeks away.

We're trying to make a decision this week.

We may go ahead and harvest this week if the brix continue to come up.

- Okay.

So let's talk about how do you know when it's time to harvest?

We're looking at chambourcin around us here, right?

And that's maybe the next ones?

- That's correct.

- On the dock.

So tell us a little bit about how you know, what you're measuring, and how do you know when it's time?

- So we have a couple of different tools.

We have a hand tool that we carry out in the field with us and then we have a digital one that we use in the lab, and it's a called a refractometer.

And it measures the solids and the sugars, if you will.

And I think it was developed somewhere in Europe, some guy named Brix.

(Casey laughs) So it measures the way the light refracts through the solids.

So the more solids, the more the light bends, and there's a little scale in there where it tells you exactly what, you know, the brix are.

- And now I know, you know, pH and acid is also important.

- Yeah, the pH, the total acidity, we check those things as well.

There's a balance between all of those where the winemaker wants 'em to be within certain perimeters and that's what usually helps us decide when to harvest.

Now, sometimes this might be off a little bit and you have to go ahead and harvest here.

There are certain things you can do to make adjustments and so all the winemakers know how to do that.

- Right.

Right.

So, you've got the chambourcin that are coming on and tell us a little bit about the day of harvest, how that kind of plays out.

- [Harley] We invite friends to come out.

There's an old joke that when you start you have your friends come out, now we don't have any friends anymore.

(Casey laughs) But interestingly enough, we will put the word out on Facebook and almost every year we get new people that come out that have never done this before.

We had one recently with the whites that said this is his lifelong dream to harvest grapes sometime.

- [Casey] Oh, wow, wow.

And you do it at the break of dawn, right?

So you gotta be early rising.

Get out here, but it's a beautiful morning to to be out here, right?

- And there's several reasons for that.

One, because of the temperature.

The other thing is, as soon as we harvest, we take them immediately to the winery and he's gonna crush 'em and destem 'em and press 'em.

And so that window in between harvest and when they do that needs to be as small as possible.

And you want it to be, you want to get that done early in the day.

So that they'll have time to do everything they need to do.

- Okay, all right.

Now, when it comes time to harvest, what training, I mean, you're hiring the public out here to do this.

Is it literally a matter of just cutting each grape bunch off, or?

- We use pruners and they're automatic.

If you happen to cut your finger, you'll immediately stop pulling on it.

(Casey laughs) No, really.

There's not too much to it.

I mean, you basically, you grab that, you cut it here, drop it in a bucket.

Go to the next one.

- Go to the next one, okay.

So, it's like an Easter egg.

If you see grapes, just put 'em in a basket, right?

- That's it.

Anyone can become an expert in about five minutes.

- Okay.

Well, I know you and your wife, Cindy, you have found a passion for this.

Tell us a little bit about the grape industry as far as what all you've done with your tenure in this.

- My wife actually got more involved in the industry, if you will.

She volunteered to be the President of the Oklahoma Grape and Wine Industry Council.

Then she started building relationships with all the different organizations.

And we are purposely trying to grow the industry.

The way it is right now, a lot of the Oklahoma wineries are using juice from California because we don't grow enough fruit here for the demand.

And part of our purpose is to try to get more people involved in the growing.

One of the things that we can do, we can sit up there on the patio, and we face the west, and we can watch the sun go down over the vineyard every night.

And, you know, there are people that pay big bucks to do that in California.

We get to do it for free.

So that in itself should encourage people to want put a vineyard in.

- Well, is there any, I mean, being somebody who's grown grapes here in Oklahoma, tell me about some of the, y'know, challenges that we might have here in Oklahoma with grape growing.

- So one of our problems is that morning dew that we love that makes things grow, the grapes are susceptible if they get wet, there are certain fungus that can grow on them.

And so we have to have a specific spray pattern that we do during the growing season.

As long as we stay with that, the grapes can stay healthy.

We've got certain problems here that California doesn't have.

California's got problems that we don't have.

It's the same thing in every region in the world, and so you just... We now have, through OSU, we have our own viticulture knowledgist and he's willing to come out and help with any kind of problems that you may have in the vineyard so that we can learn to produce good quality fruit.

- Right, right, and I know you guys are a very close knit group, but also a very open group.

You are willing to share anybody that has interests kind of what your setup is and how this works, right?

- And that's interesting, 'cause this is what we tell people all the time.

I am in no way an expert on all things viticulture.

What I am is an expert on what goes on in our vineyard.

So if I know it, I'm willing to share it.

So I don't know everything, but what I do know, I'll share.

- That's amazing.

Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

And so we're gonna capture some of your grape harvest that's coming up in a couple of days.

And if people want to join in on some of the others that are coming on later in the season, Facebook is the best way to check that out?

- Yes, that would be great.

And everyone that comes out here is just a friend we haven't met yet.

- Awesome, thank you so much.

- All right, thank you.

(bright country music) (music ends) - We've had a busy morning this morning and we've been following the Chambourcin grapes that came from C&H Vineyard and Gardens.

And here we are at Sabatia Winery and joining me is Steve Sneed.

Steve, you've had a busy morning.

Tell me a little bit what we did with those grapes when they came off the trailer.

- Yeah, the first thing we do is we unload the grapes.

We get them here as quickly as we can.

We want them to go as quickly as possible from vine to juice and protected and ready to start the fermentation.

So first thing we do is we take 'em off the trailer, we weigh them on a scale, and then we'll take the grapes around and shovel them into what's called a crusher-destemmer.

- [Host] Okay, and that sounds like a violent thing.

- [Steve] It is a very violent thing, yes, yeah.

You want to keep your hands completely out of the way.

But there's augers involved and paddles inside the machine that tumble the grapes.

And then there's a basket that surrounds that process, and the basket has holes in it that allow the grapes, the juice, the skins, the seeds to fall out.

The stems get ejected out the end and those stems fall into a little tub and then we dump that tub and take that eventually to a compost pile and that compost will be turned back into our own vineyard over the next winter.

The juice and the pulp, everything else gets pumped into a harvest bin, another harvest bin that we use to do open-top fermentation.

- [Host] And this is red wine that we're making today, correct?

- [Steve] This is red wine today, right.

- [Host] So those skins are an important part in that red wine making.

- Absolutely, yeah.

In red wines, most of the color comes from the skins and that contact during fermentation.

White wines, we separate them immediately so the juice is separated from those skins and we really don't want too much color in that.

And so they're done a little different process.

With the reds, the Chambourcin that we did today, it will ferment, it'll take about five days to do the fermentation.

- And when that's done, then we will put it into a press, separate the juice and the skins.

- Okay, let's back up to the fermentation process a little bit.

It's not as just a matter of putting juice in a container- - No.

- And letting it do its thing.

You've done a little bit of chemistry.

Tell me about some of that.

- Yeah, absolutely.

We're looking for very specific chemistry when the crop comes in.

You know, it's an agricultural crop, and it's maturing over time.

There are several key factors that we look at.

We look at, first of all, sugar level, and we look at it as a certain percentage of sugar.

And we're really looking for 22 to 24 range on this particular grape.

We got really close to that today.

We're also looking at pH and total acidity.

Now, the difference there, pH is the strength of the acid that's in the juice, and total acidity is, think of that as the volume of acid that's in the juice.

And as the grapes mature, that sugar level goes up, the pH starts to go up.

In other words, it's a weaker acid.

- Okay.

- If you remember your chemistry days.

- Right, right, yeah.

(host laughing) - As the pH number climbs, that's a weaker acid.

So if you take it too far, you're in trouble.

- Okay.

- And then the total acidity as that grape matures drops.

- Okay.

- [Interviewee] So think of the berry getting larger, and the concentration inside of that acid is less.

- [Host] Okay.

And we're trying to create an environment for yeast to grow?

I mean it's like- - Absolutely, yep.

- [Host] Like beer we've seen, right?

So.

- Exactly.

And in our case, what we try to do, well first of all, grapes have yeast on the outside of the skins.

- Okay.

- [Interviewee] It's there naturally.

Wine making's been around for 8,000 years.

It's really only in the last 50 or 60 years that we've really perfected commercial yeasts.

They're a lot more predictable.

So what we'll do is we'll kill off the native yeast, and then the next day or two, we'll dose it with a commercial yeast.

It's a lot more predictable, both in temperature range, flavors, aromas, those sorts of things.

- Okay, so the yeast is what's eating those sugars or the brick, right?

And so it's taking it down.

- Yes.

Exactly.

- A sweetness.

- Exactly, the yeast eats the sugar.

- Okay.

- And that converts into two things: CO2, carbon dioxide, and ethyl alcohol.

So the alcohol is what stabilizes this product.

So that's the magic of grapes turning into wine is, the whole purpose of wine is to preserve that crop.

Without it, without some sort of chemicals in there to protect the juice, it would spoil very quickly.

- Right.

- So we're making a product that can last for years and years, simply by converting it to alcohol.

- Okay, so how long does that fermentation for the red wine that you're making today actually take?

- It'll be about five days on this.

- And is it a exothermic reaction?

Does it heat up or anything?

Like can you tell us a little bit- - Most definitely, yeah.

- Does it change as far as the look?

- Absolutely.

It is a violent reaction that's happening inside.

In fact, in another day or two when the commercial yeast takes over and the fermentation really kicks off, it's almost like boiling underneath.

- Oh wow.

- And it will push the skins and the pulp to the top and it forms a cap about this big.

And about three times a day, I will break up that cap.

I've got a special tool to help me break that up and it helps to release heat.

It also helps to push flavors back in to the wine.

So those skins and seeds and everything else, the tannins are picked up in that wine.

It's a wonderful process.

It's one of my favorite parts of the whole process is to just come out and break up that cap.

- Okay, and so a little bit of difference between the white and the red.

The whites won't be sitting with their skins.

- Nope.

- They will go straight into a fermentation process?

- They go into, yeah, we separate the skins and the seeds.

So the juice settles out for about two days.

So some of the sediment goes down to the bottom, and we'll leave that in the tank and remove everything else, put that into another tank that's got a glycol jacket on the outside of it.

And it will, we do a colder fermentation.

We control that fermentation.

In this case, it's about 58 to 60 degrees that I ferment this particular wine.

And this wine we did about four weeks ago.

And it's a much slower process because of the lower temperature.

The lower temperatures in whites and even roses hangs onto the floral aromas, any of the fruity aromas.

If you go too hot on those fermentations, it kind of blows all those things away.

And then you're just left with alcohol with no flavor or aromas to it.

- Okay.

- So it is a totally different process.

- Okay.

- With reds, it's fine to be in that 80 to 85 degree range.

It actually kinda benefits to bring out some of those flavors.

- Excellent.

All right, so once our red wine is done fermenting, what is the next step?

It goes into a barrel?

- It will go into- (Host laughing) Not yet.

It will go into a big tank and settle out for a couple of weeks.

And again, solids will settle out down the bottom.

And then, I'll make a determination in two or three weeks, and then it will go to barrel.

- Okay.

- [Interviewee] And then it will stay in barrel typically about a year, year and a half sometimes.

And every month, you will have to go in and top up the barrel.

Even in the barrels, the wine will evaporate a little bit through the wood.

- Okay, it's porous, right?

That makes sense, yeah.

- It's a little bit porous, yeah, just microscopically small amounts.

And so you'll see the level of the wine go down.

That's referred to as the angel share.

And so we have to top that up.

You can't allow oxygen to be in there.

That would spoil the wine.

- Okay.

- So every two to three weeks, eventually a month, I will go in and top those barrels back up.

I will also check the chemistry every single month.

- Okay, and so how long will they sit in these barrels for?

- 12 to 18 months total.

- Okay.

- And then they'll come out of barrel.

I'll blend them together.

- I'll have multiple vineyards multiple harvests that will be in these barrels.

So I'll have a blend that will come back together.

The same variety of grape and they'll go into another tank.

I'll make sure they're stable.

Again, more solids will settle out and eventually they're bottled.

- Okay.

Well, tell us a little bit about Sabatia is buying grapes from Oklahoma.

- Absolutely.

- Tell us a little bit about how important that is and why that's unique.

- Yeah, well, I think it's vitally important to buy local and from a winery doing fresh grapes, you really need those grapes to get from vine to processing as quick as possible to get the best quality.

There are some fantastic growers in Oklahoma.

We'd love to see more.

The growers we have here are excellent so we have wonderful grapes that come in.

I also like the concept of being a 100% Oklahoma grown winery and it's my job not to mess anything up after these families work so hard on the grapes all summer long.

And so they're delivering wonderful fruit.

I need to make quality wine when it comes out.

- Right.

Well, I love your name too, Sabatia.

- Thank you.

- Tell us a little bit about how you came up with your label and your name as well.

- Yeah, when, well, we bought this property in 2010 and it was undeveloped and a lot of grassland here.

Every weed known to man.

So basically that means we have a lot of wildflowers.

There's about 12 to 15 different wildflowers that we have here.

But the one that was really unique to me was Sabatia campestris.

That's the botanical name for this particular flower.

It's about six to eight inches tall on a stem and then this really pretty pink flower on top.

So in mid-June through a little somewhere around 4th of July, it's all over my property.

And so I like names that tie to a place and it ties to Oklahoma.

That's a native to the prairie grasslands of Oklahoma and Kansas.

- Right.

- It's a unique little flower but yet it is Oklahoma through and through.

So I'm happy to have that name.

Fortunately, there were no wineries anywhere in the world called Sabatia.

And no, there are no flowers in the wine.

- Okay.

Okay.

Well Steve, thank you so much for sharing the story of Sabatia and also this process of wine making with us.

I appreciate it.

- Thank you so much.

It's an honor to have you here.

Thank you so much for coming out.

- Thanks.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - We are looking at the horn worm and the matching adult moth.

So if you're somebody who grows their own fruits and vegetables, you may have noticed a tomato horn worm on your tomato or pepper plants.

Don't turn your back on 'em because they are massive eaters and they can destroy those tomato plants really, really fast.

Most people don't realize that there is an adult moth that the tomato horn worm turns into, and we've got that here.

It's a very large moth.

It's called a hummingbird moth.

It's very fast and moves back and forth the way that a hummingbird would.

So if you are smart and collect all of the tomato horn worms off of your tomatoes, you may never get to see the full adult moth but it is quite a magnificent animal.

(cheerful music) (cheerful music continues) - Prickly pear is a cactus that's commonly seen around Oklahoma.

One thing you might not know about it is the pads and the fruit are edible.

Now, I don't eat the pads, but I like the fruit.

So I'm gonna show you how we can harvest it and I'll show you what it's like inside and then you can turn it into whatever you want.

So these little guys start out as flowers.

They were yellow flowers earlier in the year.

And then when the flowers gets pollinated and fertilized, it starts growing a fruit which gets darker throughout the summer.

So usually between about September and December when they're really dark is when you wanna harvest them 'cause they're at their sweetest.

But whether you're gonna harvest the pads or the fruit, you have the same problem to get around.

Even though some of 'em have spines and some don't, these little guys, and they're on these fruit too, are called glochids.

And they're just a whole bunch of little, like little cluster of little teeny tiny spines that get under your skin and it'll bother you for days or even weeks.

So we don't want those in our hands when we work with this.

So we wanna make sure they're gone.

Now you can use duct tape, but I find fire more fun.

- Now that we've hopefully burned all the glochids off of our fruit, it's time to harvest it and actually cut it off the plant.

Now, since we just burned it, it's gonna be hot.

Plus we might not have gotten every single glochid, so I'm gonna use tongs to hold it while I cut it off the plant.

So now we have our harvested tuna.

All right, so now that we've harvested the fruit, we can skin it.

So what you usually do is you cut off a little bit of the bottom and a little bit of the top.

'Cause the top has a whole bunch of those glochids real close together.

You can see right there, there's seeds in the middle.

That's why it's a fruit, it's got seeds.

All right, so here's the inside.

After you peel off the skin, you'll have little pieces of red fruit and you can see there's a whole bunch of seeds in here.

You can chop it up and put it in smoothies.

You can use it, you can strain it and drink it as juice.

You can eat it raw, but you can see that it could also be a good stain if you wanna stain any fabric.

So whenever you're out in the Oklahoma landscape and see a prickly pair, see it from more than just its ornamental beauty.

Remind yourself that it does have uses beyond just beauty.

You can eat some of it and just remember if you're gonna harvest it and eat it, just remember to put a little bit of more care into harvest and preparation than your average fruits.

(upbeat orchestral music) - [Announcer] There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

Be sure and consider some of these events in the weeks ahead.

(upbeat orchestral music) Join us next week as we share another use for your Oklahoma red dirt right here on "Oklahoma Gardening".

(upbeat orchestral music) (chuckling) (upbeat orchestral music) - Burn Baby.

(upbeat orchestral music) - [Announcer] To find out more information about show topics as well as recipes, videos, articles, fact sheets, and other resources, including a directory of local extension offices, be sure to visit our website at oklahomagardening.okstate.edu.

(upbeat orchestral music) Join in on Facebook and Instagram.

You can find this entire show and other recent shows as well as individual segments on our Oklahoma Gardening YouTube channel.

Tune into our OK Gardening classics YouTube channel to watch segments from previous hosts.

"Oklahoma Gardening" is produced by the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service as part of the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University.

The Botanic Garden at OSU is home to our studio gardens, and we encourage you to come visit this beautiful Stillwater gem.

We would like to thank our generous underwriter, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry.

Additional support is also provided by Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Oklahoma Horticulture Society, the Tulsa Garden Club, and the Tulsa Garden Center.

(upbeat orchestral music)