Wineries and New Jersey create a perfect pairing

CENTRAL JERSEY – The go-to guy for education, knowledge, promotion, marketing and anything grape since 1984, Gary Pavlis has been instrumental in the expansion of the state's wine industry.

He sees about six people per month at his South Jersey office interested in opening a winery in the state. 

"A lot of these people when they hear the basics, they decide they really don't want to do this," said Pavlis, a Rutgers University professor and Atlantic County agricultural agent. "Some of them don't realize this is farming and they have to get dirty and buy a tractor. Maybe one out of three go through with it."

The Garden State wine industry has grown immensely in the last 30 years, with the greatest growth in the last decade.

"In 1984, there were only seven wineries in New Jersey," said Pavlis, noting an antiquated Prohibition-era law forbade the making of wine on a per capita basis — only one winery per million people. "That law was still on the books in Jersey. In 1981, we passed the Farm Winery Act that basically said if you use Jersey fruit you could start a winery. As a result, it started building right then. It's been a steady rise and in the last 10 years, it has taken off. Now there are about 60 wineries in New Jersey."

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To start out, Pavlis often has an introductory meeting with would-be vintners that can last more than an hour. As many of the meetings can result in a decision not to go forward, he likes to do these over lunch — that way he has still accomplished something, even if it is just nourishment.

If the future winery owner already has land, Pavlis does a site visit as the next step. There are many things that go into the what, where and how of a new winery.

"I check where the land is and how suitable the land is to growing grapes," said Pavlis, who is planning a visit to a Hunterdon County spot this week. "The next few meetings or interactions are about if they are looking at a piece of land or do I know anything about that area."  

Starting with the basics: Soil 

There also are a variety of basics that must be established before grapes can be planted and wine can be made, Pavlis said. That includes characteristics such as soil, pH levels and bugs.  

"But, the number one thing that denotes what you can grow — grapes or anything — is winter temperatures," Pavlis said. "And there is a vast difference between Sussex County and Cape May County in New Jersey. "

Pavlis explained that the grapes that can be grown in Cape May County will not be able to be grown in Sussex County. And in Central Jersey, those grapes differ as well.

"We really have to match the grapes and it all depends on winter temperatures. So we have to look at your site and how cold it gets," he said. "So if somebody has a piece of land in Sussex County and wants to grow Cabernet Sauvignon, I've got to tell them to move. It's not going to happen. You have to get something really cold-hearted because it goes below zero routinely."

According to Pavlis, most grapes die around minus five degrees. There are generally three types of grapes — Vitis vinifera (European grapes), Vitis labrusca (wild or fox grapes) and hybrids (crossing of labrsuca and vinifera). 

"The Cabernet, Chardonnay, Merlot, Reisling — you get to minus five and the grapes start dying, so you are not going to grow Vitis vinifera grapes," he said. "They are the most tender and susceptible to cold. There are wild grapes in New Jersey and those grapes are different. The genus is the same, Vitis, but the species is labrusca. And labrusca is like Concord, Niagra and Delaware — so they can take lower temperatures."

Pavlis said that most people who want to start a winery don't want to grow the labrusca grapes. In the Central Jersey counties of Middlesex, Somerset, Hunterdon, Union, Monmouth and Ocean, Pavlis said the hybrid grapes work well.

"In those counties you don't have the extremes that you would have in Sussex," said Pavlis, whose office is in Atlantic County. "There are a few hybrids that make very nice wines that a lot of wineries grow. As you move south in New Jersey, you tend to get more of the vinifera and as you move north, it's vinifera and hybrids and as you move further north, it's more labrusca and hybrids. It's just based on cold temperatures. You know, you are not growing Merlot in Hunterdon County."   

He likens growing grapes to being an artist and the grapes are the palette. 

"If you are an artist in Cape May, your palette of colors is your varieties of grapes and it is endless. When you are up in Sussex, you basically have black, white and maybe grey.," he said. "It becomes much more narrow in terms of what you can grow."

The next step for future wineries — if not already completed — is a full soil test. That soil test will say what the soil type is, all the nutrition levels (low, high, deficient), and pH (measure of acidity) of the soil. Rutgers University and the Cooperative Extension office can help complete that task, Pavlis said. 

"Each of the county's has a Cooperative Extension office and a soil test can be purchased there," he said. "I explain to them how you take a soil test — you take samples all through the area and mix them together and then send them into Rutgers and you will get a report back. That report will automatically also comes to me — if it says they want to grow grapes than no matter where it is in the state, it comes to me."

The pH of the soil is critical, Pavlis stressed. These grapes are very specific as to what the pH level has to be. Vinifera grapes need a 6 to 6.5 pH reading, hybrids are around 6 and labrusca can take a 5 to 5.5 level. 

Pavlis said he often gets people around early spring calling him and telling him that they have ordered the grapes — without doing the preliminary work, such as soil tests and pH levels. For this reason, he believes education is key to the future vintner. 

Next: Bugs

"Then, I'll ask what rootstock did you order, and they go 'Rootstock? What is rootstock?'," Pavlis said. "The vinifera and the hybrids have to be ordered with the rootstock — either #3309 or #101-14. We have an insect in the ground here called phylloxera — it's a root louse — and that bug eats the roots of vinifera and so when you want to order Cabernet Sauvignon (grapes), you can't just order Cabernet Sauvignon and call the nursery up and say 'I want 1,000 Cabernet Sauvignon.' No, you have to call them up and say 'I want 1,000 Cabernet Sauvignon on 3309.' Rutgers has done research to show that specific rootstocks work in New Jersey and the reason they work is that they shut the plant down at the end of the year, so it goes to sleep during the winter. You don't want them growing when it's snowing."

Pavlis also asks the winery wanna-bees if they have done a nematode test. A nematode is a tiny worm-like root insect in the large phylum Nematoda. It is likened to a roundworm or threadworm and it will eat roots.

"I like nematodes because when these people call me and they haven't done a nematode test, if you plant your grapes and the nematodes are there, they will eat up your roots," Pavlis said. "If the plants are costing you $4 or $4.50 a piece, and you are putting 900 per acre, that's a lot of money and all this goes down the drain. So, if they haven't done the nematode test, it actually puts the brakes on the whole thing. We have to wait til it gets warmer in the season to do the nematode test and it tells the person who was going to plant in two weeks, 'No, you are not going to plant this year. You'll plant next year.'"

This "stall" allows for people to create a proper business plan and answer key questions such as:

• Where is the winery going to be?
• Where is the building going to be?
• Do you have a designer?
• Where is the vineyard?
• Where are the parking lots?" 

"You can't just put up a building and say 'That's a winery'," Pavlis said. "It takes specific things such as drainage, the height of the building and access. It all has to be worked out. You can't be like, 'OK, I'm planting grapes.'"  

While other areas have used poisonous and deadly gases such as Bromomethane, commonly known as methyl bromide, to get rid of nematodes, New Jersey does not. Rather, the Garden State — thanks to Rutgers — uses biorenovation and the Rape plant, which also is called rapeseed or colza, and is a member of the mustard family.

"We have learned that if you plant Rape, and let it come up, then disc it down, it forms a gas that will kill the nematodes," Pavlis said. "It builds up your organic matter and does a lot of positive things and nobody dies because they get a whiff of it. That will take a year to do."

It is Pavlis's hope that with time, the interested winery owners will "go out and learn more and do some reading." He suggests getting on the Internet, reading books on the topic and talking to other established wineries, whom he says are very educated on the subject.

"What I have noticed the people that do open these wineries are voracious learners," he said. "They are constantly trying to learn more and more about growing the grapes and how to make the wine. ... All that can only make the wine better and better."

Along with other Rutgers professionals, Pavlis hosts the annual symposium Grape Expectations the first weekend in March at Forsgate Country Club in Jamesburg. Calling it a challenge, Pavlis said that the goal of the conference is to give them something so that when they walk out of the room, they are more knowledgeable than when they walked in."

Always learning

He believes that the "beauty of wine, in general, in that you can never know it all." 

"It never gets boring," he added. "With wine there is the added thing of a passion. People really get caught up in the passion of what they do and its universal. I travel to places all over the world and the people that make this wine are just so passionate about it and passion drives education."

Also, Pavlis said that grapes cannot be grown in New Jersey organically — because of the climate. 

"And that's true of Pennsylvania and Maryland...because we get 25 inches of rain between Memorial Day and Labor Day and high humidity and that's perfect for fungal diseases," he said.  

Many of these topics are covered in the first meeting with prospective growers. A second session — if there is one — focuses on the chosen land. After the basic steps, Pavlis said there are always followup questions and he is there for the new winery owners to help them through the process.    

Pavlis said that many of the would-be winery owners that he has met with about starting a winery "were growing something else and that wasn't working out."

"Thousands of acres of farmland have been lost in New Jersey, but the wine thing is the fastest piece of agriculture," Pavlis said. "In a lot of ways, this wine-grape thing has saved farmland in New Jersey."

Pavlis added that Jersey wines are amazing. He and his friend and author/wine expert John Mahoney annually host tastings pitting homegrown wines against the bigger names from the likes of France, Italy and Australia. 

"We call it 'New Jersey against the World'," he said. "And New Jersey almost always wins. This year, New Jersey won every pairing. We are producing some really nice wines here. We have absolutely nothing to apologize for here. We have beautiful wines."

"We do it so well in New Jersey, 10 to 12 years ago people still said, "We do wine in New Jersey?" Well nobody does that anymore," Pavlis added. "It is fun for me — like this summer I was down at a winery in Cape May that I helped start and there had to be 2,000 people there. They had a band and food trucks and of course wine and everybody is sitting next to the vineyard. Twenty years ago to do this you had to go to Napa or Sonoma and now look at what we have here."  

For more information on local wineries, go to https://www.newjerseywines.com/.

Staff Writer Cheryl Makin: 732-565-7256; cmakin@gannettnj.com