Sensory Analysis of Itasca Wines
preliminary findings of industry sensory evaluation of Itasca winemaking practices
September 11, 2019
Presented by Matthew Clark and Andrew Horton
‘Itasca’ is a new wine grape variety developed at the University of Minnesota and released in 2017. This grape variety demonstrates vineyard sustainability traits like cold hardiness, powdery mildew resistance, and low incidence of foliar phylloxera. Furthermore, the juice of the wine is about 30% lower in total acidity than its parent ‘Frontenac Gris’, making it suitable for dry wine production or for use in blending. The novelty of this variety means that few winemakers have had an opportunity to trial different winemaking practices. In 2017 and 2018 we made experimental ‘Itasca’ wines in order to provide some initial insight to winemakers who may be making ‘Itasca’ wines for the first time. We conducted 2 different experiments, and then conducted sensory analysis of the wines during the Cold Climate Conference in 2018 and 2019. Here we describe the preliminary results of this research.