Date: Fri 08-Mar-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Location: A-11

Quick Words:

McLaughlin-maple-syrup-winery

Full Text:

(feature on Morgen McLaughlin, maple sugaring & syruping, 3/8/96)

Syrup Is The Product, Not The Process-

Maple Sugaring In McLaughlin Country

(with photos, dropquote)

B Y S HANNON H ICKS

aple syrup production was not part of the package deal when Morgen McLaughlin

decided to take over managing her family's wine business in 1994. It is today.

When the enterprising then-21 year old took over the vines at McLaughlin

Vineyards in Sandy Hook, her first concern was learning the wine business. In

fact, when she took a job in the vineyard's office after graduating Boston

College with a business degree that May, she hadn't even planned on taking

over the business; for a few months, she told everyone she would stick around

to help out. Meanwhile, she was determined to continue her education and work

elsewhere.

But by September, Morgen realized she was not going back to school. After a

summer of learning the ins and outs of the wine business - "it was a real

trial by fire," says today's fast-thinking businesswoman - her natural

instincts took over. By Christmas, the business was being run by Morgen, who

was also living alone in the house she had grown up in with her parents and

younger brother, Justin. Her parents have moved to Colorado, and Justin is a

student at the University of Connecticut; continuing the wine business on

Albert's Hill Road is wholly up to Morgen.

The vineyard has now celebrated two successful years under Morgen's helm. In

fact, with 1995 being called one of the greatest harvest years in the last two

decades for Eastern vineyards (the long, hot summer allowed for very ripe

fruit, with little incidence of rot and disease), Morgen watched as the first

vineyard wine of 1995, a Nouveau, sold out in under a week.

Working During A "Down" Time

Last week, Morgen McLaughlin began maple sugaring at her family's vineyard for

the second season straight. Sugaring is the process of getting sugar from

maple trees. Boiling down the sugar to make maple syrup is "syruping,"

although scores of people confuse the terms, referring to the sugaring process

as syruping.

"What you're doing is boiling the sap - the sugar of the tree - into syrup,"

Morgen said last week while taking a quick break for lunch - cheese and

crackers.

The vineyard manager was about to make a roadtrip to Springfield, Mass., to

personally pick up the evaporator that will make the vineyard's syruping

process move much easier and become more time-efficient this year. Delivery on

the machine to Sandy Hook was delayed through the manufacturer, so Morgen

wanted to make sure it would arrive as soon as possible once it was ready.

This take-charge kind of thinking is what keeps this young lady so well

grounded; she has good ideas, and follows them through to completion herself.

The evaporator is a special boiler that will produce maple syrup after a

week's worth of boiling. Traditional boiling down - what Morgen and crew had

to do last year, using a huge pot over an outdoor barbecue pit - took up to

three weeks.

To make syrup, you must first tap into sugar maples. These trees offer the

sweetest sugar, which results in the sweetest syrup possible. Red maples can

be tapped, but the sugar content is not as high; Morgen learned that lesson

last year, her first at making syrup on her own. After sugar maples, black

maples are the next most commonly used to make syrup.

Maple sap itself is a colorless liquid with a light, sweet taste. It runs as

loose as water, and is just as clean. The maple taste and amber color of syrup

are formed during the boiling process. Sugar turns darker as the sugaring

season continues, with the peak sugar flowing during the middle of the season.

From this, the medium-ambered syrup is produced.

"You want to look for a medium-to-light brown color," says Morgen. "You don't

want anything really light, nor really dark.

The McLaughlins have 75 trees to tap on their property. Trees, as a general

rule, can produce as much as a gallon of sap for each tap it has per day.

Trees should be 30-40 years old before tapping, and more than ten inches in

diameter.

Taps need to be spaced at least six inches away from the taps of the previous

year, Morgen pointed out. Trees are tapped only once a year, in late winter.

In southern Connecticut, plants begin awakening in mid-to-late February, when

the daytime temperature averages into the 40s, then night temperatures return

to below freezing.

"This is what gets the sugar running," Morgen said. "Plants are now coming out

of their dormant season."

In Vermont, where things are a little bit colder but maple sugaring is a huge

business, things will generally start about two weeks later than southern New

England.

"Because of this [colder than usual] winter, it's been just this week [that

we've started tapping]," Morgen said last week. The vineyard is not producing

wine these days, but its general manager is still kept busy daily.

Between planning this year's wines, opening the wine house for wine tastings

on weekends (plus maple syruping demonstrations each weekend in March),

planning the summer jazz series the vineyard embarked upon last summer, and

continuing to prune what is left over from last year, Morgen's days are far

from idle. She is also busy getting wine ready to sell, bottling and designing

new labels for this year's vintage.

"We should have been able to have syrup this weekend, but because it's been so

cold...," she said Friday afternoon, with a barely perceptible shrug.

The sap may not have been running steadily last week, but Morgen was ready to

go. By this week, she was still eager about getting the syrup underway, and

was almost getting impatient running into what seemed like one problem after

another. Morgen's got a great head on her shoulders, though, and after working

in the wine business - not to mention after growing up surrounded by the

fields of vines her family has toiled over for decades - she is one who

understands there is no rushing Mother Nature. But that doesn't make

complications any easier to swallow.

After picking up her evaporator over the weekend, Morgen then needed to obtain

insulating bricks. These would, when placed around the area where the wood

will be burning beneath the evaporator, make the evaporator more heat

efficient. Unfortunately, early this week, Morgen was having a tough time

locating the bricks.

"We're still set to go," she voiced Tuesday afternoon. By this Saturday, the

sap will be boiling and syrup will be ready. (The vineyard has a special

spring weekend planned, by the way, March 23-24. It will celebrate the peak of

sugaring season with a breakfast at the Sandy Hook Firehouse, and Morgen will

have tastings available of this year's newest wines.)

This year, the vineyard also has a bottler, which finishes and filters the

syrup so it can be sold with a Grade A classification. "Good" maple syrup is

based on sugar content (called "brix," the same term used to describe sugar

content in grapes when making wine), its color, clarity and, of course, taste.

Since she began making maple syrup - her do-it-right attitude included

intensive classes at the University of Connecticut - Morgen has been

constantly amazed more wineries do not become involved in sugaring and

syruping in their off-seasons. The two techniques, she emotes, are very

similar. In fact, she recently wrote a paper for a trade magazine encouraging

other wineries to follow her lead.

"The production of both wine and syrup is remarkably similar," she says.

"They're both manufactured; they're both breaking down sugars. In wine, sugar

becomes alcohol - that's what alcohol is, it's sugar. Sugar in wine becomes

alcohol through fermentation."

Like the labels on each bottle of McLaughlin Vineyards wine being sold these

days, Morgen has designed the labels for the jugs of syrup to be sold this

year, too. The jugs will boast a scene she drew depicting the vineyard. The

8-ounce jugs, filled with pure Grade A maple syrup, will be offered for $6

each.

Sugar is so watered down when it comes from the tree, syrup makers need to

boil forty gallons of a tree's clear sugar in order to generate one gallon of

pure maple syrup.

The vineyard hopes to produce 25 gallons of syrup, which may not seem like a

lot until you remember the 40-1 ratio of gallons of sugar to gallons of

finished syrup. Which means Morgen is going to need to collect and boil down

at least 1,000 gallons of pure sugar.

"Consumers, at first, don't realize why syrup is so expensive," she said.

"[Not when] they can go to the store and buy [a bottle of syrup] for $1.99,

but that's because there's no real syrup in there. It's corn syrup!

"With maple syrup" - she was gathering steam here, like the boiler that will

be going at full speed for the next six weeks at the winery's overhang - "the

big expense is that 40-to-1 [sugar-syrup] ratio. Plus you've got your

manpower, you've got either propane or wood to boil... No one makes money

doing this.

"What's amazing is that people in Vermont - there are even a few families in

Connecticut - this is their sole source of income, six weeks of work. And then

it's just selling syrup [the rest of the year]."

The sap will continue running for about six weeks, which takes Morgen into

late April. Until then, she can also continue to work on a vineyard section

where chardonnay will ultimately be planted.

Pruning needs to be done to cut away growth from last year, as well as any

winter kill. The winery's growing season begins with "bud break" - when the

buds on the vines swell, then burst - usually around the first week of May.

Spraying starts then, as does tilling the soil... it will then be time to go

back to the wine business full-time.

"It's nice to have this to work on, because now is something of a down time

for the winery," says Morgen.

Until mid-April, McLaughlin Vineyards will be making and selling maple syrup.

The vineyard will be open weekends for demonstrations at the sugaring sites,

free of charge. The regular wine tasting sessions will also be held each

weekend, from 12-5 pm Saturday and Sunday. Groups are welcome to schedule

appointments to visit the vineyard during the week; Morgen has already had

telephone calls from Brownie and Girl Scout troops. For additional

information, telephone McLaughlin Vineyards at 426-1533.