Sean Ballinger Grape Breeder and Vineyard Manager Bear Creek Winery

Tyler Bertsch: All right, this is Tyler Bertsch and I'm here with Sean Ballinger. Is that how you pronounce it?

Sean Ballinger: Yep, totally.

Tyler Bertsch: You want to go ahead and introduce yourself and then kind of give me a background of how you got into this?

Sean Ballinger: I’m Sean. I’m the vineyard manager, though my title changes all the time. I was the head winemaker for 10 years and I just passed that off to my best friend this week. So I’m going to focus totally on viticulture and he’s going to take over the enology, chemistry side of things, and actual fermentation. I’m the second generation at the winery. My parents founded it 24 years ago, and I fell in love with it probably 15 or so years ago.

Tyler Bertsch: So the first vines were planted in 2003?

Sean Ballinger: 2003, yeah. I got them right there. We got three left. I ripped the original vineyard out. It was really sad.

Tyler Bertsch: What were they?

Sean Ballinger: Frontenac, of course. Frontenac, Louise Swenson, there was Frontenac Gris, and then there was Marquette. We tried nine Marquette and they failed. Then Petite Pearl as well. That was the original vineyard. We kept three Frontenac. We ripped the whole thing out for an event center. It was two prime location.

Tyler Bertsch: So who taught you or how did you learn this?

Sean Ballinger: I studied underneath my dad. I went to Sonoma for a little while. I’ve been studying underneath Tom Plocher for probably 10 years. Pretty much we talk about three times a week. I like to think of myself as his protégé. He may disagree, but I don’t think he does. I used to think of myself as a synthesis of my dad and him. My dad is a winemaking expert and he is the viticulture expert, and I was trying to become the embodiment of both of them. But I realized that viticulture is really my love. I love the plant itself more than I love the cellar. So I moved away from the cellar this last week. It was a big leap for me. We’ll see if I can actually stick with it.

Tyler Bertsch: So what were some mistakes you or your dad made early on that you guys learned from that maybe other growers could benefit from or what to avoid?

Sean Ballinger: One, I had loyalty to grapes. I didn’t trust the science. I didn’t listen. I had a prejudice against, say, Frontenac because of its high acidity, and I worshipped Petite Pearl. But I lost Petite Pearl twice. I love Petite Pearl. So I ignored evidence because of my bias toward the Plocher varieties versus the U of M varieties. But now I feel that I’m wide open. I’ve been on every horse now. So I have U of M, I have Jeff Peterson from Minot, he’s breeding too. I’ve got David McGregor’s, he’s famous for Petite Amie, but he’s got other things too. I’ve got Elmer, I’ve got Mark Hart—I don’t know if you know him. He’s from Wisconsin. His freeze to the ground but the wine quality is high, so I use them for the pollen. These are all private breeders, 90% of them. I use U of M and someday I’d like to have NDSU here too. Harlene’s varieties, Radiant and Dakota Primus, would be awesome to play around with, but that hasn't been in my cards yet.

So that’s one mistake I’ve made. Another one is I committed myself to a trellis system, spacing, and now I’m kind of bound to it. I wish I would have been more organic. I wish I would have put in drain tile first because of my soil type.

Tyler Bertsch: What’s your soil type?

Sean Ballinger: Super heavy clay.

Tyler Bertsch: Like any loam or sand? Or just straight heavy clay?

Sean Ballinger: She’s black. She’s definitely heavy clay. Well, that tells us a lot though, because some varieties wouldn't tolerate it. But everyone's tolerated it.

Tyler Bertsch: Do you have any idea of ones that didn’t tolerate it, you think? Just your gut telling you?

Sean Ballinger: The only thing that I thought, if any soil was going to do well here, it would have been Louise Swenson. It would have done well here because it is so low in vigor that it just took five years to get to the wire. So what I like about my soil is I can get the vines to the wire pretty fast. But I don’t water them after they’re two years old.

Tyler Bertsch: So it’s pretty fertile. What was it before you guys planted?

Sean Ballinger: It was just farm, corn, beets, soybeans. It looks like high-end farm ground. For people listening, the soil around here is pretty black. Pitch black, really fertile. So I try to replicate—I realized that you listen to all the myths and they say don’t water your vines, make them suffer, blah, blah, blah. I put nitrogen on them this year and we’ve gotten a wet enough spring, they're thriving. I feel like I’m relearning the rules. I call them wine myths, like older vines make better wine, you have low yields, and I’m going back to the drawing board and figuring out what was myth and what is actually true.

Tyler Bertsch: This is still the Wild West. You really are. So people that have all those old prejudices or stereotypes really get blown up all the time. As more people I talk to, the more that’s true.

Sean Ballinger: Take the myth of white wine is dominant in the north. I’ve got a grape called 4440 that ripens before all my white wines. So it would reverse all my prejudice. I can pick it like September 10th up here at 26 Brix and 6 grams per liter acid. pH is 3.6.

Tyler Bertsch: That’s a game changer. I’m trying to think in Nebraska, like a benchmark grape, when would you harvest Petite Pearl up here? I know you don't have many left.

Sean Ballinger: I have six left. I kept it for sentimental reasons. I hold on to it as long as I can before the birds take it, but it’s like late September, early October.

Tyler Bertsch: This thing in Nebraska probably would—you’d pick it in like mid-August. If I translated, we pick Petite Pearl like Labor Day weekend-ish. So I’m trying to benchmark the difference.

Sean Ballinger: Totally. So this grape wouldn't be useful to you as useful to me. What would be useful to you is 4470. It’s another grape that is super late bud break, misses the spring frost, later ripening. It’s Crimson Pearl’s kid. It’s unbelievable wine quality. I put it above Crimson Pearl in wine quality, but it’s just—I can ripen it, but I gotta push it here. But it would be perfect for you guys in Nebraska.

Tyler Bertsch: For those listening, you’re also a grape breeder. I don’t think we really talked about that.

Sean Ballinger: Yeah, so I’m cross-pollinating myself. My most recent cross that I was doing is the grape I just told you about, and I cross it with Frontenac all the time. I’m trying to synthesize different breeders and try to figure out—I call it site-specific breeding. So I’m trying to find the perfect grape for my terroir. My best friend has a vineyard too, but he’s on a gravel pit. He basically is completely opposite my soil type. So we have two test sites that we’re tinkering around with. So I want to replicate all my varieties, and I probably have about 80 varieties I’m playing with right now.

Tyler Bertsch: What named varieties do you have?

Sean Ballinger: Crimson Pearl, Itasca, Petite Pearl (I still have a little bit), Frontenac, La Crescent. La Crescent will freeze to death though.

Tyler Bertsch: Really?

Sean Ballinger: Yeah, here. That’s cold. Not every year. I’ve got her right there from 2004, she’s still alive. She’ll die to the ground sometimes and get some bud break. What I do with La Crescent—did you give her a name? No, I mean like that plant, the way you talk about them, it's very personal. "Oh, that’s Shelby, she doesn't like dry years." So La Crescent, what I do is I bush her out and then we use the pollen. Because I love the nose on it. I love the aromatics. It’s the best. You can get like a lemon bomb or a peach bomb kind of thing. So I love La Crescent, but it’s not quite hardy enough. So what I’ve been doing is crossing it with Itasca. It would solve Itasca’s greenness. We get a little greenness on the nose up here. You probably don’t get that but we do. Do they turn pink for you?

Tyler Bertsch: They can, yeah.

Sean Ballinger: Isn’t that the best when they turn pink? First they’re green, then they’re gold, then they’re pink. When they’re pink, then you lose them because the birds want them. So I basically only plant research grapes. 99% of my work is they don’t have names yet.

Tyler Bertsch: How many vines do you have of these named varieties? Just like a handful?

Sean Ballinger: Oh, I have about 1800 vines or 2000 vines total. My commercial vines used to be like 1600 vines. The Crimson, Itasca, Frontenac, La Crescent—that’s in that. Mainly Crimson. I focus pretty much on Plocher varieties for commercial vines. Because I can get U of M varieties anywhere, they’re very popular.

Tyler Bertsch: So how many Crimson do you think you have?

Sean Ballinger: 900. I grow Crimson Pearl, that’s what I do. And then about 300 Itasca. Frontenac is getting lower, probably about 100 or so. And then La Crescent, lower, 75. The only reason I ask is just to see like, because when you get three vines it’s like "who cares?" You’re learning maybe a little bit, but when you have 75 and you go down to 50, that tells me a lot.

Sean Ballinger: Yeah, so I cut a lot of La Crescent out over the years. I cut Marquette completely out, I ripped it out. I cut Petite Pearl, cut Louise. Prairie Star froze to death. I lost so many times.

Tyler Bertsch: Prairie Star froze to death? Wow. Because I thought that was hardy to negative 40. Is it a fall acclimation?

Sean Ballinger: It’s the wind problem. So basically, I put it completely exposed on the last south row over there and it just got—the shoots got ripped off. Speaking of the wind, some growers had mentioned that their vines that are exposed to the windward side, their shoots are delayed. 1000%. That’s true. For you, I’m sure you get more winter kill. I’ll prove it. Itasca got hit—Itasca is the hardiest mine out here, probably. One of them. 0120, I’ll show you, you’re going to laugh at it. It is a beast. It’s unstoppable. I put it hardier than Valiant, in my opinion.

Tyler Bertsch: Hardier than Valiant?

Sean Ballinger: I think so. Well, that’s the mother. That’s the hardiest. So I’ve seen zero bud damage in it. No kidding. The wine quality is way higher than Valiant too. Triple the quality. So it’s got—it comes in at great parameters: 24 Brix, 7 grams per liter acid, pH is 3.4. It’s awesome. It wouldn't say it’s my favorite wine. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to graft—I’ll show you the two vines. So we have 4440 and then 0120. 0120 is a great rootstock. I’m going to graft it on top. So we’re going to fix the two. I always thought I was going to breed them, but I think I should just graft them. Because the wine quality on 4440 is so good, but the clusters are too small. You’ll see.

Tyler Bertsch: What about canopy management? Which ones are of these four, the Crimson, Itasca, Frontenac, La Crescent?

Sean Ballinger: Crimson is perfect. Crimson is pretty good, I’ve heard that. It’s the best. It’s the perfect amount of vigor. It has high fertility. It’s the least of those four for bushiess. Well, according to Bob, I would say—I acknowledge that, which is hurtful. I love the grape so much that I have a little bit of bias, but here she’s got the perfect amount of vigor. The management, the thing I like about Plocher varieties is they don’t require much management because the vigor is just right. It produces just the right amount of fruit for the foliage. I don’t have to come in and bush her. I call Itasca "show-me muscles." It’s basically a big bush that I gotta come in and just go "gah!" chop her down.

Tyler Bertsch: Is Itasca the worst of those four or is it La Crescent?

Sean Ballinger: It’s the most vigorous one on my property. More so than La Crescent, you think? Yeah, I’d say about the same, those two. La Crescent is usually kind of a monster down by us. Frontenac is a monster too, I agree. Frontenac is less than those two or about the same? About the same. But the thing I like about Frontenac, I can’t believe I have it on a high wire right now, it's a mistake. Obviously. Really? Why do you say that? It has an upright growth habit. Everyone—well, I shouldn’t say everyone—a lot of people have it on high wire. It’s working over there. It’s in the entrance. The reason I put it up there, I call her old faithful. I love Frontenac because you can’t kill that. So that’s hardy up here. It lives about nine out of ten winters. Which is still bananas. That’s pretty good. See, to me Frontenac is better than Valiant because the wine quality is higher and it’s hardy enough. And the disease on Valiant is horrible. Other growers have said "canary in the coal mine," like if that’s got disease, you know it’s coming because it’s the first one to get it. Exactly, which is not a good thing.

I put Valiant down there in my research vineyard as a test vine because I consider the hardiest wine grape on the earth. So if that dies, then I know I’m in trouble. You’re on the bench.

Tyler Bertsch: So of these four varieties, Crimson, Itasca, Frontenac, La Crescent, which ones are they all on high wire?

Sean Ballinger: We switched from VSP to high wire 10 years ago and the whole property was transformed. And now I’m just working with them on high wire. And I love high wire, but I would prefer more experimentation as my instinct is always to play around. So I’m bound now, so I want to play around later. Everything is on high wire.

Tyler Bertsch: Did you see any difference in winter kill versus VSP or high wire?

Sean Ballinger: I consider high wire slightly better on winter kill and slightly better for ripening. Just subtle. But it’s also better for harvesting. So harvesters don't have to bend over, they're right up on the wire.

Tyler Bertsch: How high up is your wire?

Sean Ballinger: 5 and a half feet. That’s what mine are at. I like that. I love it. I’m like 5'11", so it’s like perfect height.

Tyler Bertsch: Do you do three wires or do you do one wire?

Sean Ballinger: I just do one. It works, doesn't it? It does. We have more disease pressure down by us, like with fungal diseases, so I don’t like to get it—I try to not have it sitting on the ground. See, I never get to the ground.

Tyler Bertsch: Is there any unique challenges that you see with these grapes?

Sean Ballinger: Definitely. So with Crimson, what do you think the drawbacks are? It can’t be a perfect grape. It’s not a perfect grape. So I would say it’s better for you than me. I have to push the ripeness. I can get her ripe, I can get her there, but you're going to get her there beautifully. You’re going to get her there every year, whereas I have to push, I have to wait too long to pick it. That’s why I’m trying to get an earlier ripening grape. So I’ll pick her right before the frost. But sometimes I get hit with rain that week. I don’t have as much control as I’d like. So I like her a little earlier ripening. The cluster size are beautiful, I love them. I would prefer the tannin to be higher, obviously.

Tyler Bertsch: It’s got a really good fruity profile, doesn't it?

Sean Ballinger: Oh, it’s wonderful flavor. Yeah, I’m drinking it right now. It’s my favorite grape. So but I would say the cold tolerance isn't there. It dies at about—I’ve been talking with Tom about that. We think it's an oversimplification to give a number on that. It's more about spikes in temperatures and there’s like 15 variables that cause winter kill. It's not just one. I can't say, "She’s hardy to negative 30." That’s not simple.

Tyler Bertsch: I know, the buds and then you got the tertiary and—there’s all kinds of things.

Sean Ballinger: So the another problem with the grape is—

Tyler Bertsch: Does it have like strong shoots?

Sean Ballinger: It’s got great shoots. Perfect shoots. I would say like they don’t break in the wind. I get—one year I got wind damage, but that was like eight years ago. And I got—if you want a wind-tested site, we’re the windiest place on earth, I feel.

Tyler Bertsch: For those listening, it's pretty flat, right? Kind of a plain area.

Sean Ballinger: No, totally. Yeah, so we get brutal, brutal winds. You can tell the grapevines on the end of the rows that are exposed to the wind die. Doesn't matter the variety. Itasca, Crimson. I would say Crimson’s downfall is its tannin structure is lower than Petite’s, and it’s lighter. But blending them together is like beautiful poetry. Yeah, definitely. I would say ripening in here is somewhat of a challenge, not that much of a challenge. It is disease resistant. It's to me it’s the standard here. What am I looking for for an improvement? I’m looking for earlier ripening, thicker skins so then they can have pest resistance.

Tyler Bertsch: Do you have berry splitting on it at all?

Sean Ballinger: None. No, okay, good. It is—I’ve had phylloxera on it one year, foliar, and Itasca resisted it that year. That was troubling. But I would say overall she’s the perfect one of vigor, the cluster size—I consider her my standard. So if it doesn’t beat Crimson, I don’t care. So I have all of Crimson Pearl’s kids, grandkids, cousins—

Tyler Bertsch: That’s one of the main ones you use?

Sean Ballinger: Oh, for sure. It’s everything. It’s the source. And Petite Pearl’s the other one. And then the third is Verona. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Verona?

Tyler Bertsch: Yes, it can grow down by us.

Sean Ballinger: It freezes to death here. I try, I can’t ripen it either. But I have Verona’s sisters. I’ll show you. We can do Verona’s sisters. They ripen three weeks earlier, they’re hardier. It’s the same cross, same cluster, just different seed. So we have them. That’s cool. We have all the sisters. 1112—Tom’s going to call it Varetage. It's getting patented right now. It's awesome. Highly recommend planting that. You’re going to see the cluster size—I’m going to show you, you’re going to laugh. It's awesome. Very good. And then 1215—that’s more for me. It’s hardier. The only drawback I found is that the juice is a little brown. I don’t know why. It's not oxidized, I don’t make mistakes in that way.

Tyler Bertsch: I love how passionate you are about breeding because I’ll be like, "Hey, let’s talk about—no, let’s talk about the breeding!" I’m just teasing. What about trunk diseases on any of the Crimson, Itasca, Frontenac, La Crescent?

Sean Ballinger: Trunk diseases, no. You don't really see it? Not yet. I don’t see it yet.

Tyler Bertsch: Did you ever have a year where you have drought-type conditions and did any of them suffer, act different?

Sean Ballinger: The wine improved. 2021 was my best vintage I’ve ever had, and it was a drought. Really droughty.

Tyler Bertsch: Did any of these vines struggle?

Sean Ballinger: Not so much. My water table’s five feet and—oh, yeah, you’re good. It’s wild. That’s not right. We’re lucky. With this soil, I’m surprised you can keep them under control with the black soil and the water. I'm surprised they don’t just like explode. They did. So I didn’t add nitrogen for a long time. And then yeah, and I just did it for the first time. I just did it for the first time. So here we go. I’m going to be pruning again.

Tyler Bertsch: Oh man. Any pollination issues with these four? La Crescent, Frontenac, Itasca, Crimson? Fruit set problems?

Sean Ballinger: Itasca. Really? I find it to be, in my area—I look at everyone else’s vines, no one sees it but me. So I don’t think it's variety specific, but I can’t get my—I have a lot of leaves and not a lot of clusters. And then the fruit set is like—sometimes I get like four berries on a grape. Really? Yeah, I’m not quite understanding why that’s happening. But I would say she’s still a wonderful grape. I still love her.

Tyler Bertsch: I think it could be impacted by the soil or something. Interesting. What about herbicide drift?

Sean Ballinger: All the time. Every year. I get hit every year. It’s the worst thing in the world because you can't do anything about it. I can't stop it. That’s my biggest fear. I have had none this year, so this is the first year I haven't had any in 10-15 years. (Knocks on wood table). Yeah, exactly. It’s a huge problem for me.

Tyler Bertsch: Well, that’s very important because I drill down on everybody with this. Do you notice varieties that deal with it better?

Sean Ballinger: Crimson Pearl does really well with it. Does it? Okay. You get the curling, but by the time—but it pulls through it. It pulls through it and it still ripens the fruit.

Tyler Bertsch: What about Itasca?

Sean Ballinger: Itasca’s good, but I gotta protect it. I got it hidden from it, so it's hard to say that one.

Tyler Bertsch: La Crescent?

Sean Ballinger: I don’t know, I got it protected too.

Tyler Bertsch: Frontenac, how do they do against it?

Sean Ballinger: Good. Yeah, so right now my research grapes are the ones that are exposed to it the most.

Tyler Bertsch: So keep that in mind when you’re breeding, that’s a huge one.

Sean Ballinger: I’m watching it. So that’s a huge one, right? So you want 2,4-D resistant grapes, right? 2,4-D and dicamba. Dicamba, yeah, see that—is that legal now? No, it isn't, unfortunately. It was kind of for like a year or two and now it's back legal, but there’s some restrictions.

Sean Ballinger: I want to show you a leaf and see what—if you can identify what it is.

Tyler Bertsch: Sure. Could be that dicamba. It doesn’t look like 2,4-D, I’ll tell you that.

Tyler Bertsch: Did you have any winters that were extremely cold but caused less damage than you expected?

Sean Ballinger: Yeah, totally. Surprised me. 2023—was that the year? I’m trying to remember. I don’t remember the vintage. I should have my notes with me. But yeah, sometimes it gets really cold but it doesn’t kill them. And I was shocked. I’ve been trying to figure out why that is. I don’t know the answer yet, but I feel like it’s going to take me several decades to figure out what causes winter kill and what doesn’t.

Tyler Bertsch: Well, it can be impacted by moisture levels in the soil, the cold desiccation can maybe—snow cover, wind damage at the same time. If you’re in a windy location, it pulls out the moisture from the buds and stuff too. I mean, we can talk about that later. Is there any signs that you notice, like in the fall, overcropping, herbicide damage pushing it further later into the season? Are there signs that you notice that they’re going to get smoked?

Sean Ballinger: Totally. They’re not hardening off.

Tyler Bertsch: What are some of the signs you look for?

Sean Ballinger: Short shoot growth. I hate short shoots up here because they—like small internodes, too? Yeah. So it’s like the tip of the shoot always freezes to death up here. And all the way back to like the first two buds right on the cordon. So my argument is—every year, every variety—the next spring, they will—I know they're frozen to death all the way up to what I need. I call it self-pruning. So I wait till I see buds. I don’t prune until I see my fruit. It’s a nightmare because it's got to happen quick and swift, but I don’t know what’s going to die and what’s going to live. So I wait till after the fact, after the prune. I know you’re more likely to get disease that way, but for the climate exactly, it makes sense. And you can mitigate that, they do have applications you can put on to mitigate that. I don’t know if you know that.

Tyler Bertsch: So like the Crimson, Itasca, Frontenac, La Crescent—do you ever get like spring damage, like to where they shoot out and then frost in spring? And how fruitful are they on the secondaries? That’s another thing I’m trying to gather from people is how secondary—

Sean Ballinger: I’ve been lucky I haven't had spring frost damage yet. Oh man. This year was a close one. It was very close. I missed it by like 12 miles. Jason got it. But they’re recovering, aren't they?

Tyler Bertsch: Yeah, they looked good a little bit ago when I was there.

Sean Ballinger: Yeah, so I thought he got hit and then they pulled through. So mine—I don’t get spring frost damage and then none of Plocher's varieties really get that because they’re so late. That’s the whole point. So he has a late bud break and then early ripening.

Tyler Bertsch: So of the four, which ones recover best from winter injury?

Sean Ballinger: Frontenac is my standard. That one’s the GOAT. It gets out of it. Crimson Pearl—I would say Itasca and Frontenac—U of M’s really got hardiness down. But to me, what gave the winery legitimacy was the Crimson Pearl because it allowed us to produce fine dry red wine in North Dakota for the first time. Up here, yeah, for sure. So it was a big deal for us to have. So I have unbounded loyalty to it for now. But I would prefer to have the hardiness of Frontenac. And I think that we have it with the next generation, we just—I can’t prove it yet. Tom and I believe that 4470 might be as hardy as Frontenac. We just don't know it yet. I have about 80 of them planted now.

Tyler Bertsch: Do you have any fungal problems up here? Like black rot? Do you guys get black rot?

Sean Ballinger: I got it—I think it was two years ago. We got rain for six weeks during from bud break to bloom and I got it then. So and then I was—I was organic for nine years and I went conventional after that. I lost 30% of my crop and I had to convert a little bit. So I have to protect my family too. I think you're like most people, you want to try to limit it all you can and be respectful to the land and everything. You don't want to overdo it, but you also have to be realistic at times too and use it when you need it but just don't over-kill it.

Tyler Bertsch: Have you noticed different parts of your vineyard act differently?

Sean Ballinger: Oh yeah. I call that dead man’s corner right there. I can see it, there's not much foliage. I look over there, it’s a bush. I can’t keep that alive. I can’t do it. So I replanted it with the hardiest vines I know and then we’re going to test it in three years. So that’s my new test site over there. This year was a huge breakthrough year because Tom is retiring—not retiring, I shouldn't say that. Tom, I didn’t say that. You’re not retiring. He is moving on to—from breeding to like popularizing his varieties. And so what I did in November is I went and cloned everything. And then we brought it back and I’m growing, I believe, everything that he wants to preserve. I may be missing a few things, but I would say for the most part I’m preserving everything that he wants to keep going. And I have the really rare ones in pots that will never see winter and then I’ll clone them when I can get more wood. And then also I’ll breed indoor so they don’t have the wind problems. And then I planted all of the distinct varieties out there that I think have hope to beat Crimson, basically. We’ve got 0111, we’ve got 4470, B11, 4440, we have 1215—there’s just so many that could take it down. That could be the next thing.

Tyler Bertsch: Nice, well I’m excited. Have you ever done any petiole testing on the leaves to see kind of—?

Sean Ballinger: Yeah, we did it last year. I was low on my nitrogen. It was in balance for most of it. With your soil, I’d be shocked. Yeah, I was in balance with most of it, yeah.

Tyler Bertsch: What about bugs? What kind of bugs?

Sean Ballinger: Japanese beetles are my biggest problem.

Tyler Bertsch: So a lot of people up here say Japanese beetles but then when I ask them, they're talking about the little ladybugs.

Sean Ballinger: No.

Tyler Bertsch: Yours are the actual Japanese beetles, like the big crunchy ones that just defoliate?

Sean Ballinger: No, those are Asian—Asian beetles, sorry. Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch: That’s why, sorry, I just ask for clarity. Because in Nebraska they're very two different things. These come in and defoliate your vines. The ones you’re talking about, for people listening, they taste like peanut butter, they come in, they’re nasty. Not peanut butter, that would be better than what they smell like. But they come in because you guys harvest your grapes later, they’re on the cluster sometimes when you harvest, right?

Sean Ballinger: Always. So how do you deal with that? Do you handpick? So my white—so that’s why 4440 is so important to me because it ripens before they come in. But for now, I don’t have that option. That’s Crimson Pearl’s Achilles' heel right now. I have to wait to ripen it and they are there. They’re in the clusters. So I soak the berries, they rise to the top, I scoop them out. That’s how other growers are handling it from what I’ve talked. I wouldn't say it's what I want to do. But I would say they’re less. So my new winemaker wants to pick grapes at 3:00 in the morning. He thinks that will help mitigate that, but I still think you’re going to get them and you’re going to have to soak them, but we’ll see.

Tyler Bertsch: What—is there like a common week? I know it’s when they harvest beans. Basically beans, yeah, it’s right after soybean. What date on average? September 15th or so, you see them, start seeing them. That sounds about right. And then yeah, it’s a nightmare to be honest with you. That’s my number one pest. Phylloxera’s my other one.

Tyler Bertsch: What about deer or raccoons? What do you do for them?

Sean Ballinger: Got an electric fence. Oh you do, okay. What about raccoons? I don’t get them. You’re kind of in an open area. Bunnies are a more bigger issue. Bunnies? Yeah. Really? Bunnies will eat my trunks. Not on grapes as much anymore, they chew when they were young. I lost 30 vines one year to deer, but for the most part, I would say bunnies are a problem with trees. I plant a lot of trees right now too, so they’re eating my trunks up. I don’t get raccoons.

Tyler Bertsch: What about birds? You net?

Sean Ballinger: I net. Yeah, I believe in it somewhat. I tried bee netting last year too and I was so hopeful and they got through that anyway. Really? Like they broke it or just could find their way through? They find their way through. So do you find bee netting more effective than bird—?

Tyler Bertsch: Sorry for everybody listening because I say this to everybody, but the best thing I’ve ever found for me—lasers? No, it’s a $40 kite, Falcon kite on Amazon. Really? Everybody, I tell everybody about that, they’re like, "Yeah." So it’s just a big black pole with a string and it floats. And it works great for me. In my vineyard it works.

Sean Ballinger: That’s great. So I’m going to—I don’t only use that, just don't misunderstand. Do you net them or no?

Tyler Bertsch: I do. Yeah, but I feel like if you—the first couple years I didn’t net because I didn’t feel like, you know, the yield wasn’t—it wasn't—when it was in years three, four or whatever, it's not a lot of yield so I was like, "I'm not going to waste the time netting," but putting the Falcon kite with the bird call, that "wa-wa-wa" like they're dying, was really effective. And that works. Netting works too to a degree. Anyway, sorry to everybody listening because I just say that all the time.

Sean Ballinger: Totally, I want to get one. I’m going to buy the Falcon. I like the rock idea too, I’m going to start doing that. At least on a row to see what happens.

Tyler Bertsch: What advice would you give someone planting a vineyard today after what you’ve learned?

Sean Ballinger: Where at? Where they growing? In North Dakota? Eastern North Dakota. Or even Eastern South Dakota, you’re close there, or Western Minnesota. Your region kind of, more granular.

Sean Ballinger: I wouldn't experiment as much as me. I would do—I would trust the reliable varieties before you play around like I did. You’re going to get burnt if you do what I did. But it’s pretty fun to get—but what did you do? You just planted a boatload of different varieties. Every variety. But that’s not in itself bad because they’re kind of—but I prioritized wine quality over hardiness. Oh yeah. Well, you can't make wine from dead vines, right? Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So I would say if I were to do it again, I would have planted some more reliable varieties and then and then did a small plot for research instead of the whole thing.

Tyler Bertsch: Breeding questions. Yeah, you bet. Just make sure we haven't already answered some of these. So Tom Plocher had a very specific blueprint for what makes a great cold climate grape, right? Prioritizing late bud break to avoid spring frost. What is the single biggest lesson or piece of advice Tom gave you that completely shapes how you look at a new seedling today? What do you evaluate when you—?

Sean Ballinger: So you look at—so I look at like 15 variables when I’m looking at grapes because of him. It’s an art—I had—like when people are asking me, they’re like, "Sean, how do you prune a vine? Is there a formula?" There’s an art form, you have to have an intuition for what the vine needs and you can see the whole picture. So he breeds for 15 variables. You know what I mean? He’s not—he’s not looking at any one thing, he’s looking at 15 things. So what I’m trying to do is interpret what he has mastered over the years and what every—why did he send me B11? Why did he send me 4470? There’s a reason. They have different—if 4470 was B11, it wouldn't matter. So each variety has their own strength that I’m going to spend the rest of my life discovering. What he has observed in a quick moment is going to take me a lifetime to kind of explore what it really meant. So what are the aromatics on B11 when it’s fully ripe versus not quite as ripe? He’s probably made it four or five times. But what could happen if we had 30 years of research on that grape? We could really explore what it’s capable of. So what he’s taught me is to look at—I mean, he’s taught me so many things I can’t even—

Tyler Bertsch: What are some phenotypic traits? Is there anything like color of the bark or leaf, like the morphology of the plant?

Sean Ballinger: So I’m looking for cluster size, disease resistance, but late bud break, early ripening, wine quality, balanced parameters. I’m looking for high Brix, low TA, balanced pH. I’m looking for pest resistance, not just disease resistance. I’m looking for it to—so he just did his most recent cross was a thick skin cross. So he bred a grape, he had a grape that was really resistant to birds and bees pecking holes in it. So he crossed it with everything. And so hopefully that is a natural resistance to pests so you don’t have to spray an insecticide on it later on. And another thing that he’s doing is he uses Vitis palmata, I don't know if you know Vitis palmata.

Tyler Bertsch: I’ve heard of it, yeah.

Sean Ballinger: So he’s using that and that grows under water. It has a really late bud break. Really late bud break and it tolerates really wet conditions. So I have it all over in my vineyard.

Tyler Bertsch: How do you get it survive? It's one-fourth.

Sean Ballinger: I was going to say! How in the world are you getting—? 4334 is one-fourth Vitis palmata. It's in the South, right? I heard it was in Illinois. Oh really, it's that far?

Tyler Bertsch: Yeah, not—you’re talking about Vitis riparia. Palmata. Vitis palmata, yeah.

Sean Ballinger: Is it that far south, huh? Well I thought it was kind of more of a southern grape but I don’t know. You could be right on that. But what I do like about it is it tolerates wet conditions. And have you ever tasted it? It’s not Riparian, it’s not Labruscan, it’s not Vinifera, it’s totally its own identity. Actually I’ll have you try—you want to try some?

Tyler Bertsch: Absolutely I do.

Sean Ballinger: Okay, I got 4334. It’s one-fourth. So you get the flavor though. It’s one-fourth Vitis palmata. I dig it.

Tyler Bertsch: Are you trying to introduce any new genetics? Like taking Tom’s and then looking for other stuff, germplasm from other parts of the world?

Sean Ballinger: Definitely. I’d love to bring in Norwegian varieties, Chinese varieties someday. Siberian. I’m totally open to every flavor possible. I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface of what we can do. We’re in infancy. We’re baby. Yeah, so I am open, wide open. I want every flavor possible. I love unfamiliar flavors, but I want it to be palatable as well. Jason is such a—he’s such a courageous dude because he has a bold wine, if you tried it. It’s very intense. It’s very intense. Yeah, I bought it, I’m excited to try it. It’s cool, right?

Tyler Bertsch: With that, are you breeding some high tannin reds? Are you trying to get that? Because I know that’s something in North Dakota you guys are really trying to get.

Sean Ballinger: It’s my golden goose. It’s the El Dorado of North Dakota. So I have three varieties that are higher in tannin concentration. About in 2020, I tasted a grape, it’s called 4463. I have the last five on earth right now. I think, maybe there was some other randoms. The tannins were so high, it’s the highest I’ve ever tasted in a hybrid, my pupils dilated. It was amazing. The problem is I’ve grown the grape for since then, six years, and it’s barely even hit the high wire. So the grape isn’t a complete grape, but I’m saving it for the pollen. I know what the wine is capable of. I gave it a 95 six years ago. So backcross it to Frontenac. Exactly right. And by the way the acid is low too. So the acid is less than half of Frontenac. It comes in at 7 grams per liter. Nice. So it’s 4463. I love her to death. Small clusters. It has nothing promising but the tannin. So I’m keeping those tannin bombs. I’m also wanting to do hoop houses where I can get a little bit more Vinifera in my breeding stock.

Tyler Bertsch: I’ll have to let you know how my experiment goes with the geotextiles. I would love to hear about that. You might need a little more juice if you’re doing what I’m doing because of the temperature difference. But you can maybe take something that’s a little more hardy and do the same concept.

Sean Ballinger: Yeah, like Cabernet Franc.

Tyler Bertsch: Yeah, that’s what I’m doing is Cab Franc. I’m doing Cab Franc and Cabernet Volos, Merlot and Merlot Kanthus. Putting them under geotextiles. I know that, but you’re not burying them on tops of that? Not at all. So you’re exposing them? Well, they have a little tent. We’ll talk about it.

Sean Ballinger: For sure. Every breeder has a heartbreak vine, a seedling that has perfect fruit chemistry, incredible disease resistance, grows beautifully, but has one flaw or maybe doesn't grow beautifully. Which one is that? Is that the one you were talking about just a little bit ago?

Tyler Bertsch: 4463 is a big deal. So I would say the heartbreak grape for me was Petite Pearl, but that’s not mine. That’s my first love and your first love. Yeah. It’s the best grape. I think it’s the best hybrid. To me, it was the hybrid that gave the industry something that was—they say it’s kind of between that and Marquette, but I feel like Petite is, especially in Nebraska, a lot better performer.

Sean Ballinger: Okay, good. Marquette in Minnesota I have had, it makes some incredible wine, I agree. But it struggles in a lot of locations.

Tyler Bertsch: When you look at the current state of northern breeding, what is the single biggest gap left in the market? If you could snap your fingers and magically fix one genetic flaw in today’s cold climate cultivars, what would it be?

Sean Ballinger: Tannin concentration. Number one. I think we solved acid. I think we solved for the most part we solved winter hardiness. I mean I’m in the way northern—you’re in Siberia, it’s okay. Exactly. So yeah, I would say they solved hardiness, they solved acid. I think they solved foxiness too. For those that are listening, you’re just what, 20 minutes from Fargo or 10 minutes? I'm five minutes. Five minutes, something like that. I can, if you jump really high you can see Fargo. But yeah, no, it’s—I would say the biggest hurdle is—here’s what I say. Elmer Swenson’s grapes are really traditional in flavor. They solved acidity but they’re low in Brix so you have to chaptalize them to make them complete, where U of M’s varieties have the opposite problem. They have really high Brix, really full body, but their acid’s so high you have to must-adjust them. So they’re not right either. So there’s not a balanced grape yet. So what I’m looking for for my white wine breeding is I’m looking for kind of a Riesling type or even a Sauvignon Blanc where you have that acid-driven—of course I have a bias toward dry wine, so I want to know if you could try pollen from like Seyval Blanc or—it would freeze death here but—no I know, but if you used the pollen with a hardier parent like Itasca or Clarion.

Sean Ballinger: Clarion, yeah, what do you think of her?

Tyler Bertsch: I only know one person that has it out of all the people I’ve talked to, which is a lot of people. I think it’s growing, it’s one I’m very interested in planting. It is, unfortunately, it’s a Zone 5. Wine quality is really good. I’ve heard wine quality is good, yeah. But they say Zone 5.

Sean Ballinger: Your Zone 3? They say Zone 4B, but yeah that’s—I think you’re like 3B. Yeah, I agree with you. I like to see a 3 on whenever I plant something. I don’t play with 4.

Tyler Bertsch: So if you’re planting hundreds of seedlings or tens of them or whatever, what’s something you notice right away you just rip it out? Obviously the cold will take care of a lot of them.

Sean Ballinger: Vigor. If it’s low vigor, you just get rid of it. Low vigor, it's prone to disease right away. You can see right away. Have you ever planted seedlings of Prairie Star? That’s kind of a knock on the grape where it’s hard to seedling, it’s hard to—you can tell. That’s a cutting, but yeah. I wait until I make wine out of anything. It has to pass three tests. It has to make fine wine, grow through our winters, and ripen within our growing season. But if it fails one, I will likely kill it.

Tyler Bertsch: What are you in your career so far, what are you most proud of?

Sean Ballinger: Building a successful company, but as a scientist, I’m most interested in producing fine wine in the Red River Valley. That’s what I’ve—I feel that in some ways I’ve given legitimacy to this region. But it’s a long way to go still.

Tyler Bertsch: No, it’s cool. I love your guys’ story, I love the ambiance. Definitely a northern vineyard to check out for sure. I appreciate your time.

Sean Ballinger: Yeah, it was my pleasure.