Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Veraison

The season of veraison is upon us in the vineyard.


As the days grow perceptibly shorter, the vines shift their energy from shoot production to the ripening of the fruit. The color deepens, the berries soften, flavors and aromas develop.

In a challenging viticulture season, neither unusual late season frost nor ravenous geese nor periods of near biblical deluge can keep our resilient Marquette vines from bearing at least some fruit.

The view above is from the North Vineyard, after we removed excessive leaf growth encouraged by our abundantly wet summer, in preparation for installing bird netting.


This is the season we expose clusters to the sun so they can fully and evenly ripen, and do our best to protect the sweetening fruit from bird and beast.

All it takes now is sunshine and time. One by one, the berries turn. 

A simple thing, but startling and amazing nonetheless. One day the vineyard is nothing but green. The next day it is not.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Our Vineyard

Our estate vineyard consists of nearly six acres, carefully sited on our historic fifty-five acre farm property. We’ve chosen six exceptional wine grape varieties, well-suited to our terrain and climate, to patiently nurture to fruitful maturity in our Canton, Ohio vineyard.
Our varietals, clockwise from top:
Marquette, Frontenac Gris, Arandell, Petite Pearl, Aromella.
Center: Vignoles


The North Vineyard


Entering our property from the front gate, you’ll see our picturesque North Vineyard on your left, situated on the west shore of spring-fed Lake Gervasi.

A stunning backdrop for lakeside and Pavilion weddings and events, and the site of our popular seasonal Vineyard Dinners, the North Vineyard was planted in 2009 and 2010, with a limited first harvest in 2012.

In the North Vineyard we grow Marquette (a grandson of Pinot noir), which bears a dark purple grape producing a ruby-colored wine, and the intriguing Frontenac Gris, lovely bronze-hued clusters which produce a lively, aromatic white wine.

The South Vineyard

Petite Pearl grapes, August 2013

Just past our orchard and along the roadway to Gervasi Village and the Crush House, our South Vineyard arises from a wooded creek bed on a sunny east-facing slope.

Planted in 2010 and 2011, here we are nurturing our newest varietals: Aromella (an apricot-hued aromatic white), Vignoles (a late harvest white), Arandell (a Cornell-bred dark purple grape with dark berry aromatics), and Petite Pearl (a late harvest red, producing a dark garnet wine.)

From the balcony of our newly-opened Crush House eatery, you can enjoy a panoramic vista of the South Vineyard and surrounding landscape, and watch us nurture a young vineyard into fruitful production.

Meticulous Care

Marquette tendril, May 2012

During their formative years, our vines require meticulous hands-on attention.

Our work in the vineyard is to channel the grape vine's rampant growth tendencies into a uniform, consistent trellis structure. We also limit the grape crop severely, to channel the plant's energy into healthy roots and trunks. Because we are growing wine grapes, we want the highest quality, most flavorful fruit, so each year we limit the crop to produce the quality our hand crafted wines require.

Terroir


No matter how carefully the vines are tended, however, the grapes grown must be suited to the unique characteristics of the vineyard terrain from which they arise. That's a concept the French call terroir, the particular qualities of geography, geology and climate, that interact with the vine's genetics, to produce a grape and eventually a wine that reflect the "sense of the place" of a particular vineyard.

We can't help but think that somehow the particular beauty of this old farm, with its spring fed lake and pebbly vineyard hills of loamy soils formed by glacial outwash, will produce exceptional wines from the six grape varieties we've carefully selected and lovingly tended.

In the coming years, as each variety in our estate vineyard matures to offer its distinctive fruit, we look forward to exquisite additions to our portfolio of singular wines.