Change

For months in the vineyard now we've been surrounded by walls of solid green.

Tiny buds that seemed so vulnerable on those startlingly cold May mornings have since unleashed a torrent of growth.

We've trained, nurtured, and positioned those individual shoots.

Up through the trellis wires.

Forcing rampant nature into an orderly form it would rather not take. We've had a lot of intimate contact with acres of nothing but green.

So needless to say, something that is NOT green catches your eye.

Marquette cluster in the North Vineyard, July 21

As it did a few days ago.

The first few berries I assumed were wasp-stung or perhaps bruised by the tractor.

Then I'd see another.

And another.

From sour apple green to a slightly bruised olive, until finally pink, and ultimately purple.

So it wasn't an injury or an outbreak of disease in the vineyard, but rather the season unfolding exactly as it should:

The second-to-last week of July, amidst a rare stretch of startlingly pleasant 75-degree days, we have arrived at the season of Veraison.

Veraison is when the grape vines shift their energy from vegetative growth, to the ripening of the fruit.

The outward clue to this internal shift is the sudden arrival of points of color amid all of the green.

One by one, the berries (as each individual grape on the bunch is known) turn.

For a few days, which some call the party balloon phase, the individual berries on each cluster will vary: Greens and pinks and reds and purples happily co-mingle on all the same bunch.

Eventually, they will stabilize to the final varietal hue.

In the case of our our vineyard, our six varietals will produce clusters that will range from amber (Vignoles) to apricot (Aromella) to to bronze (Frontenac Gris) to dark purple (Arandell and Petite Pearl) to blue-black (Marquette).

Until these jewel tones settle into their final ripe color, we will enjoy the variety, and a palette that changes by the hour, with each subtle shift of the afternoon rays, with each berry that darkens and sweetens, exactly on cue.

Blackberries along the South Vineyard fence row.

This year, veraison struck the same day the wild brambles along the back fence row yielded their first glistening fruit, the same day the apples in the orchard acquired their first blush of red, the same day the poke weed along the gravel lane began to drip fountains of purple fruit.

The shortening of the days.

The approach of autumn.

All around us, the plants are responding, coloring the landscape, enticing the birds.

It's a beautiful scene, but one in which we can't linger.

Leaves must be pulled from the ripening clusters, exposing them to even light to ripen the fruit.

Vines must be trained.

Bird netting unfurled, hopefully in advance of ravenous migratory hordes.

It's the kind of day you pause at the end of, look down the neat green row you've just worked through, admiring the new hues, ignoring the rampant untamed growth (just for the moment) that lies ahead.

Our varietals in August (clockwise from top): Marquette, Frontenac Gris, Arandell, Petite Pearl, Aromella. Center: Vignoles.

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.