Ugly Fruit = Great Wine (sometimes)

This vintage marks what will essentially be the end of our riesling production for a few years as we have to replant this historic vineyard due to its infestation with phylloxera. We started the replanting last year and a second third of the vineyard will be torn out and replanted next spring. That means only one third of our riesling vineyard will be in production next year and those vines are quite weak now and will not produce much fruit. It takes our new plantings three years to produce their first crop and five before they are in full production so there will be quite a gap in our riesling production.

Fortunately this vintage brought us some lovely fruit - even though it's ugly to look at because it is heavily infected with botrytis. While botrytis destroys red wine grapes, with riesling it truly becomes "noble rot" as it is called when it dries and concentrated the flavors of riesling making it lusher and more complex. Pictured here, assistant winemaker Ron Shea weighs in our riesling harvest. Each bin of grapes that arrives at the winery is precisely weighed and recorded.