Vintage Notes

‘The wine is made in the vineyard.’ Such a tired phrase, especially when you consider many of the Ontario winemakers are in the vineyard for a photo-op only. But the statement is true and any winemaker that doesn’t work their vineyard doesn’t give themselves the opportunity of gaining an intimate knowledge of their vines and the unique qualities of the vintage. The quality of the fruit dictates the quality of the wine; it is as simple as that, and something anyone who works the land will tell you. Do the work; understand the season, connect with your land, and harvest your reward.

We employ a minimal approach to the wine making process to allow the ‘Terroir’ really the opportunity of the vineyard to speak, through the wine. If I want to leave you with any ‘take home message’ it is there is no recipe, only tools and ideas of how to approach the vintage, which has its own peculiarities, year to year, and must be respected. Control is not the goal here, ever bending to the vintage’s needs is the point. We try to maximize the ripening through crop reduction in August and extended hanging time, for physiological ripening, going to the end of our short growing season. Chardonnay is processed in small batches, with a light, whole berry press. The yields of juice are lower, but the concentration is enhanced. The older vine Chardonnays are barrel fermented, using natural yeast. The choice of barrel maker and new and used wood is dependent on the nature of the vintage itself, but generally the proportion of new wood to used wood is 25% new to 75% used wood. The vintage stays in barrel for up to 18 months and is then blended together and bottled, unfiltered.

The Pinot Noir is also crop reduced and left to hang as long as possible. This is a very difficult grape to bring to maturity, and it suffers late in the season if the growing conditions are not perfect. Perfect is warm days, not hot, cool nights and minimum of precipitation. As of 2006 Keith and I invented (really stole from Burgundy) a ‘field process’ for the Pinot Noir harvest. We take the hand de-stemmer into the field, along with our fermenting container and de-stem right in the field. The grapes are barely off the vine before they enter the fermentor. The de-stemmer is gentle, leaving many of the berries whole and the fermenting container is small allowing for many different batches, reflecting the variations of the vineyard, and the resulting fruit. The Pinot is chilled down to cold soak for up to ten days. It is then brought up to room temperature, where it begins to ferment, utilizing the indigenous yeasts. We manage the cap by a four time a day punch down, trying to extract as much colour as possible, while controlling the temperature of the fermentation. We like the temperature to peak at 32°c and then fall back to slowly finish fermentation. A cold post soak is a matter of choice and is dependent on the vintage. Barrels are blended and bottled unfiltered.