A Welcome Change and a Vintage of Firsts
As we close out the 2024 vintage here in early November and put the presses away for winter; we have started to review not only the past ten weeks but the past ten months here at the winery.
Upon immediate reflection, we’re confident that the 2024 growing season produced a stellar vintage! The year began with a mild winter featuring very little snowfall that transitioned into a warm spring. Those temperatures and dry weather prompted the vines to come out of dormancy early, especially on varietals like Chardonnay and Gewürztraminer. With our vines in their most vulnerable state and the major frost event of May 2023 fresh in our minds, we were on high alert coming into the last week of April. Thankfully, we made it through budbreak unscathed, putting us in position to have an even crop yield across all vineyard sites. In 2022 there was significant winter damage for us at several vineyards, most critically on the HJW farm, while 2023 had the aforementioned May frost. It had been some years since we had enjoyed a clean run so to speak, and the spring of 2024 was a welcome return to some form of normalcy.
As we moved into summer we saw significant heat accumulation alongside timely rains, resulting in a tropical-like growth spurt rarely experienced in the Finger Lakes. In return, this led to a historic ripening timeline nearly two weeks ahead of any past vintage. Our winemaking team went into high gear prepping for the quickly approaching harvest, which was looking to be the largest one yet. Other key points affecting our crop were low disease pressure from mildew and the diligent efforts of the vineyard teams to fend off birds and deer, as we weren’t the only ones eager for the fruit to ripen.
Between checking on fruit in the vineyards and final blending trials of the 2023 vintage in the cellar, we welcomed four harvest interns onto the team. Interns are a vital piece of the harvest puzzle and this group brought energy, humor and an invigorating desire to learn! A huge thank you to our 2024 intern team for all their hard work! Burke Stanton from Maryland, Julia Sargis from New York City, Kaylen Fourie from South Africa, and Julian Milillo, our colleague and wine educator in the Tasting Room.
Our first pick occurred on Monday, September 2nd, a fruit day on the biodynamic calendar. Thus, our first pick was Demeter certified Chardonnay from the HJW vineyard site for Blanc de Blancs sparkling wine. September remained warm and dry during the day but cool at night; the perfect combination for steady ripening. This led to quick and successive pickings rolling from sparkling wines right into still wine selections of Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, and Riesling. The early ripening put us into a methodical schedule of picking that continued for the next three and a half weeks before a rain event on the 28th of September. The benefit to the extended run of nice weather was the reduced efforts in sorting, which often becomes the time thief in vintages with higher disease pressure. Speedy sorts make for a very happy press pad and winemaking team!
The first Riesling selection occurred on September 12th from block 1 at the HJW farm for our Flower Day bottling. Riesling harvest would continue up through the last days of October, allowing us to produce the full range of styles and site-driven wines.
October provided a continuation of warm days and cool nights with a few days of rain leading to smaller windows of opportunity to pick. The rain increased botrytis pressure, forcing us to do more selection in the field and sorting on the press pad. Fortunately, the majority of October remained quite fair and allowed for quality Riesling selections for single vineyard and reserve-level wines. Harvest came to an end with (what we thought was) our final pick on the 22nd of October of Cabernet Sauvignon from our Countyline Vineyard at Standing Stone.
Remember those rain events we mentioned back in October? Well coupled with the favorable weather the rest of the month, they shaped the vineyards to be bountiful with stunning Botrytis for dessert wines. For the first time since 2016, we were able to make several selections for BA (Beerenauslese) and TBA (Trockenbeerenauslese) style dessert wines across multiple vineyard sites. This led to the official last pick of the 2024 harvest to be botrytized Riesling from our Josef Vineyard on the 30th of October.
Overall, we are incredibly excited and proud of the juice currently fermenting in the cellar. The historic nature of the growing season with faster sugar accumulation than we’ve ever seen led to most varieties being picked an average of 7-8 days earlier than ever before. For example, for the first time Cabernet Franc destined for still red wine was picked in September and not mid-October, when we usually take the first pass.
Some closing thoughts as we start to analyze these past ten months are that the 2024 vintage has similarities to 2013 but with greater structure and also perhaps a closeness to 2016 but with less drought-like conditions. We look forward to sharing even more thoughts on the 2024 vintage in the new year as the juice evolves into wine.
Cheers,
The Winemaking Team