The summer of 2007 was one of the warmest and sunniest that we have experienced in our 35 years of growing wine grapes, and that translates into great wine. If you refer to the Growing Degree Day graph (below), you will see that 2007 was just slightly cooler than the best vintage on record, 2005. That’s why we are so excited.

As the wines come through the process and go into barrels or bottles, we are seeing our expectations met or exceeded by the wines from the 2007 vintage. In general, the warmer growing season meant riper fruit and the wine acids were lower than “normal”. Lower acid levels mean that the wines are softer and will be ready to drink earlier than wines from cooler years.

All the whites have great fruit character that is true to the variety, and the reds are loaded with black fruit (plums, cherry, black cherry, currant) and have a robust tannin backbone. We just bottled the Traminette, and it is magnificent. We’re preparing to unbarrel the Chardonnay Reserve after having spent 5 months in the barrels, and it is round and supple even before any bottle aging. The Meritage is going into barrels the first week of March for a year of aging – it needs that year to soften the robust tannin structure.

The warm growing season of 2007 gave us some exceptional grapes from which we made what we think of as exceptional wines. We just received the results back from the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition (www.fliwc.com), and much to our delight we learned that our Riesling 2007 earned the rating of “Best Riesling” in a field of 82 Rieslings from all over the world.

This competition took place March 29 & 30 in Rochester, NY, at the north end of the Finger Lakes winegrowing region in “upstate” New York. The Finger Lakes wineries are known for their excellent Riesling wines, which is why one of the top honors of this competition is “Best Riesling”. The “Best Riesling” award was first awarded in 2004 when Lakewood Vineyards (NY) received the honor. Since then the award has been given to Kendall-Jackson (CA) in 2005, Chateau Lafayette Reneau (NY) in 2006, Chateau Ste. Michelle (WA) in 2007, and Fenn Valley Vyds (MI) in 2008.

We knew that the 2007 growing season would produce an excellent Riesling, we just didn’t know that it would show so well on a world-wide scale. For those of you that took the opportunity to buy this fabulous wine at the Pre-Release event in March, you got a great bargain. The next time that this wine will be on sale for 25-30% off will be at our Open House on June 28.

Wine statistics…

Harvested: October 4-7, 2007

Appellation: 100% Lake Michigan Shore

 

Residual sweetness: 2.05%

Acidity: 0.765 g/100ml

PH: 3.03

Alcohol: 11.36% v/v

 

SRP: $12.00 at the winery

Total production: 1750 cases

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