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LedgeStone Vineyards |
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Vineyard Notes September 2012 Crazy growing season! Earliest harvest ever. Highest brix ever. Great wine coming up! The warm weather in March followed by freezing temps unfortunately caused a lot of issues for area growers of apples and cherries. We escaped the damage from the weather and instead experienced a beetle that ate all of the first buds off. The beetle is always here in the spring, but we are thinking the mild winter caused the large numbers of them. Grapes have a second bud - so just like when we have frost damage, the second bud took over. The hot, dry summer is the best thing possible for grapes. So even though we had a slow start in the spring, the heat over compensated and we wound up with probably the best quality grapes we have ever had. You just never know! January 2012 We harvested the Ice Wine on January 2nd. It finished fermentation at the end of January and will be ready to bottle during the fall of 2012. Can't wait! October 2011 Largest harvest ever! We saved the front south block of Frontenac for Ice Wine. The spring and summer started out cool, but the warm July, August and September caused the grapes to be consistently ripe throughout the vineyard. October 2010 The grapes have all been harvested and they are resting in the winery. 2010 was an interesting growing season. In May we experienced a frost after the shoots were about four inches long. Everything froze off and started over. The tropical rains of July and August provided more water than what the grapes needed as they really do not need much water. The storms in early September that brought a few tornadoes to the Greenleaf area also dropped hail on the vineyard. The very warm weather resulted in higher sugar levels in the grapes than what we have ever had. All in all, we may wind up with a premium wine that will not be repeatable! Two years from now we will be able to pop the cork and give it a try! October 2009 October 8th - Wow! A 10 ton harvest. Our largest ever. Tim is creatively finding more tank space as we almost maxed out our current tank capacity. This is probably why wineries sometimes have a late harvest wine! As the grapes were coming in yesterday we were questioning whether we needed to stop or not. This is a good problem to have!
October 1st - We are still holding off on the large harvest of our reds.
Today we finished up the whites by harvesting Frontenac Gris. (Makes the delicious white we are all waiting for next spring). The kids did not realize they would be harvesting after school into the dark. The lights on the Mule helped us finish the last row. Even Anna was pitching in with her art scissors - for a kindergartner she seems to be a pretty serious worker.
March 2009
Spring is here! The vines are ready for pruning. The consistent cold weather was actually good for the vines - much better than freezing and thawing.
This summer we are looking forward to a lot of vineyard time - tending the vines and adding as much as we can to the trellis system.
January 20, 2008
Today we harvested our ice wine grapes. It was a sunny gorgeous day with a high of 0. The sugars measured 42 brix.     September 2007
September 15th was harvest day 2007. The sugar levels were high due to another hot, dry summer. Just as last year, the harvest this year was about two weeks earlier than normal.    Labor Day Weekend 2007
Hundreds of Monarch butterflies stopped to rest at the vineyard on their journey south.  May and June, 2007
We have had great weather this spring and as a result we were able to finish the pruning! Growth of the vineyard: We added 500 Marquette vines this spring. The Marquette will be a great variety for a cold climate full bodied red wine. February 3, 2007 Harvest day for Ice Wine! Today it is 5 degrees F with a very cold wind chill a perfect day to harvest our Frontenac grapes for our first Ice Wine! The sugars are near 45 brix. October 31, 2006 The harvest began September 16, approximately 2 weeks earlier than usual. The hot, dry weather this summer caused the grapes to ripen early with field measurements of sugar levels ranging from 25 to 30 brix! We are usually holding out until late September for the desired ripeness of the fruit. Brix: 25 30 pH: 3.1 3.2 Acid: Lower than normal The fruit was hand-picked. The total harvest came in at about four tons. We made three different styles of wine from the Frontenac grape: Full bodied red which went through a cool primary fermentationand then ML fermentation. It is now aging in American oak barrels and will be ready to bottle in about 12 months. Lighter red which was allowed to have minimal skin time. It is now aging in stainless steel and will be ready to bottle early next year. Port which will undergo exposure to a dark toasted French oak while aging in stainless steel and will be ready to bottle in about 12 months. About one ton of fruit is still on the vines so that we can experiment with an ice wine. Ice wine is defined as a wine that is made from grapes that are harvested after three consecutive days that do not exceed 17 degrees F. Hopefully, this will happen by mid-December. This Fall we are installing additional trellising and preparing the soil for plantings of Marquette vines in the Spring. This Winter we will begin pruning in January and will finish by mid-April. Cheers! Tim & Sara Abel September 1, 2006 The nets are on the vines to minimize bird damage to the grapes. We will be harvesting during the upcoming two weekends as the sugars are already between 16 and 21 brix throughout the vineyard. June1, 2006 Currently, there are 13 acres planted. This year, the summer of 2006, we will continue to expand the vineyard. Based on the current vine maturity, the harvest this fall will be approximately six to eight tones of grapes. The vineyard is about 40% red and 60% white.
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Visit Us:
8 miles south
of DePere
on Hwy 57
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LedgeStone Vineyards | 6381 Hwy 57 Greenleaf, WI 54126 | 920-532-4384 |tim@ledgestonevineyards.com |
