Vineyard Notes

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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on Hwy 57

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		LedgeStone Vineyards