Freedom Run Winery

2010 Pinot Noir Harvest

Mother nature has been more than generous this year as the 2010 growing season has given us more sun and more heat than we've seen in a long time. With conditions like these the grapes ripen well ahead of their normal schedule with higher sugar levels at harvest.

This year the timing couldn't be more perfect for our pinot noir. We harvested last weekend during the Niagara Wine Trail's Harvest Festival weekend, and this meant that visitors to our tasting room were able to come back to the crush pad and watch us sort and crush grapes.

It looks like we are going to be able to produce a pinot noir reminiscent of our 88 point Wine Spectator 2007 pinot. In 2007 we also saw extremely warm temperatures ultimately giving us ultra ripe flavor and significant weight from a higher than typical alcohol percentage.

The potential for higher alcohol comes from the sugar content in the grape measured as brix. This year our Stonehaus Vineyard, the one closest to Lower Mountain Road, came in at an amazing 24 brix. That means that it could easily boast 13% alcohol by volume. Luckily with a pH of 3.32 and total acidity of 6.45 g/l there will be plenty of natural acidity to keep this wine balanced.

Now we know that this might all be too much information for most of you but we want to stress that we are totally excited about the grapes we grew this season. For the next two weeks we will be fermenting and pressing pinot noir at the winery so stop by if you want to get a peek into what goes not making our critically acclaimed wines.

As the 2010 growing Season Begins, We Roll Out 08 and 09 Wines

The 2010 growing season here at Freedom Run got off to an early start this year with budbreak at least a week earlier than normal. April’s warmth got things going and so far we’ve escaped any frost damage from May’s cold snaps. The potential for an unusually long growing season for our reds is something to be excited about.

We are currently suckering vines in the by removing growth below the fruiting wire and still doing some tying and thinning along the way. This year we have also reduced our vines to two trunk and two canes per vine. This reduces the amount of fruit output per vine, which will ultimately lead to riper grapes and hopefully a balanced vine.

 As soon as tomorrow we are planting a new vineyard behind the winery. Chip has prepped the land we are ready to plant some more chardonnay and merlot. As of today we only make about 30 cases of Estate Chardonnay and it’s just not enough to supply the demand for the naked unoaked style that we love to make with our estate grapes.

In the tasting room we are preparing to roll out several new wines including whites, reds and a rosé. We are very happy with the way our Cabernet Francs turned out and we are getting ready to bottle an 08 Meritage and 08 Cabernet-Merlot. If you’re not a facebook friend please try and seek us out because we will be frequently adding these new wines to our list. Cheers!

 

Creating Our 2008 Reds Barrel by Barrel

Barrel samples for bench trials. 

There are a couple times a year when we get to really geek out on our wine. Obviously harvest lets us get down and dirty with our vines and crushing the grapes, but this time of year we get familiar and obsess over our reds from the previous vintage.

Last week we pulled our 2008 samples from the barrels to determine our line up of reds from that vintage. We had learned a great deal from pouring these wines at last month’s Barrel Tasting Friday and the input we received reinforced our feelings that the vintage deserved a Meritage blend as well as a Reserve Cabernet Franc.

Out of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, the CF is showing the best at the moment and will be racked out of barrels as soon as possible. Racking is when you basically siphon the wine out of the barrel into a stainless tank. We’ve picked the barrels that will go into each blend and for example in our Reserve CF, we will rack three barrels into a tank and let them marry together for up to a month before we bottle.

It looks like our Meritage will be a blend of all three grapes with the CF making up the majority of the wine. We will also bottle a single label Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from this vintage as well.

Overall we are surprised at how good these reds look considering 2008 wasn’t the warmest growing season, but once again we owe it to our Vineyard Manager Chip Manning for giving us healthy grapes.

We have such a good time coming up with the blending ratios that we are going to have a Barrel tasting Friday Event next month where you’ll be able to blend your own wine from the three varieties and take home your creation. Make sure you are on our mailing list by emailing wines@freedomrunwinery.com or by finding us on Facebook to get word of when we schedule this blending party!

Buffalo Spree Compliments Our Wines

At the winery, we’ve put our heart and soul into every wine we’ve made. We haven’t spent much on marketing or advertising since we opened in February of 2007 and our main goal has been to make the best wines we can with grapes we grow.

We’re excited that word has spread amongst our customers on facebook and via our winery newsletters. During the last year, there have been a few blurbs about us in The NY Post as well as locally in Buffalo Spree magazine. This week were thrilled to receive more kudos from Mark Criden in his story entitled “Wedding Wine, From the stag to the last dance” in the Jan/Feb issue of Buffalo Spree. Here is an excerpt from the story:

I’ve waxed rhapsodic about the wines from Freedom Run before, most recently in Spree’s September issue, and I really don’t want to be known as their bitch, but these guys really know what they are doing, so much so that their wines distracted our family members from examining our housekeeping errors. The 2008 Freedom Run Chardonnay Estate is pure unoaked, appley, lemony, minerally deliciousness and the long, fine 2006 Freedom Run Chardonnay (oaked) brims with vanilla and butterscotch.

The 2008 Freedom Run Riesling Estate, tasting of apricots, limes and apples have exploded in your mouth, is a complete white wine from Niagara County, and the 2007 Freedom Run Pinot Noir Estate is a lovely, lighter example, like a pinot from the Loire Valley: tangy, with a limestone, raspberry vibe. But the killer was a barrel sample of the 2008 Pinot Noir; a whole ‘nother world, it should be sensational.

Thanks to everyone that supports our winery by drinking our wines, telling your friends and family about what we are doing here, as well as everyone that supports local art, food and wine in the Buffalo/Niagara region. We couldn’t do it without all of you and we know that together the future of our wine region is looks extremely bright.

Veraison is well underway!

The last few weeks of hot dry weather has been exactly what the doctor ordered here in our estate vineyards. By the looks of our pinot noir, veraison is moving full steam ahead. Veraison is defined as "change of color of the grape berries."

What does this mean for our wine? Well it means that as of today, the vines are making sugar in those little grapes. It’s this sugar, when crushed at harvest that turns into alcohol by the magic of yeast fermentation.

 It hasn’t been the easiest year to keep the vines happy with all the rain we’ve experienced, but by the looks of these grape bunches, we’re well on our way to having another good crop this year.

Because of all the colors visible in each bunch, it’s a great time to get out here and walk through the vineyards. Stop by the tasting room and we will point or guide you over to our lower vineyard of pinot noir where you can see this fascinating process for yourself.

"What does Freedom mean to you? essay contest winner

We have a recent winner of our “What does Freedom mean to you?” essay contest. Sue Borodzik earned herself a free bottle of wine with an elegant essay.

Details of the contest can be read at our website.

New York Post pays us some compliments

David Landsel of the New York Post stopped by our winery last week during his trip to the area. He had been working on a travel story focusing on Lewiston, Niagara Falls and the Niagara area wineries. His objective was to report on winter wines, aka ice wine and late harvest styles but we happily showed him a few of our estate selections we have yet released. We can honestly say that he was impressed. Here are some quotes from the NY post website article:

About our 2008 Estate Riesling…
“I remember the promise demonstrated in the 2005 Semi-Dry that I'd had the evening before, but my hosts steer me past a more recent vintage and towards Freedom Run's 2008 Estate Riesling, which is, of course, still in the barrel, and will be for a little while yet. We taste. It's young, but also beyond its years. There's such a nice balance to it already…I figure I'm down for at least a case.”

About our 2007 Estate Cabernet Franc…
“It isn't until we move back into barrel territory, and Guba breaks into the 2007 Estate Cabernet Franc, that I sense we've hit the jackpot. This stuff is damn near elegant. Spicy, with a nice body on it, but right where a Cab Franc should be - warming in winter, but somehow, also refreshing in summer.”

Overall we couldn’t be happier with David’s visit. We know that the more people who try our wines, especially our estate selections, the more word will spread that Niagara wines are something special and worth seeking out.

Harvesting for our Blanc de Noir Champagne

Last week, we kicked off the harvest season by hand harvesting the champagne clone pinot noir for our first estate grown bubbly. The two main grapes used for champagne wines are usually chardonnay and pinot noir, with pinot meunier also added in some regions. Our bubbly will be a blanc de noir made exclusively from pinot noir grapes. We did have the option of blending some estate chardonnay in with it as well, but for now we are going to use the chardonnay for a stainless (naked) still wine.
 
After bringing the grapes in, we started with a whole cluster gentle press, where most of the free run juice and easily extracted pulp juice was collected and transferred to a vat. We then did a more vigorous pressing, where we collected the juice that sort of clings to the skins and seeds. Since the acidity and sugar level is quite different in the pressed juice, we moved that to a separate vat for fermentation. Each of these stainless vats rested overnight and with the help of some enzymes, much of the suspended particles fell to the bottom of the tank. The next day we racked off that stuff – the process by which you move wine from one vessel to another – and added champagne yeast to get the ball rolling.

As of today, the juice has been fermenting for a week now. Most of the sugar will have already been converted into alcohol. We will let it go for a few more days, where it should keep developing complexity while it converts the last traces of sugar. The color of the juice we started with was orange and the pressed juice was more of a shade of pink. We think most of that color will have faded during fermentation, and in a few days, are going to open it up and rack it off the lees. Then we’ll get a chance to see what will be our base wine for our first estate grown sparkler.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Harvest

Yesterday one of the guys from the vineyard brought in a couple handfuls of grapes, and at first we didn’t know if we were being handed plastic grapes from our events table setup or the real thing – they looked that perfect. Upon closer inspection we were thrilled to find out they were indeed two bunches of riesling and one bunch of pinot noir.

Since this is our first crop of riesling, we didn't really have a reference for what healthy grapes look like at this point of the growing season, but now we know that they look beautiful. The tight clusters revealed berries that are translucent and bright. They looked good enough to eat and we did have a taste. Though obviously still tart, there was some perception of sugar. We then did a brix test with our brixometer, and sure enough, the sugar level is at 11 brix.

The pinot cluster was just as nice as any we harvested last year but what was most surprising was how good they looked this early in the year. Pulling berries from the bunch to sample seemed a sin as we didn't want to ruin the perfect cluster, but for science's sake we had to. We called Kurt, our resident cellar master and pinot-phile to let him know how good the grapes looked and to test the brix with him on the line. Needless to say, he was thrilled to hear that our pinot sample was already at 15 brix.

This growing season has not been the picture perfect, hot and dry one that we had last year. Chip Manning, our agricultural manager, and his crew have been keeping up with the growth all year and it looks like all that work is finally paying off with healthy grapes. We are all feeling the energy of harvest season approaching.

August Update

Summer is a busy time here at the winery. Not only is the tasting room bustling on the weekends, but seasonal visitors are keeping us on our toes on Thursdays and Fridays as well. The vineyards have been extremely productive, especially with all the rain this year. From putting up wire on our trellis systems and weeding to hedging and spraying, the vineyard always seems to be a work in progress. A visit to the winery this time of year includes taking a peek at the young grapes just before veraison sets in. Veraison is the term for the grape when growth is discontinued and ripening begins. This is when the grape will start to change color and begin to sweeten.

 

With our 2005 red wines selling out in the several past months, we have spent a lot of time in the winery blending and bottling the 2006 vintage. Right now you can come in and buy our 2006 Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. But our excitement for these wines and our soon-to-be released 2006 Cabernet Franc and Meritage really comes out when we give guests sneak previews of these newly bottled wines. Thankfully their reactions only increase our enthusiasm. In addition to those reds, we have been giving samples of our new 2006 Dry Rosé for those who have shown interest in this style.

 

This weekend is "Artful Weekend" on the Niagara Wine Trail, where each winery is exhibiting local artists' work. Our very own Sean R. Manning will be showing off  his pottery as well as demonstrating his craft live at the winery. Last year he drew hundreds of visitors to his studio right next to our pinot noir vineyard.