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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Last Sunday we did something here at Freedom Run that we've never done before -- we hosted a five course wine pairing dinner for some 40 guests. Oh, we've hosted parties and gatherings here several times with guests bringing their own catered food, and we also threw a huge grand opening celebration last summer where guests could hang out at the winery and eat fresh BBQ. But this? This was something different altogether: we hosted a sit-down, five-course pairing menu which featured three of our new red wines to complement each dish, all carefully prepared by Alex Sigeti, and up-and-coming young chef who got to flex his culinary muscle with a menu written just for our wines.
Pulling off a first time event with forty guests and wine pairings was indeed an ambitious task, but we were relieved that it all went well, with both the food and wine receiving many compliments. A definite highlight was getting to introduce our new wines in such a relaxed atmosphere and most importantly, paired with dishes that would only make them better.
One of the more interesting pairings we came up with was our new 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon served with Alex's amuse bouche, a heavenly little bite of phyllo pastry, tomato chutney and seared yellowfin tuna served atop lightly dressed mesclun. The acidity and fruit of the cab seemed to work well with the dish. It was a no brainer to pair the peppercorn-crusted beef tenderloin (served atop parmesan risotto and strewn with sauteed mushrooms and drizzled with a rich sauce). This Meritage was made using the best barrels of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon and shows big bold fruit flavor as well as elegant oak influenced aromas of anise and chocolate. It has firm young tannins, standing up well to the rich beef tenderloin.
Hungry yet? If you missed the dinner, never fear. We are about to begin planning another pairing dinner, where we are looking at sourcing all local ingredients for the menu. Perhaps a summer or fall "harvest" dinner if you will. In the meantime we are preparing to release these new red wines in our tasting room so everyone can taste our second vintage wines for themselves -- milk chocolate panna cotta or not!
Things have started to get busy here again at the winery. Last weekend's May Blossoms wine trail event was a hit. Everyone that stopped in got a potted cinnamon basil plant with their tasting. We've been bottling our 2006 whites and thoroughly sampling our 2006 reds which are still in the barrel. It would sound pretentious to boast that the 2006 vintage is a step up from last year's, but in our opinion that's the case.
Speaking of our first vintage, they continue to collect awards from respected competitions including the latest one, the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition. These wines won the following medals:
Cabernet Sauvignon 2005: Silver medal
Cabernet Franc 2005: Bronze medal
Manning Manor Rose 2005: Bronze medal
Our pinot noir vines of which we have several clones planted in our two vineyard blocks are opening up nicely and really benefited from an early warm up here on the Niagara Escarpment. These vines produced an amazing first crop last fall and everyone that's come in for a barrel sample has considered buying allocations via our barrel club. We can't believe how good that wine has been drinking since we racked it into barrels some four months ago. We're keeping our fingers crossed that 08 is even half as good as last summer was for our reds.
Last weekend we hosted a local meeting of the American Wine Society in our production facility at the winery. We took each guest through a flight of six whites and six reds. The whites included our 05 and 06 Semi Dry Rieslings as well as our 06 Manning Manor Blanc which we released last week as well. The reds included our 07 pinot noir barrel sample and a Bordeaux style blend of our 06 reds from the barrel. 
We skimmed through their tasting notes afterwards, and the reviews of our new wines we quite high, even when compared to the ringers we through in, which included a 94 point St. Emilion Chateau Quinault Grand Cru from 2005. We promise our blend won't cost even half of what this one did, even with its huge tannins and power!
The above photo shows a couple of our first private Barrel Club members. Each member has been here either helping with the harvest of these grapes or pitching in with the winemaking tasks. The 2006 Merlot is close to completing its time in oak, while the 2007 Pinot Noir is just getting started with its oak aging.
Each barrel club member is encouraged to participate in as many aspects of winemaking as they can. The next step for each of these members is sampling the wine and determining when they want to bottle, if they want to blend, and how they want to label their bottles. While the barrels here are for individuals, the program is also ideal for families, organizations, or even coworkers who share the same interest in making wine.
Once again thanks to all of those who braved the frigid conditions and came out to taste wine and sample chocolate this past weekend. The "Be Mine with Wine" Niagara Wine Trail event was another success and we hope that everyone got their sweet tooth satisfied. Denise did a heck of a job making a wide range of treats -- and they kept our busy tasting room happy. We got to see several hilarious reactions by those who didn't read the cayenne pepper chocolate label before trying them as well as those seductive jalapeno truffles.
In what was a surprise to those of us working there on Saturday, our winemaker Bob Green was up with his wife doing some cellar work on our soon to be bottled 2006 and barrel aging 2007 vintages. Laura from North Tonawanda and Dave from Newfane, just happened to walk in just before closing and we didn't pass up the opportunity to make them our guinea pigs. We tasted some chardonnay, variations on our Manning Manor Blanc, and barrel samples from our 2007 pinot noir. It was a learning experience for everyone as Bob had us smell and taste in a very controlled manner. Based on our feedback, he can now make decisions in the cellar. Even Bob seemed excited about the pinot which is sure to be one of our flagship wines in the future.
This coming weekend the Niagara Wine Trail is celebrating Valentine's Day with the "Be Mine with Wine" trail event. We are making some homemade chocolate treats to give out to our guests. With winter still having such a firm grasp on Niagara County, we hope that a little chocolate and wine will warm up everyone who comes out for this event. It's a perfect opportunity for you to try our Manning Manor Rose with some chocolate. It's a match made in heaven, so see you there!
