Pruning

With February work begins in the vineyard getting the vines ready for a successful upcoming growing season. The great weather this week sure makes this a much more enjoyable task as there are years when it is 20 degrees out, you are wrapped up and still cold! But the work has to get done. We are removing any parts of the vines that didn't survive the winter, pruning back the previous years growth to a certain number of new buds. There is a balance on each vine between leaving too many buds and not enough. You want just the right amount of fruit so the growing energy goes towards producing the best grapes possible.

Aspire Reserve Marquette

On January 12th we bottled our 2014 Aspire Reserve Marquette. A beautiful wine rich in tannins and flavors of black cherry, currant, and blackberry. It is a long process from vine to bottle for the Reserve Marquette.

The grapes, which come from our estate vineyard were picked on September 13, 2014. They immediately get crushed and destemmed and are readied for fermentation. The wine is fermented in stainless steel tanks and once it is close to complete the grapes are pressed and the juice immediately goes into barrels along with the lees. Once in the barrels the wine is stirred every week to ten days and the barrels are topped off. This is known as sur lie aging. It allows for better extraction of flavors. While in the barrel we will work on developing better mouth feel and making a nice complex wine. The wine spends nearly 14 months in the barrel where it develops the beautiful oak overtones and tannins you will find in the wine.

All in all from it took this wine 486 days from harvest to bottling. Quite the journey!

Grapes ready for pressing 

Barrels ready for wine

Bottling Day

Finished wine ready for bottling