Premium Wine Group and Russell Hearn

Our last stop on our quick trip to Long Island was with Russell Hearn of Premium Wine Group. This was a hastily arranged visit so we were very glad that Russell could see us. It was a little past noon when we arrived. Going in through the back gate, we looked at all of the equipment and saw a EuroSelect. This is the destemmer/crusher that Darryl Fields showed us when we went to Jordan, Ontario. Russell mentioned that 2011 was the first year that they used the EuroSelect and they used the function where the grapes were selectively triaged for the best grapes. He said that it was a godsend in a year where the bunches came with more rot than they were used to seeing.

The Premium Wine Group provides state-of-the-art facilities, equipment, and personnel for the making of fine wines. This interests us because they have all of the equipment, including a EuroSelect, they also supply labor and space. What we would need to provide would be the grapes, yeasts, barrels, bottles, labels, and explicit winemaking instructions. We wondered how much of a hands-on experience we would get. We wanted to start in May, with grapes from the Southern Hemisphere, specifically, Chile, but I don't think this is feasible at PWG since they are set up to operate their equipment during the fall harvest. We need to rethink our plan.