Vintage Summary: Harvest Statistics for 2019-2025

We have always been keeping track of our harvest statistics. This lets us compare when we harvested our various grape varieties and how the various harvest numbers were relative to each other.
The 2019 vintage was the first vintage where we had enough fruit to make our wines at Jonathan Edwards with the help of Jon and his crew.
The 2019 vintage is also the first vintage that we were able to sell because it was made at a bonded winery. We were able to get our own winery space in 2022 and were able to bring our wines from Jon's winery to ours in 2022.
Here is a tabulation of the 2019-2025 vintages:

Variety	Harvest Date	Brix	pH	TA g/L	Lbs	Gals
Auxerrois
	9/23/2019	19.6	3.23	7.35	636	50
	9/17/2020	19.0	3.07	7.5	1670	133
	9/28/2021	18.0	3.25	7.5	1638	130
	9/25/2022	20.0	3.16	7.1	3097	248
	10/2/2023	18.6	3.4	5.6	~500	~40
	9/29/2024	19.0	3.5	6.6	1695	135
	9/21/2025	21.0	3.24	5.3	1950	160
Chenin Blanc
	10/14/2019	21.6	3.15	13.5	3930	305
	10/11/2020	23.3	3.09	12.1	8201	655
	10/17-18/2021	20.4	3.17	14.6	6200	496
	10/16-17/2022	21.0	3.07	8.9	4901	392
	10/22/2023	20.0	3.05	8.7	1410	120
	10/20/2024 10/27/2024	20.5 21.5	3.15 3.18	9.5 9.8	1980 1760	160 150
	10/10/2025 10/19/2025	23.0 24.0	3.02 3.05	8.90 8.1	4375 2125	350 170
Chardonnay
	9/28/2019	21.5	3.17	9.4	291	26
	9/24/2020	23.5	3.0	10.0	1136	80
	10/3/2021	20.4	3.28	8.2	2625	210
	10/2/2022	22.5	3.05 - 3.11	7.5 - 8.9	2306	185
	10/5/2023	18.8	3.4	9.9	~500	~40
	9/29/2024	20.4	3.41	9.8	1562	125
	9/28/2025	22.0	3.2	8.0	1950	156
Cabernet Sauvignon
	11/3/2019	19	3.25	11.1	332	30
	10/22/2020	22.4	3.08	10.7	888	80
	10/24/2021	20.1	3.07	10.4	561	45
	10/21/2022	21.0	3.26	-	~1300	104
	10/31/2023	18.8	3.15	10.4	369	30
	10/31/2024	22.0	3.30	9.9	120	9.6
	10/24/2025	23.0	3.13	7.8	312	25
Cabernet Franc
	10/26/2019	23	3.23	11.3	377	32
	10/22/2020	23.3	3.27	11.3	872	80
	10/24/2021	19.8	3.20	7.4	402	32
	10/21/2022	22.0	3.27	-	~1200	96
	10/31/2023	20.4	3.24	7.9	287	23
	10/31/2024	25.0	3.50	8.2	250	20
	10/26/2025	25.0	3.16	6.7	375	30
Barbera
	10/21/2022	22.5	3.00	-	~600	48
	10/31/2024	23.4	3.16	19.7	NA	NA
	1/24/2025	25.5	3.00	10.2	438	35

The year-by-year comparison is helpful because it let's us understand how the current vintage compares with the other vintages and how the year itself affected the numbers that we monitor such as the Brix, pH and titratable acids. It is also a reflection on how many pounds were were able to harvest which gives us a mental reminder of how the weather conditions affected the harvest.

Making a Sparkling Chenin Blanc

One of the nice things about having a space that we call our winery is the ability to work with our wines in our own way. This year, we are getting back to making a sparkling Chenin Blanc, something that we did in our basement in 2017. At that time, we were making pétillant naturel also called pet nat for short, which is the ancestral method of making sparkling wine.
This year, we thought we would try to make a sparkling wine in the bottle with disgorgement of the lees. In order to do that, we had to "catch" our fermenting Chenin at the right level of Brix, which is our case was 2^o.
On October 27, the fermentation looked like the bottom photo. We were able to tap off 3 cases of Chenin Blanc using the sampling valve.

My husband purchased some bidules to insert into the bottle before sealing the bottle with a crown cap.

A sugar concentration of 2.4% w/v is enough to produce 7 atm pressure in the sparkling wine bottles, which generally will withstand 8 atm pressure.¹ The method that we will be trying is still along the lines of a pétillant naturel but we hope to remove the dead yeast cells at the end of the process by concentrating it into the bidule, riddling and disgorging.
References:
1. K.H. SteinKraus, Encyclopedia of Microbiology (Third Edition), Pages 138-143, Cornell University Press, 17 February 2009.

Vintage 2025: Red Harvest

This past weekend, we harvested our 6 rows of red grapes. We wanted to test the concept with our Cabernet Sauvignon and asked two of our friends, Barry and Niall to help us with the harvest. We started at 9 a.m. on Friday, October 24, by raising the nets and then began harvesting the Cabernet Sauvignon. Three of us harvested the 2 rows in 90 minutes. Truth be told, the red grapes are easier to see and they are rot free so harvesting is easier.

We borrowed our friend's crusher/destemmer and after harvest, Barry and Niall came back to our winery on Taugwonk to help with the destemming of the Cabernet Sauvignon. The Cabernet Sauvignon was not the easiest grape to crush and destem. There were a lot of stem bits that we had to remove so it went a little slowly. However, we were done by 2 p.m.
Having tested the moving parts of harvest and crush, we sent out a call to our friends if they would like to help us with harvesting the remaining four rows of red grapes on Sunday, October 26. Our friends answered the SOS and came out to help us with raising the nets at 9 a.m. Barry was the first person there taking off the clothespins with my husband and documenting the process with his stealth glasses-cam. Michael and Elizabeth came and knowing our process helped our new harvesters, Colin and Tulie with how to raise the nets. Geoff, Laurie, Kathy, Mia and Niall made quick work of the net raising.

Many hands make light work and the harvest of the Cabernet Franc and the Barbera finished at 11 a.m.

We even had time for a leisurely lunch before heading off to our winery located on Taugwonk Spur for the destemming and the crushing of the harvest.

Geoff, Mia, Tulie and Colin joined us at the winery for the destemming and crushing of the Barbera and the Cabernet Franc. Luckily for us, the Barbera with it's large grapes and the Cabernet Franc were not as difficult to destem and crush as the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Our red grapes are still in recovery mode from the spring frost in 2023 and the bad case of downy that affected the leaves and therefore ripening in 2024. We had a good harvest, enough to make a few cases of red wine. The Brix on the reds reflected the stellar ripening year that 2025 has been. Tulie helped my husband collect the juice and we tested the Brix with the hydrometer.

These are the numbers for the red grapes:

Variety	Brix	pH	TA
Cabernet Sauvignon	23.0	3.13	7.8 g/L
Cabernet Franc	25.0	3.16	6.7 g/L
Barbera	25.5	3.0	10.2 g/L

We want to thank everyone who came to help us harvest our 2025 Vintage! Aloha and Mahalo!

Vintage 2025: Chenin Blanc Harvest Part 2

Our last big harvest of the year, Part 2 of Chenin Blanc occurred on October 19, 2025. Prior to the harvest, due to the rains that the nor'easter brought on Sunday, October 12 and Monday, October 13 the Chenin that we were not able to harvest on October 10 were suffering from a little bit of rot. My husband and I went through the remaining Chenin rows to drop the bunches that were diseased.

We took out about 25 pounds of grapes from each of the rows that we triaged. We had 3 rows that we were not able to net quickly enough which allowed the turkeys and raccoons to get their share.
On Sunday, October 19, a large group of our friends and our family came to help us with this harvest, making short work of the remaining 9 rows of Chenin Blanc. The grapes that were harvested looked very good!

Since we had such great help, the harvest was over around 11:15. It turned out to be a beautiful day and we were able to sit, have lunch and relax.
The following day, October 20 was another rainy day. Stonington Vineyard's crew, Mike, Jim and Dakota were waiting when we came to bring our harvest during a lull in the rain at 10 a.m. The press was loaded and the cycle began at 10:40. We finished up at 12:30 and the rain was also over by that time.
We took the juice back to our winery and took the hydrometer reading and also measured the pH and the titratable acids:

Variety	Weight	Volume	Brix	pH	TA
Chenin Blanc rows 9-17	2125 pounds	170 gallons	24.0	3.05	8.1 g/L

Once again, we couldn't do this without our friends and some new friends as well who come and lend a hand during harvest. We also want to thank Mike, Jim and Dakota who go out of their way to help us with the pressing. We are grateful!

Vintage 2025: Chenin Blanc Harvest and Pressing - Part 1

As harvest time approaches, we are weather watchers and the forecast was for a frost on Friday morning, October 10. When we drove to the vineyard, the grass was covered with a coating of frost but the vineyard itself was spared the frost. The leaves on the vines were still green and the sun came up. The early crew raised the nets in preparation for harvesting the first round of Chenin Blanc.

Our harvesters gathered at the 10 a.m. start time. We had some new harvesters including Kim, Mark, Erica, and Ava, and Dan, John and Andolfo from Greystone.

We harvested 8 rows of Chenin Blanc. From raising the nets, one break to "grapes all in" took from 8:00 to 2:00.

By the time we had "lunch" it was after 2, but the sun was up and we enjoyed the time with our harvesters. My husband pulled out the 2020 Chenin Blanc to serve with lunch.
On the following day, Saturday, October 11, we took our harvest to Stonington Vineyards to be pressed. We are so fortunate that Mike and his crew, Dakota and Jim are so accommodating and willing to help us on a weekend! We pulled up the rental truck to their loading dock and put the lugs of grapes into their press. They were also harvesting their Cabernet Franc and the destemmer-crusher was on the other end of their loading dock.
I am a fan of loading docks! I hope we can incorporate a loading dock into our future winery at the vineyard.
Because we press our grapes as whole clusters, we had to do two pressings. The first press took from 9:30 to 12:00. We put in 81 lugs worth of grapes.
After the first pressing we had approximately 170 gallons of juice. Our IBC transport tank can hold 300 gallons of pressed juice so we had to go back to our winery space at Taugwonk Spur to round up as many cleaned kegs as we could. The second press of 83 lugs took from 12:30 to 3:00.

The 300 gallon IBC tank and the kegs that we brought back to Stonington Vineyards accommodated the rest of the juice from the second pressing. We measured the Brix using our hydrometer and the numbers for the first Chenin harvest looks like this:

Variety	Weight	Volume	Brix	pH	TA
Chenin Blanc rows 1-8	4375 pounds	350 gallons	23.0	3.02	8.90 g/L

Thank you to everyone who helped in harvesting round one of our Chenin Blanc! We really appreciate our community of harvesters and the great group at Stonington Vineyards!

2015 La Croix des Loges Bonnezeaux

A few nights ago, we had our friends over for an end of summer barbecue pork ribs, corn bread and salad dinner. For the dinner, we had a 2020 Robert Foley Napa Valley Charbono. It was the perfect pairing.
For dessert, we made a fig and brie tart drizzled with honey and sprinkled with fresh thyme. For this dessert, my husband brought out a 2015 La Croix des Loges Bonnezeaux which he claims to have found in the "remainders bin" at one of the wine stores that we frequented.
The La Croix des Loges is a sweet wine made in the Anjou in the western region of the Loire Valley of France. This sweet wine is made exclusively from Chenin Blanc. The origin of this style of wine is attributed to Jean Boivin who spent time in Sauterne and learned the technique of making 'noble rot' botrytized wine.¹

This technique involves multiple passes through the vineyard over a period of days and weeks, in which the only grapes picked are the very ripest and those affected by the'noble rot' botrytis.
Our interest in this Bonnezeaux is that we also make a botrytized Chenin Blanc when the conditions are right. 2023 was such a year and we bottled 36 half bottles of 'noble rot' infected Chenin Blanc.
Needless to say, the brie and the figs were a perfect compliment to the Bonnezeaux!
It is definitely a recipe that we would like to try again. It was simple to make at the end of dinner. Dufour puff pastry made with real butter was the essential ingredient, topped with brie, figs, fresh thyme and honey. It took only 25 minutes in the oven and the result was a piping hot dessert to pair with the La Croix des Loges. I'm already thinking that the next iteration will involve the making of individual brie and fig tartlets so that each tart has the perfect puff pastry crust surrounding it!
References:
1. Bonnezeaux Wine.

Vintage 2025: Chardonnay Harvest and Pressing

On another beautiful day, September 28, our friends came to help us harvest the Chardonnay. Our friends, Laurie, Elizabeth, Bob and Ted came early to help us lift the nets and we were ready to harvest around 9 a.m. Since we have 8 rows of Chardonnay, our strategy was to do two rows in one pass from the south end to the north end and then return doing two rows from the north end to the south end.
Here are photos of the people who came to help us:

We had a few new people join our crew: Carol, Dori, Kathy and Charlotte. They all picked up on how we harvest our grapes and were a terrific addition to our crew. Charlotte in the brown and white polka-dotted shirt made sure that none of the grapes remained on the vine and went back and checked. Here you can see her with a fist full of grapes!
We collected the filled lugs as we went along, and here you can see Ted, making sure that each lug has been properly filled and stacked in the back of our trailer.

Once we reached the south end, the lugs were put into the rental van and it was time for a break. We did two of these 4 row passes and finished up around 12:30. We served lunch and my husband opened up the 2020 Chardonnay for the harvesters to sample. It was an enjoyable time and we hope that our crew had fun, even though we know that harvesting is difficult work.
On Monday, we took the grapes to Stonington Vineyard, where Mike, Jim and Dakota were waiting for us to arrive at 9 a.m. They have a very efficient process there. The pressing took 2-1/2 hours and we were done by noon. The juice that came out of the grapes looked really good and we took a sample to get some harvest numbers.

Variety	Weight	Volume	Brix	pH	TA
Chardonnay	1950 pounds	156 gallons	22.0	3.28	8.0 g/L

On Monday afternoon, we took the washed lugs back to our vineyard. The picture there was one of a calm end of summer day. It would be hard to imagine that a day ago, there was such frenetic harvesting activity going on!

Thank you to all our harvesters who spent their Sunday helping us bring in our Chardonnay crop!

Vintage 2025: Auxerrois Pressing and Statistics

On Monday afternoon, September 22, we took the Auxerrois to Stonington Vineyards for pressing. Mike, Jim and Dakota were there and helped us to unload 78 full lugs of Auxerrois into their press.

The pressing took approximately 2 hours. During that time, we were able to rinse out our lugs. When the pressing was done we had approximately 160 gallons of juice.

We brought the juice back to our winery located on Taugwonk Spur which is less than 5 minutes away from Stonington Vineyards. Once there, we unloaded the IBC tank and took the hydrometer reading for the 2025 Auxerrois.

We held back a smaller amount of juice to get the numbers for pH and titratable acidity. The statistics for the 2025 Auxerrois are:

Variety	Weight	Volume	Brix	pH	TA
Axerrois	1950 pounds	160 gallons	21.0	3.24	5.30 g/L

Vintage 2025: Auxerrois Harvest

Our first harvest, Auxerrois occurred on Sunday, October 21, 2025. Looking back at my spreadsheet, this is the second earliest Auxerrois harvest, the earliest being in 2020. We had a group of our motivated friends come and help us with the harvest. We began at 7:30 with raising the nets on the five rows of Auxerrois. Harvest began at 9.
We harvest two rows at a time. We try not to put the lugs on the ground because when we begin the harvest the ground can be wet with dew. To accomplish this, my husband is on his tractor in the adjacent alley with the yellow lugs. We have one person, the "swapper", Ted, helping with the swapping of the full lugs with empty lugs.

We work in pairs. One person holds the lug while the other person harvests the grapes. This way there is minimal bending or throwing the grapes into the lugs on the ground. A few of our friends were able to find the milk carton towers that enabled them to put the lug on the tower and harvest.

There is a designated "runner" who is in charge of watching if the lugs are getting full and working with the "swapper" to get empty lugs.

The "swapper's" job is to make sure that each lug is appropriately filled with grapes so that they can be stacked. Once we reached the end of the alley, my husband and Ted put the full lugs into the Penske truck that he rented for transport to Stonington Vineyard on Monday.
We were finished harvesting the 5 rows of Auxerrois at 11:15! This allowed us have lunch and enjoy the beautiful day!

We want to thank our friends who came to help us for the Auxerrois harvest! Your help was much appreciated!

Passionfruit Estate Late Harvest Chenin Blanc

Recently, we sent out some samples of our red wines and our 2023 late harvest botrytized Chenin Blanc to get tested for alcohol content.

We received the results. We were very interested in how our Chenin Blanc tested because for that wine, we asked and received results for the following tests:
alcohol level = 16.3%
residual sugar = 48 g/L
titratable acidity (TA) = 9.5 g/L.
Since we had a shareable amount left in the bottle, we had our friends over for dinner. I regret that I didn't take a picture of the skinless salmon dish that my husband made with a side salad of fresh greens and fruits. We also had a Matthiasson Chardonnay to pair with the salmon. For dessert, my husband made this fig in phyllo cup with goat cheese on the bottom. We topped it off with our choice of honey or balsamic glaze. The late harvest Chenin Blanc paired very well with the fig in phyllo cup. It reminded our friends of a Vinsanto that they shared with us long ago.

Time For Us to Take Some Numbers

We have been taking refractometer readings of our Auxerrois and Chardonnay and found that the Brix ranged from 18-20 and it appeared that the Chardonnay might be farther along than our Auxerrois. It was time to get some real numbers for those grapes. On Saturday, my husband and I took representative samples from the Auxerrois and because we have two clones of Chardonnay, took representative samples from each of the two clones.
Back at home, we juiced the berries:

Once we got the juice, it was time to take the Brix, pH and the titratable acids (TA) for the three samples. For that, we have been using a little but handy device made by Vinmetrica. Initially, we were also doing the SO₂ test with the Vinmetrica but we have since switched to the Sentia for the SO₂ test. The Vinmetrica kit comes with a pH probe and reagents that allows us to take the titratable acid reading. The setup for us looks like this:

Here are the numbers for the Auxerrois, Chardonnay clone 76 and Chardonnay clone 96.

Variety	Brix	pH	TA
Auxerrois	19	3.04	6.7 g/L
Chardonnay clone 76	20	2.90	9.6 g.L
Chardonnay clone 96	20	2.95	11.3 g/L

What these numbers are telling us is that we need to seriously think about harvest dates and get ready! Also, it appears, (as is usually the case) that we will be harvesting the Auxerrois first and we have a little bit of time between that harvest and the Chardonnay harvest. Phew!

Vintage 2025: Labor Day Activities

For farmers, Labor Day is exactly that, a day of labor. We are busy clothes pinning our Chardonnay grapes that are ripening quickly. For that, we had stellar help from our daughter who made the trek down from Worcester on Saturday and helped with securing our Chardonnay from birds.
Today, we are working in the Chenin Blanc shoot tucking, leaf pulling and cleaning the graft union in hopes of lowering our nets on the Chenin Blanc as soon as possible.
It's the time of the year to update the annual cycle of growth chart and fill in the dates of veraison for our 6 grape varieties.

We keep track of the major events in the vintage, veraison being a very important one. I recently blogged about Vintage Notes 2025: The Auxerrois is at Veraison. The next variety to enter veraison this year was the Chardonnay, followed by the Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Chenin Blanc and finally the Barbera.
Here are the grape varieties and what they look like at veraison.

It was interesting this year to watch the red varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Barbera change color. The Cabernet Sauvignon was the first to enter veraison and by the time the Cabernet Franc was at veraison, the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes had all changed into a deep purple color. The warm days of late August worked their magic on the red varieities.

Connecticut has 3 American Viticultural Areas

My husband sent me a link to a PDF written by Forrest J. Bowlick and Katie Carroll Bowlick titled "Connecticut AVAs: Exploring and Understanding Wine in the Nutmeg State". I knew that we had one AVA called Southeastern New England AVA, and I blogged about it here: Pioneers of the Southeastern New England American Viticultural Area (AVA). However, I was unaware that Connecticut was home to two other AVAs called Western Connecticut Highlands and Eastern Connecticut Highlands.
Here is a map that was part of the article:

As of April 2020, there were 79 TTB licensed wineries, with 355 productive acres, bringing in between $145 to $154.2 million dollars in economic benefits from wine sales alone.
The Southeastern New England AVA

• The first formally recognized AVA in Connecticut was the Southeastern New England AVA, which also covers parts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts
• Petitioned for in 1982 and established in 1984
• Connecticut’s portion of the Southeastern New England AVA has more wineries than Rhode Island and Massachusetts
• This AVA is coastal, taking advantage of the microclimate along the coast and the moderating influence of the water, like other cool climate wine regions
• Roughly 590 square miles of this AVA are in Connecticut, which contains 12 wineries and ranges in elevation from sea level to 607 feet above sea level
• The wineries included in this AVA are: Dalice Elizabeth's Winery, Preston Ridge Vineyard, Jonathan Edwards Winery, Stonington Vineyards, B. F. Clyde's Cider Mill, Holmberg Orchards, Maugle Sierra Vineyards, Saltwater Farm Vineyard, Sunset Hill Vineyard, Glenn's Wine, Chamard Vineyards, Bishop's Orchard Winery, and Rose Vineyards.

The Western Connecticut Highlands AVA

• The second AVA established in Connecticut was the Western Connecticut Highlands AVA. Formed in 1988 from a petition in 1987, this AVA covers the highest elevation terrain in Connecticut as well as companion valleys and other so called ‘rough terrain’ of western Connecticut
• This AVA is bordered to the west by the Hudson Valley AVA of New York. The higher elevation and varied terrain contribute to an overall cooler climate, with varied exposures, micro-climates, and a different soil geology than the Southwestern New England AVA
• There is a wide variation in precipitation type and format throughout the area
• This AVA covers roughly 1584 square miles, containing 23 wineries, and ranges in elevation from about four feet above sea level on the Housatonic River to 2374 feet above sea level, the highest point in Connecticut
• The wineries included in this AVA are: Jerram Winery, Bee Mountain Vineyards, Connecticut Valley Winery, Haight-Brown Vineyard, Bethlehem Vineyard and Winery, Hawk Ridge Winery, Northwinds Vineyard, Black Lion Vineyards, Walker Road Vineyards, Moose Hill Cider, Jones Family Farms Winery, Diageo America's Supply Umpawaug Farm Winery, McLaughlin Vineyards, G. L. Bollard Corporation, Digrazia Vineyards, White Silo Farm and Winery, The Cidery at Averill Farm, Hopkins Vineyard, Sopring Hill Vineyards, Sunset Meadow Vineyards and Miranda Vineyard.

Eastern Connecticut Highlands AVA

• The Eastern Connecticut Highlands AVA is the newest in the state, established in 2019 after proposal in 2018.
• Eastern Connecticut Highlands are generally lower in elevation than the western side, though still higher and more varied in elevation than the Connecticut River Valley that lies between the Eastern and Western highlands
• There are 114.75 acres in production in the area with six wineries
• The AVA covers roughly 1379 square miles, containing 21 wineries, and ranges in elevation from nearly sea level on the Connecticut River to 1309 feet above sea level
• The wineries included in this AVA are: Taylor Brooke Winery, Devon Point Farm Tree House Brewing Company, Sharp Hill Vineyard, Heritage Trail Vineyards, Barretts Legacy Mead, The Vineyard at Hillyland, Arrowhead Acres, Lebanon Green Vineyards, Heartstone Farm and Winery, Dragonfire Meadery, Cassidy Hill Vineyard, Stafford Cidery, Worthington Vineyards, Deercrest Farm, Chateau Le' Gari, Priam Vineyards, Staehly Farm Winery, Crystal Ridge Winery, Arrigoni Winery and Joseph Preli Farm Winery.

This was the state of the three AVAs in Connecticut and the wineries in those AVAs when this article was published in 2020.

Interesting Sighting in the Vineyard

My husband and I are now both working in the Auxerrois, which happens to be located on the west side of the vineyard and close to the forest edge. Earlier, when I was leaf pulling in the second row of the Auxerrois, I ran into several yellow jacket nests in the ground and marked the location where they were. I worked for a few more lineposts and saw a large entry way and sure enough, the yellow jackets were coming in and out of that hole in the ground.

I informed my husband about the "discovery" and he said that he would get to it early in the morning on a cold day. Yesterday was that day and when we went to the location of the yellow jacket nest, this is what we saw:

Something had dug a hole into the yellow jacket nest and pulled out the chambers where the larvae and pupae were located. We had never seen anything like that before.
We took pictures and searched the internet and AI came back with the following information:
Several animals prey on yellow jacket nests with skunks, raccoons, and bears being the most common. These mammals dig up the nests, attracted by the larvae and pupae inside and will also consume the sweet nectar in the nest.
Our best guess is that it was a skunk who helped us get rid of the yellow jacket underground nest. I hope it had a delectable feast!
This let my husband off the hook for spraying the nests.

Vintage Notes 2025: The Auxerrois is at Veraison

We are splitting work duties in the vineyard. My husband is working in the Chenin Blanc and I am working in the Auxerrois. I can tell that the grapes are coming out of their lag phase, the time after berry set where the grapes stop growing. For white grapes, the "tell" that they are in veraison, or the beginning of ripening is when the berry becomes soft to the touch. For a few days now, I have noticed that the Auxerrois is soft when I handle it so I was curious to know what the Brix was. Yesterday, I brought the hand held refractometer to the vineyard and was surprised when taking the reading that the soft Auxerrois berries were at 15 ^oBrix! The slightly greener berries were at 13 ^oBrix.
Here is a photo of the Auxerrois. We only see this in the Auxerrois, where sometimes there are three clusters to a shoot.

It seems early to me that the Auxerrois is already this far along in sugar accumulation. I need to update my chart of the annual cycle of growth. All this means is that we need to bring the nets down in the next few days to protect the ripening grapes!

2000 Chateau Malescot St. Exupery Margaux

My husband opened this 2000 Chateau Malescot St. Exupery Margaux a few nights ago when he made his smoked steak. It's been a while since we had beef for dinner! This was the perfect accompaniment for his delicious meal of steak, baked potatoes and a side salad.
On the bottle, it mentioned that it was classified as a Troisièmes Crus (Third Growth) in the 1855 Bordeaux Wine Official Classification.
I'm always curious about the wines that my husband has purchased and stored so I found more information about Chateau Malescot here: Chateau Malescot St. Exupery Margaux Bordeaux Wine, Complete Guide.
The 2000 Malescot according to this site, is one of the best vintages. With 25 years of ageing, this wine was still holding on to rich black and red berry flavors with a long, smooth finish.
This site also went into some of the history of Chateau Malescot and I found that to be very interesting. Chateau Malescot St. Exupery can be traced all the way back to 1616 when the Margaux estate was owned by the Escousses family. The Escousses were best known as notaries for the King. In 1697, the chateau was sold to Simon Malescot who was the attorney-general to King Louis XIV. The property remained in the Malescot family until the French Revolution.
Over the next several years, the formerly robust Bordeaux vineyard of Chateau Malescot was split and split again. In 1813, Francois Benoit Dunogues purchased the chateau, reselling it in 1825 to Louis Pierlot. The Pierlot family resold the property to Comte Saint-Exupery, who added his name to the estate.
In 1853, the chateau was sold to Mr. Fourcade. Mr. Fourcade died in 1866 and Chateau Malescot St. Exupery was sold to a group of owners, the most notable being Mr. Boissac in 1870. During World war I, the French government confiscated the estate.
In 1955, the Zugar family bought the chateau and spent 10 years bringing the vineyard back to it's current incarnation. In 1994 Jean Luc-Zugar took over the reins of Chateau Malescot St. Eupery with Michel Rolland as consultant.
The 30-hectare vineyard of Chateau Malescot St. Exupery is planted to 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc and 5% Petit Verdot. The terroir is gravel, chalk, and clay soils with iron deposits on gentle, slopes.
Vinification takes place in a combination of 22, temperature-controlled, concrete vats and stainless steel tanks. Malolactic fermentation takes place in either tank, vat, barrel, or a combination of any of those vessels. They can use concentrators or reverse osmosis machines, as well as bleeding of the vats to increase the concentration of the wine. Those decisions are left up to the vintage according to Jean Luc Zuger. The wine of Chateau Malescot St. Exupery is then aged in between 80% new and 100% new, French oak barrels for between 14 to 16 months before bottling.
Knowing the history and the vinification of this Bordeaux wine made me appreciate it even more. I asked my husband if we have anymore of this wine and he said we have 2 more!

Grape Health During a Heat Wave

We have been having an unusally hot summer, punctuated by heavy rainfall. We have been seeing some signs of berry stress in our Chenin Blanc where the berries in some clusters have been raisining. Here is a minor example of what we are seeing. I am bringing my tweezers to the vineyard so that I can clean these sunburnt grapes from the cluster.

I was telling my husband about what I was seeing and then I came across an article in Wine Industry Network, written by Mark Greenspan called "Growing High Quality White Wine Grapes".¹ It was a timely article to be reading because we are now in the lag phase of berry growth and experiencing high heat bordering on drought conditions and his article was focussed on this phase of berry growth.
White wine grape growing is more difficult than red wine grape growing. A white grape is inherently more vulnerable to degradation since it doesn’t have an arsenal of polyphenols protecting it which is the case in red grapes because they have anthocyanin compounds for protection.
However, a white grape does have some means of protection which can generate aromatic compounds if the stress event occurs during the grape lag phase.
Benefits of heat stress during grape lag phase:

• aromatic compounds are produced in abundance during periods of abiotic stress, such as a heat wave, because they help protect the plant from oxidation
• water stress imposed during lag phase upregulates the synthesis of many secondary metabolites associated with better color and mouthfeel
• other compounds associated with water stress imposed pre-veraison include thiols or mercaptans, organic compounds containing sulfur that are associated with passion fruit, guava, and grapefruit aromas and flavors
• Glutathione is an important compound in helping white grapes with stress
  
• glutathione is synthesized in many plants in response to abiotic stress such as drought, this compound breaks down into thiols, which accounts for the many desirable aromatic compounds in wine
• glutathione is integral in protecting plant tissue from oxidative stress, which is more important in white grapes given that the antioxidant anthocyanin is lacking
• biochemical pathways responsible for terpenes and 13-norisprenoids (derived from carotenoids) are upregulated by water stress between lag phase and veraison, these are the compounds associated with floral and earthy aromas

The link between phenolics and water stress is well-established. In places where irrigation is practiced, such as California, farming practices can be manipulated to increase the tannins and color by planning the appropriate time to irrigate after hot weather.
This article recommended that excessive leaf removal be avoided. Where severe heat events are on the rise, shade cloth and microsprinklers are being used to cool the fruiting zone.
My husband and I are quite conservative when it comes to leaf pulling. My husband is of the mindset that the leaves on the west side of the canopy should be left in place in order to protect the grapes from the heat of the afternoon sun. Currently, we are working in our Chenin Blanc, hedging, shoot thinning, shoot tucking, shoot positioning, and leaf pulling. This is what the canopy looks like on the left side and how the leaf pulled grapes look like on the right side of the photo.

We are trying to strike a balance between air flow, which is critical for maintaiining a clean canopy and grapes and preventing the grapes from getting too much sun so that they do not raisin before veraison.
The weather for the first few days in August shows no rain, but also thankfully, no temperature hitting 90 degrees!
References:
1. Mark Greenspan, Wine Industry Network, "Growing High Quality White Wine Grapes.

Wine Enthusiast: How Chenin Became the Cool Kid's Grape

My husband was delighted to read this article in the Wine Enthusiast called "How Chenin Became the Cool Kid's Grape".
Where Chenin is grown:

• The Central Loire Valley of France: For over 500 years Chenin Blanc has been cultivated in famed appellations like Vouvray, Anjou, Saumur and Savennières
• South Africa: historically known as “Steen”, the first cuttings were planted near Cape Town in 1655 by members of the Dutch East India Company, comprising 18% of South Africa’s vine plantings, it grows across the western part of the country, from Stellenbosch and Paarl to Swartland
• Western Australia: In Swan Valley, Chenin is turned into fortified wines, half the plantings are in Western Australia, but can also be found in Margaret River, Victoria and South Australia,
• California: Chenin reached peak levels during the 1970s and 80s.
• Long Island, New York: Paumanok Vineyards
• Connecticut: Passionfruit Estate

The last two entries above, Long Island has been known for their excellent Chenin Blanc and we, in Connecticut hope to make wine drinkers in our area familiar with our Chenin Blanc.
Why Chenin has seen a resurgence in popularity:

• Introduction of biodynamic farming of Chenin by Nicholas Joly in Savennières
• Promotion of "natural wine" and minimal intervention wine by Alice Fiering
• Praise by top sommeliers including Pascaline Lepeltier, Alex Alan at Hotel Delmano
• Early U.S. importers like Louis/Dressner, Jenny & François, Polaner, Camille Riviere and Avant-Garde

We also make our wines with as minimal intervention as possible, using Chenin Blanc grown at our vineyard and yeast to ferment the juice. Nothing is added but yeast during the fermentation. The wine sits on lees, to gain richness and mouthfeel. Prior to the bottling process we add less than 50 ppm sulfites (legal limit 300 ppm) and filter.
So, be the cool kid in your area and come to Passionfruit Estate to purchase our Chenin Blanc! We are open on Fridays from 3-6, Saturday and Sunday from noon-4. We are located at 40 Taugwonk Spur Rd Unit 31. When we are open, our signs can be found on the corner of North Main Street and Route 1, North Main Street and Taugwonk, Taugwonk and Taugwonk Spur. If you've come this far, you've found us! Hope to see you soon!
Reference:
1. Wine Enthusiast: How Chenin Became the Cool Kid's Grape.

2021 LAN Rioja Crianza

The 2021 LAN Rioja Crianza is one of our goto red wines in the summertime. Not only does it pair well with summertime dishes, but it is very affordable.
On this night, we paired this Rioja Crianza with deboned, chicken thighs marinated in teriyaki and grilled. The side dish was a typical Hawaiian noodle dish that was elevated by the Haleiwa Sun Noodle Company mein that our daughter sent us.
The Bodegas LAN was founded in 1974 and the name is taken from the initials of the three provinces of Lagrono, Allava, and Navarra that lie in the heart of the Rioja Alta.¹ This wine is made from 94% Tempranillo and 6% Mazuelo.
María Barua has been the head winemaker and technical director since 2002. Fermentation takes place in stainless steel tanks, 15 days maceration, with continuous pumping-over to optimize color extraction. It is then aged for 14 months in hybrid oak barrels, followed by 9 months bottle ageing.
The wine was very pleasant with bright red fruit notes of strawberries and raspberries with a soft tannin finish that paired very well with the teriyaki chicken and noodles.

References:
1. LAN Rioja.

Vintage 2025: July Weather

We have had a very wet spring, you know the old saying, "April showers bring May flowers", well this year, April showers brought May showers, June showers and now July showers! A farmer's best friend is the weather app and here is what it showed for the previous week from July 7-14 and for this week, July 14-21. Rain! Rain! Rain!

Rain brings a number of things in the vineyard such as out-of-control growth, weeds, and most of all mildew. Our friends and our granddaughter have been coming to the vineyard at 6 a.m. to help with the July duties which include shoot tucking, lateral shoot removal and hedging. Some parts of our vineyard looks like this, where a lot of work has already been done:

But some parts of the vineyard looks like this where a lot of work still needs to be done.

This is the state of the vineyard in July!

2019 Santenay Antoine Olivier Les Coteaux sous la Roche

July is hot, humid and rainy! No one in this family feels like cooking in this kind of weather, but we can still drink. A few evenings ago, we had this Antoine Olivier, 2019 Santenay Les Coteaux sous la Roche. It is a Chardonnay. We paired it with toast points with olive tenpanade and eggplant spread from Mount Vikos. We also had Saint Andre cheese. The spreads and cheese went very well with the Chardonnay which was medium body, with a slightly reductive nose which blew off upon swirling. The wine tasted like lemon drop candy with a lively acidic finish.
The Product Information Sheet for this wine that I found online mentioned the following:
The grapes come from a single vineyard ‘Coteaux Sous la Roche’, which translates as ‘under the rocks’. For the winemaking process, the grapes were gently pressed and then racked to barrel where fermentation took place using natural yeasts. The wine was kept on its fine lees and underwent bâtonnage to impart texture and complexity to the wine. Malolactic conversion took place in barrel. The wine was 100% barrel aged for 12 months, in traditional Burgundian barrels of 228 litre barrels, of which 25% were new oak. The wine was then transferred to tank where it spent a further six months, prior to being lightly fined, filtered and estate bottled.

Vintage 2025: It's July!

Time marches on. It's July! We have fruiset in the vineyard. Somehow between the extreme heat and the rains the vines managed to set their fruit. We were working between the Cabernet Franc and the Barbera and this is what fruitset there looks like:

After a hot and humid day in the vineyard, it is raining again tonight!

Vintage 2025: Flowering

It is June. We are in the throes of shoot positiong and shoot removal, and despite all the rain that we have been having, and now a heat wave, all of our varieties are at some stage of flowering.

However, not all of the varieties are at the same stage of flowering. The Chardonnay and the Barbera are at the early stages of fruitset. The next variety to be further in bloom is the Cabernet Franc followed by the Chenin Blanc, Auxerrois and finally the Cabernet Sauvignon.
It's time to update the Annual Cycle of Growth chart.

Years of keeping the annual cycle of growth gives us some idea of when flowering and fruitset will be. The heat wave is probably accelerating flowering and fruitset, which is a good thing.
Right after fruitset, the tiny grapes are not securely attached by their pedicel so any manipulation of the shoots is not a good thing so we adjust where we work based on what stage of flowering or fruitset our varieties are at.
The heat wave is forcing us to be at the vineyard at 6 am and today we stopped working at 8 am since the feel-like temperature was 90 degrees!