Vintage 2026: Harvest Might be Just Around the Corner

We have been busy urfurling our nets over our grapes to protect them from the birds. So far, since we noticed the Auxerrois softening, we have managed to net just about half of the vineyard with another half to go. Fortunately, this will be the Chenin blanc, which for some reason is the last to reach veraison.
Here are our red varieties:

When we took one of the dark purple berries from the Cabernet sauvignon, the Brix was already at 16!
It's time to update the Annual Cycle of Growth chart:

So far, veraison seems to be similar to what it was in 2025. In a typical year, the first grape variety that we harvest is the Auxerrois followed by the Chardonnay. We believe that this will hold true this year.
Today is a rain day but the weather looks good tomorrow, so it will be back in the vineyard to unfurl more nets!

Vintage 2026: Veraison

We generally know when our grapes begin to ripen, but this year it seemed to be a little late until we went to the vineyard 3 days ago and found that our Auxerrois was beginning to enter veraison, which is the first stages of ripening. Auxerrois is a white variety so signs of ripening include softness to the touch and a change in color from dark green to a chartreuse green. In a typical year, the Auxerrois ripens first. This year, we saw signs of bird pecking on our Auxerrois, which is a sure sign of sugar accumulation and a signal to us to get the nets in place to protect the grapes from the birds!

While we were netting the Auxerrois, we noticed that the few Cabernet Sauvignon vines that are in the Auxerrois were changing color. For a red variety like Cabernet Sauvignon, that is the visual sign of veraison. So, we went to check on our red grapes and the Cabernet Sauvignon as well as the Barbera were just beginning to change color.

The grapes are giving us our marching orders! Get the nets in place!

Racking Our Late Harvest Botrysized Chenin Blanc

On December 7, 2025 we harvested our late harvest Chenin blanc, which is a wine made from botrysized grapes. The conditions must be just so in order for this good form of botrytis fungus to infect the grapes, leaving the grape berry to look remarkably like a raisin, dehydrating and concentrating the sugars and the acids.
We brought in 6 lugs of grapes still in their organza bags and proceeded to press the juice out of the bags. We were able to get slightly more than two gallons of juice with a starting Brix of 32.
We began fermentation with a yeast called SM102 which is known to be a slow fermenter and also not able to ferment the high sugar content of the juice once the alcohol level reaches 12%.
On Monday, August 10, we racked the finished wine away from its lees (dead yeast) and were able to get two gallons of wine which we are storing before we bottle.

We dedicate half of a row in our vineyard toward this effort and the result is two gallons of racked Chenin blanc. In the glass, the color was a golden amber and the taste was sublime. It still needs some bottle aging, but it is well on its journey to become a true representation of a late harvest botrysized Chenin blanc.

2021 Forge Cellars Riesling

A few weeks ago, one of us was feeling the need to have fried chicken. We looked up a recipe from Ina Garten for oven friend chicken which sounded very good. The only drawback was that the chicken needed to soak overnight in buttermilk. This is a crucial step in having moist, delicious fried chicken, so satifying the craving had to be postponed for 24 hours. Ina's fried chicken is a good thing to have when time is limited because the actual frying part takes only 6 minutes, three minutes on each side of the chicken and then the chicken spends the next 40 minutes in the oven. Ina recommended 350 degrees but I think 375 gets the chicken crisper.
We made up our own flour coating for the chicken which consisted of 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon each of onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika and 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. We didn't add any salt or pepper, but in retrospect, we would add salt and pepper to the flour mixture. Here is what it looked like:

We paired the fried chicken with a 2021 Forge Cellars Riesling. This was perfect! In November 2024, we took a short trip to Ithaca and went to Forge Cellars, this is a wine from that trip. The Caywood, Seneca Lake Riesling was dry on the palate and a perfect compliment to the fried chicken.

Fried chicken craving satisfied!

Vintage 2026: August Activities

Our summer so far: June was a month of hot and humid days followed by days of rain and July continued that trend. In looking back at July, it doesn't appear that there were too many days of rain, but what Mother Nature provided was enough to make our young shoots reach the top trellis wire and more!

When that happens, we are not in the vineyard and the vineyard will do it's own thing. In this case, the Chenin blanc will grow and reach across the alley and "hold hands".

In the photo above, the left side shows what the Chenin blanc looked like before we hedged and shoot tucked. On the right hand side shows what the alley looked like after we have hedged and shoot tucked. Ideally, the entire vineyard should look like the right side photo.
August is also when our white grapes begin to undergo the beginning of sugar accumulation called véraison in French. What this means for our work in the vineyard, is simultaneous to hedging and shoot tucking, we must also deploy our nets to protect the ripening grapes from birds and other critters that love sweet grapes.
We have a lot to do in August. We are hoping that Mother Nature is kind to us. Crossing my fingers!

The Impact of Ripening Stage and Maceration Time on Cabernet Franc

I am on a quest to understand how to tell the hallmarks of a good Cabernet franc wine. This article, "Sensory representation of typicality of Cabernet franc wines related to phenolic composition: Impact of ripening stage and maceration time," was in my email box and it seemed the answer to the question of what a good Cabernet franc tastes like.
The previous blogpost, What is JAR? was written to familiarize myself with the definition of "typicality" in wine and how to measure typicality using the Descriptive Analysis (DA) and Just About Right (JAR) Analysis. The authors focused their research on the influence of the harvest date and the maceration time on the wine style.
What are the hallmarks of wine quality?
There were 12 identical wines used in the DA and JAR analyses made from Cabernet franc grapes grown in the Loire Valley. For the DA analysis, a panel of 17 judges not related to the wine industry was chosen. Wine samples were poured at room temperature and resulted in the generation of 15 attributes from the judges. The judges scores each of the 15 attributes on a scale with “low intensity” on the left and “high intensity” on the right.
For the JAR analysis, nineteen judges (5 winemakers, 7 oenologists, 4 wine-merchants-maturers and 3 technicians) took part in the experiment. Twelve attributes were selected for evaluation. The judges were instructed as follows: “for each descriptor”, answer the following question: “do you think this descriptor is ideal from a typicality point of view, too strong, or too weak?” The 19 judges also were instructed as follows: “For each wine presented, answer the following question: “do you think this wine is a good example or a bad example of what an Anjou-Villages wine is?”
The takeaway from this analysis was that ripening stage was more important than maceration time in determining the typicality of a Cabernet franc wine from the Anjou-Villages in the Loire Valley.

• Prediction of wine quality based on the berry composition should also include their extractability during winemaking
• Ripening stage had a major influence on tannin extraction: tannin extraction from skins increased with ripening and then decreased
• As expected, acidity was lower and anthocyanin and alcohol contents higher with more advanced ripening
• Phenolic composition at harvest also explained the wine style
• Wines from later harvests were richer in proanthocyanidins, which may be related to their higher typicality scores
• From a sensorial point of view, harvest date was significant for typicality assessment: wines with the latest harvest date were more typical. Maceration time was not significant

To be honest, I wasn't surprised at their results. When we harvest our Cabernet franc, we are always looking at the balance of brix (sugar content), pH and titratable acids. If the harvest can be prolonged and sugar accumulation continued, then our Cabernet franc has the typicity of a good Cabernet franc that we are aiming for. Is there a typicality for Cabernet franc wine made and grown from grapes in our corner of Connecticut, that is the question.
References:
1. Yves Cadot, Soline Caillé, Alain Samson, Gérard Barbeau, and Véronique Cheynier, "Sensory representation of typicality of Cabernet franc wines related to phenolic composition: Impact of ripening stage and maceration time", Analytica Chimica Acta, 732 (2012) 91–99.

What is JAR?

We were in the midst of a heat wave last week that lasted from Thursday, July 2 to Saturday July 4. This week on Monday and today, we were getting pummeled by rain. These two events conspired to keep us out of the vineyard so it is a good time to read up on literature that I've downloaded and keep meaning to read.
The article that I am currently reading is called, "Sensory representation of typicality of Cabernet franc wines related to phenolic composition: Impact of ripening stage and maceration time," it is quite a dense article published in Analytica Chimica Acta.
One acronym caught my eye, called JAR, which means Just About Right (JAR) and refers to how to assess the typicality related to a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO).
Typicality is defined as the characteristics of a wine from a terroir including environmental factors, variety, cultivation and winemaking practices. The resulting biochemical and sensory characteristics of the wine make it possible to differentiate, identify and recognize the wine as coming from a specific PDO.
A little further into the article, I came across a tabulation of the descriptive attributes used to evaluate sensory properties of wines in the quantitative descriptive analysis (DA) and the Just About Right analysis (JAR)

Descriptive Analysis (DA)	Attributes	Description
Visual Olfactive	Color Intensity	Intensity of colour, from pale to dark
	Black currant	Blackcurrant (fruit and liqueur)
	Stewed red fruits	Jam of strawberries or raspberries
	Other red fruits	Fresh red fruits: strawberry, raspberry
	Pastry	Vanilla, cinnamon, candy
	Alcohol	Alcohol
	Empyreumatic	Smoky, toast
	Spciy	Pepper
	Vegetal	Green wood, freshly mown grass
	Humus	Undergrowth, moist wood, ground
	Animal	Leather, stable
Mouthfeel	Acidity	Intensity of sour taste
	Bitterness	Intensity of bitter taste
	Alcohol	Intensity of alcohol taste
	Astringency	Intensity of astringent taste
Just About Right Analysis (JAR)
Visual Olfactive	Color Intensity	Intensity of colour
	Shade	Shade of colour, from orange to purple
Olfactive	Odor intensity	Intensity of odor
	Red fruits	Shade of colour, from orange to purple
	Black fruits	Wine aromas that suggest black currants
	Ripe fruits	Wine aromas that suggest ripe fruits, candied fruits
	Vegetal	Vegetal, herbaceous, sweet pepper
Mouthfeel	Soft tannins	Tannins with smooth and fine textured astringency
	Acidity	Perceived acidity
	Thickness	The viscosity as an indicator of a full-bodied style
	Astringency	Drying and roughing sensation
	Length	The time that aftertaste persists in the mouth

The authors used these descriptors from Descriptive Analysis (DA) and Just About Right Analysis (JAR) and a panel of judges to enable them to draw conclusions. More about this aricle coming in another blog.
References:
1. Yves Cadot, Soline Caillé, Alain Samson, Gérard Barbeau, and Véronique Cheynier, "Sensory representation of typicality of Cabernet franc wines related to phenolic composition: Impact of ripening stage and maceration time", Analytica Chimica Acta, 732 (2012) 91–99.

Vintage 2026: July 1

The time is flying by as it usually does when there is vineyard work to do. On June 23, there was a huge rain storm that gave us 2 inches of rain. Rain in the forecast during flowering is a thing to worry about because it can lead to poor fruitset. I took pictures of our varieties on June 22 and most of our varieties were in bloom, if not the beginning of fruitset. The Cabernet Sauvignon was in prolific bloom so I wondered what the 2 inches of rain would do to the fruitset there.
Here are some pictures I took before the rain and after the rain:

Variety	Before Rain	After Rain
Auxerrois
Chenin Blanc
Chardonnay
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabefrnet Franc
Barbera

Thankfully, the rain didn't affect the fruitset and the Cabernet Sauvignon looks very good. The next thing we have to worry about is the heat wave coming for the next four days!

Koimari Tropical Saga Sake and Tempura

Not too long ago, my husband made tempura and we paired it with Koimari Tropical Saga Sake. My husband is always on the look out for interesting sake to drink with foods. In February, we had a sake made by Noguchi Naohiko who is known as the God of Sake in Japan.
I was looking forward to drinkng this sake made in Saga Prefecture since I trust my husband's procuring prowess. I found that this Koimari Tropical sake was fragrant and quite fruity on the finish and while I enjoyed the sake very much, I wasn't sure if it was the perfect pairing with the tempura. I think my palate was hoping for something a tad drier, but here I am being a little over critical. The tempura was delicious!

The Saga Sake is made in Koimari Brewery founded in 1909 in Imari City, Saga. The sake is a Junmai Daiginjo. Junmai means that the sake was made with only rice, koji and water. Daiginjo refers to the fact that it ranks as the highest grade of sake. This style of sake is made with rice where 50% or more of the outer layer of rice kernel is polished away and fermented at low temperature. This sake has a pleasant fruity aroma and still retains its fragrant aroma in your mouth.
On their website, they suggest pairing the Koimari "Tropical" Sage Sake with herb roast beef, Wagyu soft jerky, pork and foie gras pâté de campagne, fried horse mackerel with plum shiso, bluefin tuna, crab with shiraae sauce, apple salad with yogurt and sake lees sauce. They also suggested a sake they make called Mitsutake "Crisp" Junmai Daiginjo, which sounds like a better pairing for tempura. I may suggest that my husband get this sake for us to try.
References:
1. Saga Sake.

What COLA Means in the Wine Industry

COLA in the wine business doesn't mean cost of living allowance, it means certificate of label approval. Over the weekend, we had a visitor to our winery who is a graduate student at Yale. During the course of our conversation, he mentioned that while he was in Indiana, we worked for the TTB. We are very familiar with the TTB because of our close encounters during our label approval process.
Before getting our label approval I was aware of all of the regulations that apply to a US label. Here is a table of the regulations according to the BATF, Wine Labels, Vintages and Wine Regions:

Category	%Grape Variety
Political Area i.e. State	If a state is on the label, then 75% of the grape variety must be grown in that state
AVA	If an American Viticultural area is on the label, then 85% of the variety must be from that AVA
Vineyard Designation	If a vineyard is on the label, then 95% of the grapes must come from the designated vineyard and the vineyard must also be in a designated AVA
Estate Bottled	If the label says estate bottled, then 100% of the grapes must come from vineyards owned or controlled by the winery (both must be in a designated AVA)
Grape Variety	If a grape variety is on the label, then 75% of the grapes must be of the stated variety
Vintage	If a vintage is on the label, then 95% of the grapes must come from the year stated
Produced/Made and bottled by	If the label includes produced/made and bottled by, then 75% of the grapes must be fermented, aged, and bottled at the indicated location
Cellared/vinted and bottled by	If the label includes cellared/vinted and bottled by, then it does not necessarily mean that the wine was fermented at the indicated location
Reserve	If the label includes the word reserve, that designation has no legal meaning in the U.S.

In addition to the above regulations, my husband and I ran into another rule that made our COLA take a little longer. When we were getting approvals for our white wines, there was no problem because all of our wines are 100% what variety they are on the label. However, when it came to making labels for our Cabernet sauvignon and Cabernet franc blend and our Cabernet sauvignon, Cabernet franc, and Barbera blend, the word "blend" threw a red flag. If a label contains the word "blend" then the percentage of the grapes that constitute the blend must be somewhere on the label. Winemakers can circumvent this regulation by calling their "blend" anything they want. Our friends at Paumanok call their blend Assemblage, which is very classy. Many wineries call their blend "Claret". Here is a recent wine that exemplifies that wording. It is from Linden Vineyards and their blend is called "Claret".

Jim Law chose to put the composition of his blend on the back label which tells you that the Claret is made of a blend of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 16% Cabernet Franc and 4% Petit Verdot. However, by calling his blend "Claret" he doesn't necessarily have to disclose what the percentages of red varieties goes into his "Claret".
In our case, we decided to drop "blend" from our label. It simplifies our label.
Getting your COLA can be an arduous process unless you know the rules. Eventually we were approved for the COLA for our red wines blends!

Vintage 2026: June Activities

Here it is June already! This year, parts of our vineyard are looking good and other parts are looking not so good, by this I mean that we are still trying to lay some of our fruiting canes down on the fruiting wire. Meanwhile, shoot thinning is occuring in our reds. We are taking off excess shoots in the Barbera and the Cabernet Franc. Our vines are on a tall graft so we have to remove tons of excess shoots from that region. Here is an excample from the Cabernet Franc.

We do shoot thinning so that our canopy when it becomes mature will allow for air flow. It is one of the things that we as vineyard workers can do to keep our vines healthy. Shoot thinning creates what I call a trail of leaves.

I can attest to the fact that shoot thinning and removing excess shoots from our graft union is a time consuming task. However, one can come upon surprises like this bluebird nest in the graft union. This particular vine remained untouched so that the bluebird mommy can have her privacy. My husband also came upon what he thought was a black racer in a tree outside of the vineyard. These unexpected sightings make working in the vineyard interesting!

Update: my husband provided me with more accurate information about the snake in the tree, it is an eastern rat snake. Also, the nest is not a bluebird nest but a chipping sparrow nest.

2020 Linden Claret

Some time ago, when neither one of us wanted to cook, we pulled out this Annabel Langbein's Leek and Chicken Gratin from our freezer and had it with the 2020 Linden Claret. The only thing that someone had to make was a side of buttered string beans. The pairing of the 2020 Linden Claret and the leek and chicken gratin was perfect! The first time my husband made this leek and chicken gratin, my mouth was happy with all the different flavors in the gratin. Since then we have made this recipe a number of times and it still sings with a lot of amazing flavors. Here is a link to: Annabel Langbein's Chicken and Leek Gratin.

The Linden Claret, as indicated on the back label is a blend of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 16% Cabernet Franc and 4% Petit Verdot. It was produced and bottled by Linden Vineyards in Virginia.
Many years ago, when we went to Virginia on our educational trip to learn what kinds of grapes can grow on the East Coast, we stopped at a restaurant, whose name I have now forgotten and looked at their wine list where there was a local wine made by Linden Vineyards. We tried the wine and was amazed at the quality of the wine and looked up Linden Vineyards. Here is a winery you will want to go to if you find yourself in Virginia. The winery is owned by Jim Law who began farming and making wine in the 1980s in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, located 60 miles west of Washington DC.
When I looked up the tasting notes for this wine where there was extensive information about the vintage. For the winemaking, the grapes were triple sorted, destemmed and lightly crushed. Fermented warm with gentle pump-overs early and then punch downs once the cap formed. Pressing took place after about 18 to 20 days. The wine was aged for 12 months in older French oak barrels. Unfined. 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 16% Cabernet Franc, and 4% Petit Verdot. 7,580 bottles produced. Alcohol 12.9%. Drink now through 2028.
Update: My husband remembered the restaurant that we went to where we had the Linden Sauvignon Blanc, it was The Ivy Inn located in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Grape Flea Beetle Infestation

We do see grape flea beetles in our vineyard at the start of budbreak but this year seems to be quite the infestation. We have not seen this since we first planted our vineyard in 2013. At that time I captured the best picture of the flea beetle with my film camera. You can check out this blogpost: Grape Flea Beetle.
In that blogpost I showed the damage that the grape flea beetle can do to leaves. It is the larval form that does the most damage. Typically the grape flea beetle can be found on grapevines closest to the edge of the vineyard, but this year, we are seeing the beetle in the entire vineyard. Here is the activity that they are engaged in:

A lot of the beetles are mating and boring holes into the buds to lay their eggs. We have been squashing the beetles when we see them but other then that, we are not using chemical means to get rid of the beetles. We will monitor our vineyard to see if they are causing any real damage.

Annual Cycle of Growth

This is the time of the year that I start filling out the chart for the annual cycle of growth. Although on the chart there is a specific day for the milestones that we track including budbreak, bloom, veraison and harvest, the date can have a range. We began tracking our annual cycle of growth in the vineyard beginning 2015 when we had our first small harvest of Chenin Blanc.
This is what the annual cycle of growth chart looks like:

I took pictures of all of the varieties on May 4th and what stage of development they were in at that time. Due to the cold weather than we are having, the Cabernet Sauvignon is not yet in bud break. This is what is defined as budbreak:¹

The Chenin Blanc appears to be the furthest along followed by the Barbera, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc and Auxerrois.
I copied the Annual Cycle of Growth chart from Ed Hellman's excellent online document on Grapevine Structure and Function. It is 19 pages long and crammed with good information about grapevines.
References:
1. Ed Hellman, Grapevine Structure and Function.

Vintage 2026: May Buds Status

Our weather this spring has been one of highs and lows. After the cold snap on April 20 and 21, we have been having weather that is on the cooler side. I've taken pictures of all of our grape varieties, once on April 21 and then again yesterday, May 4. The change in the bud status is negligible, reflecting the cool temperatures that we have been having.

Variety	April 21	May 4
Auxerrois
Chenin Blanc
Chardonnay
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Franc
Barbera

I'll update the progress of the buds in future blogs.

Chenin Blanc Pairing

It's no secret that we love Chenin Blanc. It's difficult to pinpoint when we began this love affair with Chenin Blanc but Domaine Huet definitely plays a large part as well as Ken Forrester's Petit Chenin. I've blogged about it before: Ken Forrester's 2009 Petit Chenin and 2010 Domaine Huet Le Mont.
Chenin Blanc pairs so perfectly with fresh oysters and seafood and seafood is what naturally comes to mind when pairing white wines.
Recently, however, we had leftover pork ribs with a dry rub and two bottles of Chenin Blanc. One was our 2019 Chenin Blanc and the other was a 2010 Domaine Huet Le Mont. Since we enjoy food and wine pairings, we thought why not try it with the two Chenins. To our surprise, the wines went very well with the dry rub pork ribs. Our assessment to this pairing was that our Chenin has a good bit of acidity that cut through the pork ribs and made it an unlikely but delicious pairing!

Coincidentally, one of our customers who came back to bring her sister and purchase more wines, recounted that she and her husband paired our 2019 Chenin Blanc with dry rub pork ribs! She mentioned that although her husband is not a wine drinker, he enjoyed the Chenin with the ribs that he prepared!

Vintage 2026: Mid-April Frost and Freeze Conditions

Last week, we were having absolutely wonderful warm weather and then our friend, a vineyard manager at another winery alerted us to a possible frost and freeze occuring in our area on Monday morning, April 20 and Tuesday morning, April 21. We did have some of our varieties in the wooly bud stage so we were concerned. When we got there on Monday, everything seemed okay and then on Tuesday, I took photos of our buds.

Variety
Auxerrois
Chenin Blanc
Chardonnay
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Franc
Barbera

I think they are fine. It's not at all like the freeze we had on May 18, 2023. However, I did see in my wine news feed that areas to the south of us experienced what we had in May 2023. It's a devastating feeling.