For my Winery and Vineyard Analysis, a couple of my classmates and I decided to go to Shinn Estate Vineyards and Farmhouse located on Oregon Road in Mattituck, NY. Shinn Estate Vineyards was bought and owned in 1998 by native Midwesterners, Barbara Shinn and David Page. They planted 20 acres of grapevines and built an estate winery and Farmhouse bed and breakfast which has been named a top American wine destination by Gayot, Fodors, U.S. News Travel, Food and Wine and Bon Appetit.

As we arrived, we head to the wine tasting area where we await our tour to begin. We were greeted warm and friendly staff of the farm. The wine tasting area was very comforting with indoors and outdoors seats available for us.

We begin our tour with a greeting from Barbara Shinn who will be giving us the tour around the vineyard. As we walked along the vineyard she gave us many detailed and important information about how she runs her vineyard as self-sustainable eco-system. One of the main reason she choose that farm to grow wines was due to the type of soil which has a mixture of gravel and loam soil. Due to the maritime climate and many rains they get, the soil drains the rain water with ease. Clover crops and roots where allowed to grow under the vines as these greens and grasses absorbs rain water too so the vines don’t get too much water.

As continue to walk deeper into the vineyard, she explains that unlike other farms, she does not use any form of chemical fertilizers, using only organic materials for her farm. Seaweed are used for fertilizers. On top of that, the farm does not have any bug issues as bugs are attracted to the vineyard to eat the meadow.

The vineyard itself grows 8 types of different grapes:

• Red: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot
• White: Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Blanc, Semillon

And out if the compound:

• Riesling and Chardonnay

The chosen wines depends on the agriculture. The red wines ripened in mid-September and the white wines ripened in mid-October.

The second part of the tour would be in the winery. The winery tour was conducted by David Page, Barbara Shinn’s husband. He started off by giving us some history if the vineyard. The grapes where planted way back about 17 years ago and Sauvignon Blanc were the first grapes to be harvested.

David gave us some information on how they do their wine making process. The grapes are picked and loading in the picking bins and unloaded for pressing. In the pressing process, the whole cluster will be pressed meaning that the braches are included. Once the liquid are extracted, it will be chilled at a temperature lower than 40’F for about 2-3 days. As soon as its time for fermentation, the liquid will be warmed to about 50’F for fermentation. Juices are separated from the yeast after fermentation.

Apart from wines, Shinn Estate Vineyards and Farmhouse also produces a small production of brandy and cognac.

To finish off the tour, we were taken to the barrel cellar where there are about 200 barrels stored at the temperature of 58’F and below. The wines are stored in variety of types of barrels but mainly French barrels. Each barrels can bottle about 300 bottles of wines.

A small info of what the vinyard could offer

Wine Cellar

Barrel Cellar

Large Wooden Tank (Winery)

Metal Tank (Winery)

Growing Bud

Outdoor wine tasting seats

Wine tasting room