Heritage Winery and Vineyard

The vines in the beginning stages

The blooms have started to form

My experience at the Heritage Winery and Vineyard was educational and fun because of the people I was grouped with in the tour. I first came across the vineyard when I googled vineyards around New York city, and the vineyard had popped up. I decided to choose that vineyard instead of other vineyards because of the time it took to travel there and back with all together was going to a four hour drive. My first interaction with the vineyard was over the phone double checking if the tour fit the guidelines of the project. The woman who answered the phone was very sweet and knowledge about the tour. At the time of going to the tour I was under age, the vineyard allowed to me to take the tour for free for educational purposes. On Saturday the only day the tour is given was dark and looked as if was going to rain however after being on the vineyard property for a little the day turned out to be sunny and made the tour more enjoyable. The vineyard does not market themselves through television advertisements expect for the Heritage Winery and Vineyard website, their Facebook page and word of mouth of people going there.

The inside of the winery

When you first drive up to the vineyard it does not look like anything expect a farmhouse and you start to question if it’s a vineyard. However, if you look up the hill you will see the rows of different varieties of grapes. The tour guild Tom was very proud of the vineyards because he had helped the company and was comparing and referring back to Robert Mondavi between the similar both wine makers do. When we were going through the grape vineyards the vines were starting to bloom in to tiny appearing flowers. The vines within the vineyards were referred to as vertical canes that grew between six and half to seven feet tall and the removal of the leaves to allow air to reach the grapes to prevent mold. The first grape varieties the vineyard started off with was Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay. The growth of grapes are affected by the conditions in the area it is grown from the type of soil to the time of harvest. The longer the grapes are left on the vines they will continue to suck up water which will make a larger grape in size however the flavor of the grapes will be bitter. One problem the vineyard experiences when the grapes are ripe is sourflies because they become attracted to the sweet smell of the grape and want to eat the grapes.

Harvest time for wine grapes are hurricane season, the wine growers has to take the risk on long to keep the grapes on the vines because if they take them off too soon the grapes will be unripe. However, if the grapes are left on the vines during hurricane season you are chancing the risk of getting bitter grapes and or getting your entire crop of grapes wrapped out . Grapes vines can continue to grapes for fifty or hundred years the vines will produce less yield but an intense flavor of wine. It takes ten years before the grapes actually turned into bottled wines. After the grapes are picked the wine makers need to make a decision either to ferment in American, French oak barrels or steels because it leaves a different taste profile. American oak barrels has a spicy ruff intense flavor, while French oak barrel has a creamy smooth buttery vanilla lemon flavors. The new trend in wine is boxed wines because the wine makers can get more wine into their production because a box holds six bottles while boxed wines holds two half “bottles”. In the steel tank room is where the tour guild talked methode champenoise of turning the wines bottles slowly to lay the bottle to form lees. It was sort of embarrassing because I was the only person rise their hand if anyone knew about methode champenoise . The tour ended with two different wines the first wine, a dessert wine that paired well with Oreo cookies and wine for brunch. I ended up tasting the grapes in the brunch wine because it was the raspberry preserves I brought….it was amazing! The tartness of the raspberries syrah grapes reminded me of French wine.