WINEMAKER’S NOTES:

Follow a fairly normal winter spring seemed to arrive quite quickly at the end of March. Through April we had warm sunny days which encouraged bud break a few days earlier than normal.   May was relatively dry with some optimal rains gave us a great start to the growing season.  Summer moved along with long dry spells and hot conditions. right through until the beginning of September.  Things were looking great with realty good flavours in the grapes and harvest looked to be getting close. Then came the rains and humidity which caused some concerns with disease pressure and having to work around some not so great conditions for harvest. However, I think by the time harvest was all in the flavours were great and the wines were nicely balanced.

The grapes used for this wine were harvested by hand from a small Pinot Noir Vineyard in Niagara on the Lake grown by Martin Vagner.   Soon after the harvest the grapes were crushed, destemmed and immediately pressed so as not to extract too much colour from the skins.  The juice was settled for a coupe of days before being racked of the sediment and moved to a tank for ferment.  Fermentation started naturally using an indigenous yeasts.  Cool temperatures throughout the ferment took almost 3 weeks to be competed giving some really amazing texture and bright, fresh fruit flavours and aromas.