Winemaker’s Blog

Harvest is in full-swing!

As we wind-down September, 2025 we are ramping up our harvest activities in the vineyard. We opened our Concord vineyard block for U-Pick customers. The warm & dry weather has been perfect for ripening the grapes … our vineyard smells like a jar of Smucker’s Jelly!

We machine harvested some Concords for a customer from Michigan. The picture shows the process in action, with the harvester driving over the vines and uses beater bars to drop the fruit onto a conveyer and up and over into bins in the adjoining row.

Vineyard managers and wine makers always talk about “Brix” when they plan for harvest. Simply put, Brix is the % of sugar that is present in the grape juice after pressing. Depending on how one plans to use the juice, like for canning or winemaking, brix AND THE WEATHER determine when the grapes will be harvested.

If you are canning for jam or jelly, Brix helps define sweetness in combination with the sugar or pectin you’re using to set your jam or jelly. For juice, Brix helps you decide whether you want to add sugar at all. Our Concords are at 19 Brix as of Sept 29th, so you’re all set if you have a good fruit steamer and bunch of mason jars!

For wine, Brix also helps a winemaker do a rough prediction of alcohol after the grapes are fermented. There’s a large calculation for alcohol conversion and expensive tools that determine the ABV (alcohol by volume) for the wine label, but a good rough guess to determine alcohol is “divide brix by 2”.

Besides Brix, a vineyard manager will sample the grapes. Tasting the fruit helps determine ripeness, and the seeds are always a good visual aid. Grapes harvested with green seeds will have a vegetative flavor, generally considered under-ripe fruit. Brown seeds are a great indicator for fully ripe fruit as well as brown stems (rachis “rake is”). Brown stems mean the vine has given all it can to the fruit & won’t ripen the fruit further.

All of these indicators are great predictors in perfect weather, but harvest season is always an artful dance with Mother Nature. The onset of rain during harvest season always plays a factor in scheduling when to harvest the grapes. Rain swells the grapes and dilutes the sugar. A good rain storm can take that “perfect Brix you were waiting for” back down a few percentages.

Depending on where you are in the overall harvest calendar, a vineyard manager might advocate letting the fruit hang a bit longer. The winemaker always wants to get the fruit picked and into the cellar where they have a bit more control for the final outcome.

Our fingers are crossed for weather offering a nice slow march into the winter season.

Notes from the winemaker – June, 2025

Happy Summer Solstice to everyone! Seems like our weather has oscillated between swamping rains followed by high humidity and heat. This weather pattern challenges our ability to get weeds under control, certainly makes it difficult to get tractors into the vineyard. We do what we can to take the edge off the weed growth when the weather permits. Grapes are maturing well .. looks like a great crop so far.

A quick update on our tasting room. We finally received OH EPA registration of our public water system. This allowed us to proceed with required septic and water system upgrades as we work with Lake County for approval for onsite food service. We’re still selling our wines in Cash & Carry mode until we get final approvals from Lake County.

We released our Rosé in June and it's a great addition to our portfolio. It’s semi-sweet (3% residual sugar) and has a hint of cranberry on the palate. The Pinot Gris and Estate Cab need a bit more time in the cellar, but looks like August for the Pinot Gris release and September for our Estate Cab.

And finally, we were proud to pour our 2025 Ohio Wine Competition Bronze Medal winners at Wildwood Arts & Wine Festival on June 21st. We heard lots of positive comments on our wines and more on our shirts from Bree’s Happy Designs (photo). Kudos to City of Mentor Recreation Department for throwing a great event!

Follow us on Facebook to see our planned Saturday sales dates. You can always purchase from our website wine shop, with local pick-up, local delivery, or UPS shipment direct to your door.

Notes from the winemaker – Harvest, 2024

We were fortunate to enjoy a bountiful harvest, with warm weather through the growing season and minimal rain before harvest time. That made for nice clean fruit which are already showing great promise for wines from our cellar.

After another successful year with our Pick-Your-Own Concords, we sold ~14 tons of grapes to Agri-America Fruit Co-Op in Fredonia, NY. These grapes are destined for use in kosher wine production!

We had a great harvest for both our estate Riesling and our Bordeaux-style vineyard blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. These estate wines are settling nicely into the cellar for a bit of aging.

We’ve also contracted for some local grapes from nearby vineyards, such as Pinot Gris and Regent. These two will help to round out our wine program – another white wine to partner with our estate Riesling and GRV Chardonnay, as well as a Rosé to bridge between our other white and red wines.

Finally, we’re pleased with the maturation of our 2020 estate Bordeaux-style vineyard blend. Look for springtime releases of our estate Cab, the new Pinot Gris and Rosé wines – Stay tuned!