Microterroir: Estate Reserve Single Vineyard Pinot Noir Series

30 May Microterroir: Estate Reserve Single Vineyard Pinot Noir Series

Exploring our Terroir: Four Unique Vineyard Selections

When we started Heart & Hands, we had a singular mission:  to understand the impact of our limestone rich terroir on our wines. As those who have followed our journey know, our Estate vineyard is planted on the Onondaga Limestone formation which provides an ideal foundation for growing Pinot Noir.  Our first vines were planted in 2010, and as the vineyard matured, Tom began to notice subtle differences in the vines and grapes grown in different sections of the vineyard.  Over the years, we collected data points on our soil and land and developed a deeper understanding of four unique soil, bedrock, and topographic combinations on our land.

We began to harvest and vinify grapes from these sections of the estate in separate lots, and age them in separate barrels. As we tasted these lots in the cellar, it was clear that the wines reflected the nuances of the four types of terroir: the unique soil, geology, slope, and altitude had a notable impact on wine aromas and flavors. Several years ago, we blended and bottled some these lots, and did a very small release of a few cases of these wines.  With the 2017 vintage, we were able to expand production and make fifty cases from each of the four vineyards.

2017 Old Quarry Vineyard Pinot Noir rests atop a boulder of limestone embedded with fossilized coral

Old Quarry Vineyard Pinot Noir

The first wine to be released from the 2017 vintage is the Old Quarry Vineyard Estate Reserve Pinot Noir. The Old Quarry Vineyard is located at our highest elevation on the Estate, and features Cazenovia silt loam soils on our steepest slopes.  This land had a small abandoned quarry that was filled in prior to planting our vines, and the vineyard is named in honor of this quarry and the many nearby quarries that supplied the limestone for foundations of local homes and buildings, some as far away as Manhattan.

This is a limited production wine (forty nine cases) which has been released to our wine club, and we are releasing the remaining  seven cases beginning this weekend.  We will share the names of the remaining three Estate vineyard selections as we release them over the course of the coming year.  We are thrilled to share these wines which offer a more in-depth exploration of the terroir of our estate vineyard!