Sustainable Viticulture Archives - Heart & Hands Wine Company

Behind the Label: Estate Single Vineyard Wines

Susan Higgins — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 21:23:43 +0000

Estate Vineyard in Summer

The Estate Single Vineyard Series

When we started Heart & Hands, we had a singular mission: to understand and explore the impact of our limestone rich terroir on our wines. As Tom designed our vineyard, he carefully considered this geology and the land’s different soil types and varied topography. With this in mind, he planned the row layout, vine spacing, and Pinot Noir clonal selections for the entire vineyard.

As the plants matured and Tom cared for the vines, he noticed subtle differences in the vines and grapes grown in four different sections of the vineyard. To explore these differences, we harvested, vinified and aged grapes from these four sections in separate lots. As the wines became approachable in the cellar, it became clear that each wine 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. We decided to craft a unique wine from each section so that our patrons could deeply explore our vineyard’s terroir.

The Wines

2017 Vintage of Estate Single Vineyard Series

We gave each wine a unique vineyard name: Hedrick Vineyard, Higgins Vineyard, Charlie’s Vineyard and Old Quarry. Each of these special vineyard names have either sentimental meaning, or historical relevance:

We named Hedrick Vineyard in honor of U.P. Hedrick, a pioneering vinifera researcher who grew and researched vinifera grapes at the Cornell Experiment station in the late 1800s. His pioneering publications provided insight and guidance on how to successfully grow and research vinifera grapes in the late 1800s. The Higgins vineyard bears our family name. We named Charlie’s Vineyard in honor of Susan’s father, in gratitude for his ongoing commitment of time, energy, and love during his years on our harvest team. And finally, we named Old Quarry in honor of a small, abandoned quarry that we discovered on our property, as well as the many nearby quarries that provided limestone for foundations of homes and buildings – some as far away as Wall Street in New York City.

The Label Design

These wines hold a very special place in our hearts and we wanted to be sure that their labels told the story of the specific vineyard from which the wine originated.

The front label is a pared-down minimalist design – a black label which fades in to the bottle. The top edge of the label is where the story begins. Instead of a traditional square, the top of the label is cut in a slanted line which runs upward from left to right. If you look closely, you will note that the line isn’t perfectly straight – it meanders up and down a bit as it marches upward. This line represents the slope on our vineyard hillside, and shows shows its actual slope and topography. On each label, gold foil covers a section of the line, indicating the location of the vineyard on the hillside.

On the back label, the slope design is repeated, and includes the addition of information describing elevation of the unique vineyard location. The back label also includes a vineyard row layout for the Estate vineyard. Gold foil highlights vineyard rows and shows the exact location from which the wine in the bottle was harvested. As always, the back label has all of our usual statistics describing the wine’s harvest dates, yields and chemistry. Finally, each label offers a detailed description of the vineyard location, slope and soil types, and describes the story behind the vineyard name.

We released these wines for the first time to our Claddagh Club in 2019, and are now offering limited releases to the public. We are thrilled to share these wines and a deeper exploration of the land that is so special to us!

The post Behind the Label: Estate Single Vineyard Wines appeared first on Heart & Hands Wine Company.

Behind the Label: Estate Single Vineyard Wines

Susan Higgins — Thu, 30 Jul 2020 17:55:47 +0000

Estate Vineyard in Summer

The Estate Single Vineyard Series

The Wines

2017 Vintage of Estate Single Vineyard Series

The Label Design

These wines hold a very special place in our hearts and we wanted to be sure that their labels told the story of the specific vineyard from which the wine originated.

We released these wines to our Claddagh Club in 2019, and are now offering limited releases to the public. We are thrilled to share these wines and a deeper exploration of the land that is so special to us!

The post Behind the Label: Estate Single Vineyard Wines appeared first on Heart & Hands Wine Company.

Pruning & Tying

Susan Higgins — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 18:31:41 +0000

The first months of the year are a quiet, peaceful time of rest and rebirth in our vineyard. After Autumn’s harvest, the vines store energy for the upcoming season, shed their remaining leaves, and transition to a state of dormancy. The once lush vineyard is transformed: only the vine trunks and bare canes remain, pointing upwards, and dreaming of their spring awakening. The winter vineyard landscape is a bit stark, but the contrast between the dark, skeletal vines and the brilliant snow can be hauntingly beautiful.

Winter vineyard inspection with K9 support

While winter weather persisted through mid-to-late-April, we feel fortunate that the winter of 2018 was relatively kind to us, as we did not encounter many extreme cold weather events. Now that the spring thaw is finally here, the vines are beginning to come back to life. Warm temperatures over the past few days mean that sap is flowing in the vines – the first sign that the vines are waking up from their winter slumber. As a result, there is much work to be done to prepare them for the upcoming vintage. One of the first vineyard activities of each new year is pruning the vines, then selecting the best fruiting canes for each vine, and finally tying each cane to the fruiting wire.

Pruning

Removing a larger cane

We prune the vines for several reasons: it allows us to maintain the vines’ training system, remove the old canes which bore the prior year’s fruit, and choose the fruiting canes for the upcoming vintage. This year, we pruned the vineyard in late March, after the greatest risk of injury from extreme cold had passed. At Heart & Hands, we prune with the intent of cultivating a “balanced vine”: seeking to achieve a balance between optimal fruit production, and sufficient but not excessive vine and canopy growth.

We do our pruning work in two passes. During the first pass, we remove the old plant material, and leave behind a couple of potential fruiting canes. During the second pass, we select the best cane or canes for each vine and remove the others. While we have helping hands with the first pass of pruning, Tom prefers to do the final pass himself. By doing so, he can make the critical decisions for the season, and select the best possible fruiting cane for each vine.

Tom gently wraps a cane around the fruiting wire

Tying

After pruning the vineyard, we move on to tying. Tying provides support to the vine, and ensures that the future grapes are in the best physical position to promote growth, ripening and harvesting.

We gently wrap each fruiting cane around the fruiting wire – taking great care to avoid cracking or damaging the vine. Then we use a tool called a tapener to secure the fruiting cane to the fruiting wire at the end of the cane. We also tie the trunk of the vine to a metal stake which is placed directly next to the base of the plant.

Then secures the fruiting cane to the wire

Timing this work is tricky. Ideally, you want to finish tying before bud break. Once the tender buds emerge from the vine you must work very slowly to avoid harming them. However, if you start too early during cold weather, the vines are more brittle, and there is more risk of cracking the vine when wrapping it around the wire.

This year, we started tying the vineyard in early April. The work will continue through the remainder of the month in the long awaited warmer weather!

The post Pruning & Tying appeared first on Heart & Hands Wine Company.