Heron Hill, 2020 Ingle Vineyard Cabernet Franc, Finger Lakes, NY, USA
Heron Hill Winery is among the Finger Lakes most historic wineries. John and Josephine Ingle planted their first vineyard on Canandaigua Lake back in 1972. In 1977, they established their winery and tasting room on Keuka Lake a stone's throw from two other historical estates, Dr. Konstantin Frank and Bully Hill Vineyards. Today, the winery is farming 43 acres, or about 17 hectares, of vineyards on both Keuka and Canandaigua Lakes planted with primarily vinifera varieties like Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and, of course, Cabernet Franc. Their winemaker, Canadian Jordan Harris, began at Heron Hill in 2020, and prior to that was making wine in Virginia for the last 15 years or so.
As is the case across the Finger Lakes, Cabernet Franc is an important variety for Heron Hill. They are farming 10.5 acres of Cabernet Franc planted across their vineyard sites on Keuka and Canandaigua Lakes, and they also source another 8.5 acres or so of Cabernet Franc from other growers. Today we're looking at their Ingle Vineyard Cabernet Franc, which represents the winery's top expression of Cabernet Franc.
While I haven't featured a Cabernet Franc from the Finger Lakes in a video/post in some time, I have continued to taste the wines as often as I can. Earlier this year I had the opportunity to taste a number of examples of the variety from the Finger Lakes when I was a part of Lenn Thompson's tasting panel for his Cabernet Franc report for his newsletter Press Fraction, and this wine, the Ingle Vineyard 2020 from Heron Hill was among the top examples from the 2020 vintage that we tasted, so I was quite excited to dive into this bottle again and provide a little bit more about the viticulture and winemaking for this wine.
So the Finger Lakes AVA technically stretches across all of the 11 Finger Lakes, the majority of the viticultural activities are centred around 4 lakes, from west to east, Canandaigua Lake, Keuka Lake, Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake. And the vineyards around Keuka and Seneca Lakes account for nearly 90% of the vineyard acreage in the region.
In terms of the growing environment, the success of viticulture in the region can be attributed to the presence of the Finger Lakes themselves, but also Lake Ontario to the north, which influences the region's macroclimate. And the microclimate for a specific site is heavily influenced by both its distance from Lake Ontario and its proximity to one of the Finger Lakes, as well as elevation and aspect, that is to say which side of the lake you are on, with vineyards on the west side of the lakes having more east-facing exposures and vineyards on the east side of the lakes having more west-facing exposures. With the east-facing exposures receiving more of the morning sunshine, that is they get sun earlier in the day, which can be beneficial for reducing disease pressure, where as the west-facing exposures will have more sunshine hours per day during the growing season and receive the stronger afternoon sunshine, which can be beneficial for ripening longer season varieties.
Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake are the largest of the Finger Lakes, and heavily influence the vineyard growing environments around them, helping to delay the warming of the vineyards in the spring, which can help delay budbreak and lessen frost risk, and then the heat accumulated by the lakes during the summer is retained through the fall helping to extend the growing season.
The Ingle Vineyard is on Canandaigua Lake. Generally speaking, the viticultural environment around Canandaigua Lake is cooler and does not receive the same degree of moderation from the lake because the lake is smaller and more shallow, so the vineyards will experience a wider diurnal range between daytime and nighttime temperatures, and a slightly truncated growing season.
However, Jordan noted that the two blocks of where the Cabernet Franc is planted for this wine have proven to be excellent sites for the variety. Firstly, we're on the west side of Canandaigua Lake, about 1000m inland from the lake, and we're at an elevation of about 355-370m on average, so these blocks receive a bit more of an influence from Lake Ontario than Canandaigua Lake. This lake influence coupled with the altitude means these sites are fairly windy, which is good for lowering disease pressure as well as minimizing frost risk. In addition to that, these sites have a slightly more southern exposure, which is rare on Canandaigua Lake, so there is good sun exposure for ripening and minimizing the pyrazines. So in general, these blocks benefit from a long, albeit slightly cooler growing season, allowing the grapes to achieve good phenolic ripeness while keeping alcohols lower, around 12.5 to 13%.
So these two blocks combined around about 7.5 acres, or about 3 ha. The oldest block was planted in 1982, and the second in 2004. They are a mix of clones, and the vines are trained double guyot. In terms of soil, across the Finger Lakes, we have glacially-derived topsoils of varying texture and depth, which are generally on either a limestone or shale bedrock. And here the soil series is called Howard sandy-loam, and there's about 45 to 60cm of topsoil before the shale bedrock. From a viticultural perspective, these blocks not very vigorous and naturally yield on the lower side, around 2.5 tons per acre. The team will do judicious leaf pulling to ensure plenty of sun exposure, and occasionally cluster thin before veraison if need be.
In terms of winemaking, the fruit was hand-harvested and destemmed into t-bins. Prior to alcoholic fermentation, they did a 6 to 10 cold soak. The fermentation was with a combination of indigenous and selected yeast a little bit on the cooler side, around 25C, with punch downs twice daily during the active fermentation. The total time on skins is 38 days. This is a combination of free run and press wine. And aging is for around 16 months in in French oak barrels, about 25% of which is new.
Key wine wine facts below:
Producer: Heron Hill Winery
Region: New York, USA
AVA: Finger Lakes (Canandaigua Lake)
Vineyard: Ingle Vineyard
Soils: 45-60cm of Howard sandy-loam topsoil, over shale
Alcohol: 13.5%
