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2019: Once in a Lifetime Vintage

October 25, 2019 1 Comment

What a difference a year can make. August 2018 through July 2019 was the second rainiest 12 month stretch in the recorded history of New Jersey weather. These records stretch back into the late 19th century, which gives context just to Riesling at Unionville Vineyards

how wet that is. It's not easy growing wine grapes when it rains every other day from August through the end of harvest. This year, as we slogged through a wet May and June, we were making preparations to endure another difficult season. To be honest, there isn't really that much you can do, so most of the preparations were probably emotional fortification. A torrential thunderstorm on July 11th dropped over three inches of rain on most of our vineyards. Todd Wuerker, winemaker at Hawk Haven Vineyard said to me on the phone "it has to stop, it always evens out" and I scoffed at that idea. The weather today doesn't know what happened the day, week, or month before.

Todd was right! An atmospheric switch flipped in mid-July, and high pressure dominated the mid-Atlantic for the rest of the season. There were isolated thunderstorms to dodge through the rest of summer, and Unionville fared particularly well in this stretch. Over the 10 weeks of harvest, less than three inches of rain fell across our vineyards. We went from a historically wet stretch to historically dry, and it came just in the nick of time.

The most critical period for quality wine grapes begins around verasion. As the grapes get ripe the skins soften and they change color. That's when too much rain can dilute flavor and introduce disease pressure. Verasion occurred in late July, just as drier conditions began. As the grapes matured, the fair weather never stopped. Day by day as each variety came in, we pinched ourselves as we peeked ahead at the forecast and planned the next pick. Over 70 tons of gorgeous grapes made their way to our crush pad, with some of the ripest flavors we've ever tasted. Great wine is made in the vineyard, and as you can see from the collection of photos of beautiful grapes on Instagram, we've already started to make some great wines.

We were so busy and overjoyed by the harvest that until this blog post, we haven't even mentioned some other truly momentous news for Unionville. As members of The Winemakers Co-Op, we have a selection of our wines tasted each year by Mark Squires, critic for The Wine Advocate. He published his reviews just before Labor Day, and awarded the first-ever 90 point score for a red wine from New Jersey. Our 2015 Pheasant Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir earned this recognition, and its incredible to have broken this barrier for the state industry. The wine is sold out (although we have a couple cases available to Club members) but the 2017 Pinot Noir Reserve is delicious, and slated for an introduction in the tasting room this fall.

The first full weekend in December always marks the release of our next Port wine. Conor is excited to blend Vat #25, especially on the heels of Vat #24, last year's bottling garnering a whopping 95 point score the distinction of "best fortified wine' in the 2019 New Jersey Wine Competition. Unionville will be honored at the awards ceremony in November at the Governor's Mansion in Princeton, along with the other category winners.

What else? We've made some long-needed improvements to our energy infrastructure on the property, particularly necessary as we approach the groundbreaking of a ground mounted solar array that beginning in 2020 will power Unionville's entire operation with renewable energy. We've taken several steps towards adopting a more sustainable focus of how the winery and farm should operate. The solar field is certainly the most dramatic and impactful. Coupled with reducing chemical inputs, carrying out cover crop trials under the vineyard rows, and using a rain catching system to water our organic vegetable and flower garden, we're always considering steps to make great wine as thoughtfully as possible.

We will continue to make more of these wines- much more in fact. Next week we will break ground on a six acre expansion at Pheasant Hill, dedicated mostly to Pinot Noir, Syrah, Viognier, and Mourvedre. Immediately after that, a 1.5 acre Syrah monoblock will be built on Amwell Ridge. Over the winter, we will repair and replace sections of Home Vineyard behind the 1858 Farmhouse that are in need of refurbishment. All of these sites will be planted or replanted in the Spring.

Only good things are going on at Unionville. With a little luck, I'll be able to update this blog a little more regularly to share them with you. Of course we would love for you to visit this holiday season, and share some of the good feelings going on here in person.

It was a once-a-decade vintage for wine quality. Coupled with all of the other progress for the winery, it was one of the best years ever.

-John Cifelli, General Manager, Unionville

Kelly

November 04, 2019

So glad to heard of continued Unionville success! We were married there this past June and chose it partly because of the best red wine in NJ- can’t wait to try this new batch!!

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Also in Unionville Grapevine

It's our 25th Anniversary and I'm not sure what to say

September 04, 2018

Today, we are picking the first grapes for what is Unionville's 27th harvest. Two years after the first grapes were picked and fermented, they were sold in the newly-opened tasting room- 25 years ago. Although I've been thinking about this moment for about a year, we've started our anniversary celebration and I'm still struggling to put it all in context.

In the past few years I've learned so much that could be shared with you now. I've spent hours at the township building, reading through letters written back and forth between parties involved in the winery's founding in the early 1990's. I've walked the vineyards, pausing with each "King of the Vineyard" as Conor calls them- the craggy, gnarly vines nearly as old as me. I've stared at the black and white photos in the hallway of the 1858 Farmhouse of the family and workers who tended to this property many decades ago.

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Winter is coming and so is Port wine

November 20, 2017

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! I know that is cliché to say, but it truly is a great time at Unionville. We’ve got all of our reds pressed and in barrel. Cooler, stainless-steel fermentations are finishing up in tank, I’m finally able to breathe a little easier, and wake up a little later. With the holidays upon us, the wine making team has a lot on the mind, but one thing standing out is the blending, bottling, and release of Vat #23 – the latest rendition of our opulent Port wine.

Port has a storied history at Unionville – the fortified delight has been made at the winery since its first vintage in 1993, Before we delve into that, we have to talk a little about how Port is made and the different styles in which it can be presented. Port, named for its origin country, Portugal, is typically a sweet or medium-dry red wine, fortified with distilled grape spirit, then cellared and bottled at different times and in different ways to present specific stylizations. The two most recognizable presentations of Port wine are Ruby and Tawny Ports. Ruby styles are young wines usually aged for only a couple of years (or less). They’re released early to showcase juicy acidity and fruity characteristics of young wine with fuller mouthfeel and complexity

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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: The Results

September 13, 2017 1 Comment

Since I started at Unionville 5 years ago, it has always been a goal to have our wines evaluated by top critics. In the years since, John Foy at the Star-Ledger has called our wines "Napa worthy," and Stuart Pigott, who freelances for James Suckling and Wine Business Monthly wrote that our Syrah was the best expression of the grape in the United States. T.J. Foderaro at Inside Jersey Magazine, Alan Richman (Saveur), Robin Shreeves (Cherry Hill Courier-Post), Rosie Saferstein (NJ Monthly), and the Trenton Times' Susan Yeske have all added their voices to the coalition of the willing in the last couple of years.

Having Unionville in the pages of one of the major wine magazines had remained elusive, until last summer when Mark Squires, East Coast wine critic for the Wine Advocate sat down and tasted...

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