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With the 2025 season wrapped up and pruning and tying down the new canes for the 2026 season beginning, now is a good time to pause and reflect. The 2025 season started off wet, but finished dry with high quality fruit. All of the 2025 wines are resting in barrels and will remain that way for the next 12 months for Chardonnay and 15-18 month plus for reds.
The 2026 season so far we are dealing with more snow than we have experienced in a few years. The snow and windchill do not hurt the vines (but does make vineyard work more difficult) in a negative way just overall lower temperatures will damage buds or grapevines for the next season. From what we have experienced on our own site we will usually start to see bud death/lower yield potential once we get in the 5 degrees or lower and mostly in the Chardonnay and Merlot. So, we are not too concerned this season. The excess snow actually helps insulate the grapevines and helps protect the graft union against freeze damage. There are some studies that show the insulating power of the snow can be 10-20 degrees warmer than the uninsulated areas, so significant.
We have been sampling the 2024 red vintage for making final blends and preparing them for bottling in the next few months. The 2024 vintage overall is one of the most ripe and concentrated fruit and subsequent wines we have seen in Pennsylvania. Arguably a perfect growing season with minimal rain, high temps and ripe fruit. It will certainly be a vintage we do not see every year in Pennsylvania.
