Pinot Noir at the Estate and the Road to a Best of Class Designation!

The Road to an Award-Winning Wine, From Grape to Bottle:
In 2009, the owners of Johnson Estate, Fred and Tony Johnson, began to plant a series of vinifera vineyards with traditional Germanic grapes - Riesling, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir - which would permit the Estate to expand its selection of European Classic wines.
                      
Why is Pinot Noir Our Most Spoiled Child in the Vineyards?
Pinot Noir is a red grape variety of the Vitis vinifera vine species which originated in France. Pinot means "pine cone"  in French. Here's how the Wine Spectator describes this grape variety:

• Pinot Noir’s grape skins are black and thin, and Pinot Noir vines prefer cooler climates with long growing seasons. Pinot Noir is considered a delicate, “finicky” grape, requiring more careful attention in the vineyard..... When the gamble of growing Pinot Noir pays off, the vines produce grapes with great potential to create wines with complex, concentrated and layered flavors.

As a good description of this grape, it is understandable that the best quality Pinot Noir grapes are those that have been treated like "spoiled children" in the vineyards. Winemaker Jeff Murphy and Owner Fred Johnson had decided to plant three different clones, each offering different characteristics that would enhance the wine's body, texture, and flavors. Today, the Estate now grows two clones: "pre-curse" and a Dijon clone (777). The first harvest of Estate-grown Noir was in 2017. Winemaker Jeff Murphy introduced the Estate's Dry Rose of Pinot Noir in 2018 and the Brut in 2019.

The Estate's Pinot Noir vineyards do receive a great deal of attention from the farm team: hand-pruning in the winter, assiduous attention to nutrition and spray protocols, de-leafing and de-fruiting, by hand, in the summer, to enable to provide the highest quality grapes possible. When the grapes are determined to be optimally ripe by Winemaker Jeff, the grapes are then hand-picked by the farm staff. In doing these things, the average tons per acre dropped from about five tons to the acre to three tons. These protocols were seriously followed in 2022 and resulted in the harvest of very good quality grapes which is the basis of good quality wines. 

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PARAGRAPH TO COME FROM WINEMAKER JEFF MURPHY - Making an Award-Winning Wine

And the good result from "spoiling this vineyard"? Johnson Estate's 2022 Pinot Noir was named
      Best of Class, Double Gold, 2024 Finger Lakes International Wine Competition!

It has also been award two other GOLD medals:
90 Points, GOLD, 2024 Beverage Testing Institute
90 Points, GOLD, 2024 New York Wine Classic

Read more about Pinot Noir - Wine Spectator1 and Wine Spectator2