Freedom Run Winery

Spring is here and we are busy again!

Things have started to get busy here again at the winery. Last weekend's May Blossoms wine trail event was a hit. Everyone that stopped in got a potted cinnamon basil plant with their tasting. We've been bottling our 2006 whites and thoroughly sampling our 2006 reds which are still in the barrel. It would sound pretentious to boast that the 2006 vintage is a step up from last year's, but in our opinion that's the case.

Speaking of our first vintage, they continue to collect awards from respected competitions including the latest one, the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition. These wines won the following medals:

Cabernet Sauvignon 2005: Silver medal
Cabernet Franc 2005: Bronze medal
Manning Manor Rose 2005: Bronze medal

Our pinot noir vines of which we have several clones planted in our two vineyard blocks are opening up nicely and really benefited from an early warm up here on the Niagara Escarpment. These vines produced an amazing first crop last fall and everyone that's come in for a barrel sample has considered buying allocations via our barrel club. We can't believe how good that wine has been drinking since we racked it into barrels some four months ago. We're keeping our fingers crossed that 08 is even half as good as last summer was for our reds.

Last weekend we hosted a local meeting of the American Wine Society in our production facility at the winery. We took each guest through a flight of six whites and six reds. The whites included our 05 and 06 Semi Dry Rieslings as well as our 06 Manning Manor Blanc which we released last week as well. The reds included our 07 pinot noir barrel sample and a Bordeaux style blend of our 06 reds from the barrel. We skimmed through their tasting notes afterwards, and the reviews of our new wines we quite high, even when compared to the ringers we through in, which included a 94 point St. Emilion Chateau Quinault Grand Cru from 2005. We promise our blend won't cost even half of what this one did, even with its huge tannins and power!

Labor Day After a Busy Summer

Happy Labor Day! We're all relaxing this holiday after a busy few months of bottling the reds, pouring at summer events, tending to ten acres of vines, celebrating our grand opening and everything else that keeps a young winery busy. But with all the hard work that went into our first release of wines, we thought we'd take some time to appreciate the recognition they have already received.

At the most recent New York Food and Wine Classic Governor's Cup Competition. our 2005 Merlot was awarded a silver medal, and two bronze medals were awarded to our 2005 Manning Manor Rose and our 2005 Chardonnay. The 2005 Merlot is made from grapes grown at Ackerly Pond Vineyards in Peconic, NY. Our winemaker did a spectacular job here with a ripe vintage. The competition was held in Napa, California a few weeks ago and the panel was made up of a majority of California judges. The Governor's Cup is an annual wine event that judges only NYS wines, and given the amount of quality wine being produced in NY today, the competition is stiff. It was a second bronze medal for the Chardonnay, which won the bronze at the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition where our 2005 Semi-Dry Riesling and 2005 Catawba won silver, and our 2005 Manning Manor Reserve won bronze.

Our recent success only makes the future brighter as our recently bottled 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon is drinking extremely well lately. With a fruit forward nose of black currants and sun dried tomato, this one has been turning heads in our tasting room. As we mentioned weeks earlier, our 2005 Cabernet Franc is our red baby right now, with only six weeks since bottling. It's peppery finish along with the flavors of black cherries and leather have been widening eyes lately. It's perfectly rustic right now, with each week in the bottle smoothing out the tannins and bringing the fruit forward.

Being such a young winery, we are thrilled to have received such a positive response in only our first year. With fall on the way, the thought of sitting back with our red wines on a cool night sounds enticing as ever. Luckily for the white wine drinkers out there, Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment provide some extended warmth for our area and a few hot days are sure to pop up. So keep that Chardonnay or Catawba on ice. Cheers!