They say Pinot Noir is tough to grow, but last year we struggled with our first crop of Chardonnay… “This vineyard is a write-off!” shouted my vineyard employee (I’ll call him Bob) and stalked out of the Chardonnay to go work on softer ground in the front vineyard. Even the hardiest of workers can get frustrated when […]
Our First Chardonnay Read More »
People keep asking, how dd the grapes do this Winter? I won’t exactly know until the buds break, but I think we in the County survived OK. We go to such enormous effort each Fall to heap soil over the vines to protect them from Winter. This year, frost came into the ground so abruptly, I
Arctic Vortexes and Survival of the Vines Read More »
Come into our tasting room this summer; we’ll talk about passion and the pursuit of big ideas while you try our delicious 2013 Chardonnay . On Saturday the Ontario Wine Society was kind enough to invite Broken Stone Winery to share our wines and our vision at an event in Wellington. We rubbed shoulders with other City refugees
It’s been the coldest Winter since we started this venture five years ago. Any canes that remain above ground are certainly dead from the cold. We’ll remove everything exposed above ground when we start pruning in a few weeks, and then unbury the protected canes. Yahoo… we’re looking forward to getting started for another season!
Waiting for Winter’s End Read More »
“Wassail” — three end-of-season weekends to celebrate another year in the vineyard — came and went with a flourish of revelers and repeat customers. Our first year as a winery is writ. We will look back at these days with nostalgia. For now, the tractor is quiet, and the vines buried, asleep under a
“It’s minus ten Celsius. Sure, the ground is frozen, but it won’t hurt to try burying the vines. It might work –right? With the tractor reverse gear repaired, I headed out to the field one fine Saturday to attempt hilling up for the second time. It seemed to go well, although the hard soil made the tractor struggle
Hard Earth and Hilling Up Read More »
After tie-down, our vines get buried underneath a protective hill of soil. We move around tonnes of dirt. We drive up and down each of our 68 rows several times with the plow and get to know the vineyard very well. Back and forth, back and forth for about 20 hours. A slow job and there are only
Broken Tractor at Broken Stone Read More »
One thing you will hear vineyardists and vintners say about starting up a winery is “it’s hard work”. All of our grapes are safely pressed out into tanks now, culminating a string of 16 – 20 hour days and rushing between Toronto and the County every other day. Energy to do all this came from
Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home! This year our vineyards were invaded by Multicoloured Asian Lady Bugs, or MALB. You may know that at crush time the odd insect or two can get crushed along with the grapes. We like to think that adds a bit of complexity. Seriously though, the wine is so
A critical phase of the wine making process at Broken Stone. At harvest this year we dumped a few lugs of grapes into wading pool and did a ceremonial grape stomp. The cool clusters felt wonderful on tired feet. Followed by a foot bath in warm water…luxury. You just can’t get this sort of spa
Stomping the grapes Read More »