2018 Meritage 1.5L Magnum

2018 was a challenge. Winter was relatively mild by Finger Lakes standards. Though we didn’t get much of a spring, what little we experienced was relatively average. By July, however, it was beginning to look like we might have a repeat of 2016-- we hadn’t seen any rain since mid-spring. We needn’t have worried—by the end of July it started raining and never stopped. It felt like we didn’t see the sun again for the rest of the year! So yes, the year was challenging. Faced with such intense humidity and not a lot of intense sunlight during harvest we were again reminded why our philosophy of hand-harvesting all of our fruit is so important. This year hand-harvesting allowed us to cull and drop any questionable fruit right there on the ground leaving us confident that we were starting with only the healthiest and most robust grapes we grew and that we were creating the best wines possible – just a little less of it.