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August 2017 WINES&VINES 63 WINE EAST WINEMAKING In 2016 the winery planted 3 acres—2 acres of Pinot Noir and 1 acre of Riesling—and it's adding another 3 acres this year. Rainey, Bar- ruol and Boyette plan ultimately to grow 10 acres of Pinot Noir and 5 acres of Riesling. The planting is done by Benchmark Vineyard Cus- tom Planting, run by Tim Hosmer in Ovid, N.Y, a few miles east of Hector, and the vines are sourced from the Hermann J. Wiemer Nursery on the west side of Seneca Lake. The Pinot Noir clones currently include Pommard and Waden- swil (both popular in Oregon) and 677, 777 and 115, all on 3309 rootstock. Much of the direction of Forge Cellars fol- lows an Old World approach supplied by Gigondas-based Louis Barruol. From vineyard planting and management to the winemaking style and equipment, Barruol's influence is very evident. Rainey plans to source a Massal selection propagated from other vineyards and hopes to include a selection from Leiden- frost Vineyards down the road. Barruol is the inspiration for the Massal technique, a prac- tice he employs in his Gigondas vineyards. Once the cuttings are selected, they will grow in the vineyard for a couple years, developing the root system before training the vines for fruit production. The Forge vineyard is a high-density plant- ing, with vines spaced 3 feet by 7 feet. The intent is to optimize the energy input used for maintenance, enabling them to handle twice the amount of vines per tractor pass such as during spraying and cultivation. The vineyard soil is a mix of friable gray shale bedrock, free limestone, clay and shale. Rainey noted that the heavier component of clay was a key to the vineyard. He says, "I like Pinot Noir in clay, and with this shale-limestone combination it will fit Pinot well." The vines are trellised with Guyot-like flat cane VSP, with the fruiting zone at about 22 inches high. Vine maintenance and spraying is currently done by contract work with Phil Davis, co-owner and vineyard man- ager of nearby Damiani Cellars. Rainey, when referring to their emphasis on Pinot Noir, says, "It's a bit of a gamble; the vineyard is right on the edge of the upper limit," with an altitude of 900 feet above sea level. He noted, however, that in Burgundy Pinot Noir is planted in the cooler northern regions and he feels the Hector area will easily allow full ripening—usually by the third week of September. He aims to develop the vineyard in an organic and Biodynamic direction, which he feels will provide better fruit. As a first step, he has chosen to use cedar posts in the vineyard rather than typical pressure-treated posts. Ob- viously, the vineyard is a work in progress, and Rainey tells Wines & Vines, "We haven't begun to scratch the surface here yet." Forge currently produces about 1,000 cases of Pinot in two styles: Classique and Les Allies. The core of Les Allies comes from grapes purchased from nearby grower John Leidenfrost, who is also proprietor of his fam- ily winery, Leidenfrost Vineyards, with 30 acres of vineyards and annual production of about 3,000 cases of wine. He planted his first Pinot Noir in 1986 with vines from Hermann J. Wiemer's nursery, including clones pur- ported to be from the Burgundian vineyard at Clos du Vougeot winery. Initially, Leidenfrost encountered problems that included over-cropping, bunch rot, leaf- roll and crown gall. In order to combat the vigor problems, he converted his trellis system from vertical shoot positioning (VSP) to Scott Henry, but after some years of this he returned to using VSP. Over the years, Leidenfrost has replaced about 30% of the original vines, cit- ing mortality problems associated with some of the cold winters experienced in the Finger Lakes. "I've replanted with a mixed bag of different clones," he says, specifically clones 113, 115, 667 and 777. About two years ago, Leidenfrost took cut- tings from the strongest vines in the block and gave them to the current proprietor at Her- mann J. Wiemer nursery and winery, Fred Merwarth, who virus-tested the 98 samples for leafroll. Only 10% of the cuttings tested positive for leafroll, and Leidenfrost is now ready to plant another 4 acres of Pinot from cuttings without leafroll. He also has planted 2 acres of clones 115 and 667, the latter of which he really likes. Counting the "cloned" planting, he will have a total of 12-13 acres of Pinot Noir, the largest Finger Lakes planting of this cultivar. According to Leidenfrost, the key to grow- ing good Pinot Noir is managing the trellis. "It's a real big issue. You have to get the leaves out of the fruit zone and open it to spray, air and sunshine," he says. As the vines age and lose some of their vigor, he concentrates on keeping the canes economi- cally pruned, with special attention to shoot positioning and modest leaf removal, all while using VSP. Beyond Pinot Noir's winter sensitiv- ity, he believes the best grapes need to fully ripen without over-ripening. At harvest, the grapes are sorted in the vineyard after being hand-picked according to specific ripeness within the blocks, rather than at an average of the sum of the parts. This particularly suits the needs of Forge Cellars, which in turn will per- form its own hand sorting after the purchased grapes arrive. The ripeness determination for grapes used at Forge is made with a combination of old and new methods. Rainey and Boyette take berry samples as ripeness evolves and send the sample information to France for Barruol, who only comes to the winery three or four times per year. "We take pictures of the grapes, tell him how they taste and describe the conditions at each In addition to his role at Forge Cellars, Justin Boyette serves as winemaker at Hector Wine Co. During harvest, Louis Barruol often speaks with the Forge team via Skype from his home in France. The new winery was built under the direction of general manager/vineyard manager Rick Rainey. PHOTO COURTESY OF CHATEAU DE SAINT COSME