The Emerson Vineyards estate comprises 127 acres, situated on a gently sloping, south-facing hill. Twenty-four acres are currently under vine at the northeast end of the property. Emerson Vineyards has been a Pinot Noir estate since its inception in 2002; almost 20 acres are planted to Pommard, Dijon, and Mariafeld clones of this noble varietal. The remaining acreage is comprised of a variety of grapes, including experimental plots of, Viognier, Marechal Foch, Baco Noir, Leon Millot, and Oberlin Noir. The trellising of the vines is vertical shoot position (V.S.P). The spacing is two meters between rows and one meter between plants. Though the emphasis will always be on Pinot Noir at Emerson Vineyards, we also plan to produce aromatic white wines and a blended red table wine from our estate fruit.
All of the work that we do in the vineyard is with sustainability in mind. Our spray program is exclusively organic, we try to use organic products in all aspects of the vineyard, and we do all that we can to minimize the impact that our farming has on the land. At every step of the process, we make decisions that we believe are both ecologically sound and ultimately beneficial to our vines and wines. Some examples of these decisions are carefully-selected cover crops between the rows, use of the spent-grape-skin “pomace” as fertilizer and ground cover in the vineyards, and dry-farming our vines.
