Heron Hill, 2020 Ingle Vineyard Cabernet Franc, Finger Lakes, New York, USA
Cab Franc du Jour #118
Heron Hill Winery is among the most historic estates in the Finger Lakes. John and Josephine Ingle planted their first vineyard on Canandaigua Lake in 1972, and in 1977 established their winery and tasting room on Keuka Lake, a stone’s throw from two other landmark estates, Dr. Konstantin Frank and Bully Hill Vineyards. Today the winery farms 43 acres (about 17 hectares) of vineyards on both Keuka and Canandaigua Lakes, planted primarily with vinifera varieties including Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Franc. Canadian winemaker Jordan Harris joined Heron Hill in 2020, bringing approximately 15 years of prior winemaking experience in Virginia.
Cabernet Franc plays an important role at Heron Hill, as it does across the Finger Lakes region. The estate farms 10.5 acres of the variety across their Keuka and Canandaigua Lake vineyard sites and sources an additional 8.5 acres or so from grower partners. Today’s wine is the Ingle Vineyard Cabernet Franc, the winery’s top expression of the variety. The 2020 vintage was among the standout examples from the region when tasted as part of Lenn Thompson’s Cabernet Franc report for his newsletter Press Fraction, which made returning to this bottle with fresh detail all the more rewarding.
The Finger Lakes
While the Finger Lakes AVA technically encompasses all eleven lakes, viticultural activity is concentrated around four: Canandaigua, Keuka, Seneca, and Cayuga, with vineyards around Keuka and Seneca accounting for nearly 90% of the region’s total acreage.
The success of viticulture here is attributable to the lakes themselves and to Lake Ontario to the north, which shapes the regional macroclimate. The microclimate of any given site is influenced by its distance from Lake Ontario, its proximity to one of the Finger Lakes, its elevation, and its aspect. Vineyards on the west side of the lakes face east and receive more morning sunshine, which is beneficial for reducing disease pressure. Those on the east side face west, receiving stronger afternoon sunshine and more total sunlight hours, which supports ripening of longer-season varieties. Seneca and Cayuga, the largest of the Finger Lakes, exert the strongest moderating influence on their surrounding vineyards, delaying spring warming to reduce frost risk and retaining summer heat through the fall to extend the growing season.
Canandaigua Lake and the Ingle Vineyard
The Ingle Vineyard is located on Canandaigua Lake. Because this lake is smaller and shallower than Seneca or Cayuga, the viticultural environment around it generally runs cooler with less moderating influence from the lake itself, a wider diurnal temperature range, and a slightly shorter growing season.
That said, Jordan notes that the two Cabernet Franc blocks used for this wine have proven to be excellent sites for the variety. Both are on the west side of Canandaigua Lake, about 1,000m inland from the water, at an elevation of around 355 to 370m above sea level. At this height, the blocks draw more moderating influence from Lake Ontario than from Canandaigua Lake itself. The combination of lake influence and altitude creates fairly consistent wind, which helps reduce disease pressure and minimise frost risk. The blocks also benefit from a slightly more southerly exposure, which is uncommon on Canandaigua Lake, providing good sun exposure for ripening and helping to manage pyrazines. The result is a long, if somewhat cool, growing season that allows the grapes to achieve solid phenolic ripeness while keeping alcohol levels in the 12.5 to 13% range.
The two blocks combined cover about 7.5 acres (roughly 3 hectares), with the older block planted in 1982 and the second in 2004. The vines are a mix of clones trained to double Guyot. The soils are Howard sandy-loam, a glacially derived topsoil typical of the Finger Lakes, with approximately 45 to 60cm of topsoil over a shale bedrock. The blocks are naturally low in vigour and tend to yield on the lower side at around 2.5 tons per acre. The team practices careful leaf removal to ensure good sun exposure and will occasionally cluster thin before véraison if needed.
In the Cellar
The fruit is hand-harvested and destemmed into t-bins. A cold soak of 6 to 10 days precedes alcoholic fermentation, which takes place with a combination of indigenous and selected yeast at around 25C, with twice-daily punchdowns during active fermentation. Total skin contact is 38 days. The finished wine is a blend of free-run and press wine, aged for approximately 16 months in French oak barrels with around 25% new oak.
Wine Details
Producer: Heron Hill Winery
Region: New York, USA
AVA: Finger Lakes (Canandaigua Lake)
Vineyard: Ingle Vineyard
Soils: 45-60cm of Howard sandy-loam topsoil, over shale
Alcohol: 13.5%