Back in 2017 we began making a “Nouveau Wine” (the first wine made from that year’s harvest) here at Long Cliff, in the spirit of the traditional French Beaujolais Nouveau-style. We modeled our very own “Nouveau Night” Celebration, where we throw open the cellar doors and invite guests in to bottle, cork and cap their very own souvenir bottle of wine to take home, after the French “Beaujolais Day” festivities – where parades are thrown in the townsquare and small producers roll their wine barrels through the streets, all in the spirit of community coming together, cheering on local farmers, and enjoying the literal fruits of their labor!
To take a grape from harvest in late August/early September, to bottle in November, requires an accelerated fermentation period – (the majority of our wines are usually not ready for bottling until 6-9 months post harvest… usually even later for red wines)! This short femerntation results in a wine that is extremely fruity and occasionally quite zesty, and meant to be consumed young, we recommend within the first 6 months – which makes it perfect for the Holiday Season!
This short fermentation period is just one of the reasons that we originally chose the Leon Millot grape, a French-hybrid style grown on our four generation farm, to create this wine in years past; because it is an early ripener and the first grape we harvest out of our vineyard each year, giving us just enough turnaround time for the big event!
Each growing season presents it’s own crop of challenges and obstacles we work throughout the season to navigate before harvest season. It’s part of the reason the same wine from the same vineyard can taste radically different from one year to the next. The weather, growing conditions and grapes truly do change from year to year. Across our region this past season was a challenge for local grape farmers however. Due to the unusually warm Spring and Early Summer we had fruit set and ripening occurred much earlier than usual, attracting great Starling bird flocks sooner in the season than we usually see them. One method we use for bird deterrence is noise cannons, set on timers to scare the flocks. We hesitate to put these out too early in the season in part out of respect for our neighbors (and their pets), but also because after they’ve ran for a couple weeks the birds grow accustomed to them – we hate to see them lose efficacy as the grapes approach their ripest stages! A second method we use for bird deterrence is reflective tape, which mimics laser beams as it is caught by bright sun… But as we approached the final crucial weeks of ripening before harvest, days were somewhat cooler, with reduced sunlight due to cloud cover, which reduced the tape’s effectiveness, and so it hung in vain while the birds feasted.
Only three days passed from the first day we noticed bird damage occurring, to the vines being completely stripped by the birds. Usually we harvest around a ton of Leon Millot grapes, enough to produce about 130 gallons of juice, that gets divided between our Nouveau wine (Leon Nouveau) and other various wine blends in our profile (like our two 2024 rosés: Sailor’s Delight and Midsummer Daydream). 2024’s Harvest brought in just 66 pounds of this grape – enough to make only 2 and a half gallons of juice. This will greatly affect our entire lineup for Spring wine releases. We will most definitely have to experiment with new blends, while some fan favorites won’t be able to return at all for the coming season. It also left us completely unable to use Leon Millot to produce our annual Leon Nouveau wine.
Instead of abandoning what has become a beloved event in our winery entirely for this year, we decided to pivot and try creating a Nouveau wine in time for the big celebration using Pinot Noir in it’s place… making this year’s Nouveau “new” like never before!
Although Pinot Noir ripens slightly later than Leon Millot, giving us a shorter window for that already accelerated turnaround time from grape harvest to the bottling party, the grapes have already been harvested, crushed and pressed, and are hard at work turning into wine, as we speak! While we’re disappointed to lose so much of our grape harvest, we are so excited to experiment with the Noir this year to create our first ever batch of PINOT NOUVEAU!
Join us during our 8th Annual Nouveau Night to celebrate the season as we bottle this brand new wine together!
Each ticket holder takes a turn bottling, corking, and labeling their very own bottle of Nouveau to take home, with refreshments and light hors d’eourves available while they wait.
If you haven’t already, reserve your tickets TODAY! Space is limited – and we’re already half way to capacity!
WINE CLUB MEMBERS receive one complimentary ticket per membership to Nouveau Night! E-mail Danielle at longcliffwinery@gmail.com to RSVP & claim your complimentary ticket!
Long Cliff Vineyard & Winery, Inc. 