ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Years of inconsistent weather have left some vineyards struggling. Last year's mid-May frost was far from the start of it for Finger Lake vineyards. One estate vineyard is keeping up with all of Mother Nature's changes.
The beauty of the Finger Lakes region is one perk of Alex Jankowski’s job at Wagner Vineyards State Winery.
“Relaxing. It’s always fun for me to get away from all the craziness,” Jankowski said, “It’s just so fascinating to me. I mean, I got into it because I love wine and I wanted to learn about how it’s made. And, yeah, you end up learning a lot about agriculture in the process."
The vineyard is busy all year round.
“This right here is cabernet France that we planted right when I had started here about four years ago,” Jankowski showed.
The winery grows all of its own grapes. It even sells to other wineries across the region. It’s a reason this time of year is crucial to business production. The Wagner family created what they call the "de-hiller." It’s a machine they re-purposed from an older harvester rider to a mechanism that helps insulate the grapevine at its roots. Every fall, they go through on the machine to pile on extra dirt at bottom to protect the crop from severe winter weather.
Ian Wagner, fourth generation on his family farm and lead vineyard worker, says it’s insurance and longevity for the varietals that need it, so they don’t have to completely replant the crop if winter damage takes a toll on them.
“Yeah, it’s a lot of seat time," Wagner said. "We got to go about 1.5 to two miles an hour and cover a lot of acres, so, and sometimes do two passes. So it’s a lot of seat time. Ten to twelve hour days if we’re rollin'. But if it’s nice weather and we can roll every day, we can get a lot done and don’t have to do as many hours,”
This time last year, the vines were in good shape, too. Earlier springs, like this year’s, can help the grapes grow. However, it was last year’s mid-May frost that cost them about 40% of their season’s crop.
“This was April 20 of last year,” Jankowski showed, “You kind of see where we were. These buds have fully broken open and have started to, you see the green tissue pushing through and really leaves are starting to form. And while that’s exciting because that means that growing season is beginning and that we’re starting to get that year’s crop, you know, that year those grapes, they were extremely susceptible to freezing temperatures. And then we saw a couple of weeks after that had happened last May, the frost event, which led to all told about 40% kill of our buds in the vineyard.”
But Finger Lakes weather is nothing new for farmers.
“It’s just been a different, a different event or a different challenge that we’ve dealt with," Jankowski said. "So last year was the frost event, before that was a drought which led to similarly just about. 60% yield that we compared to what we would get in a normal harvest the year before that was excess rain and lead to a higher yield than we had. So you know, it all when you look at a five-year, 10-year average, maybe it all comes out in the wash. But as a grower, as a winery, as a vineyard, you know, you have to kind of ride the wave of every year being a little different and presenting different challenges.”
From inside the winery, you’d never know the challenges happening around the vineyard, as the business hasn’t started pouring 2023’s product yet this year.
“Overall numbers might be a little lower, but the quality is definitely there," he said. "And for businesses like ours, we then just have to make a lot of decisions when it comes to like wholesale distribution and what we have available."
As they await bud break for this season’s crop in the coming weeks, they hope for this early spring weather to live on.
“We’re very excited about the growing season ahead of us," Jankowski said. "We are definitely hoping we can get closer to that 100% yield after two years of being below that."