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ABOUT EMINENCE ROAD FARM WINERY
Eminence Road Farm Winery makes small lots of dry table wine in a barn on the western edge of the Catskills using grapes from sustainably managed Finger Lakes vineyards. Bottled alive, unfined and unfiltered with nothing added but a minimal amount of neutral yeast and sulfite. Andrew Scott, Jennifer Clark, Brigette Federline-Spears, Barry Boy and Otto 'Ozzy' Osbourne are the proprietors.
Jennifer, Andrew, and the dearly departed Lester with a big pumpkin. (Photo credit: Andy Ryan)
ABOUT US: Before opening a winery Jennifer and Andrew worked in Manhattan at corporate jobs for a long, long time. Along the way they married (each other), bought a tiny house in suburban New Jersey and also became interested in French wine. In 1996 Andrew received a winemaking kit as a gift from his brother with a note saying "If you really want to learn about wine why don't you make some?" That batch--from a grape concentrate of unknown origin--came out pretty terrible, but the process was fascinating and soon fall centered around grape runs to the Finger Lakes and stomping fruit in the driveway. Each year the home winemaking grew a little more, from the basement to the garage and finally to a barn in rural upstate New York. In 2008, inspired by the need for a good bottle of wine at the local farmers' market, they crushed their first grapes under the Eminence Road Farm Winery label.
A thirty-plus year-old, spur pruned cabernet sauvignon vine in Elizabeth's Vineyard.
ABOUT THE WINE
BOTTLED ALIVE: Our goal is to make textured, rustic and delicious table wines to accompany meals. Grapes are sorted, crushed and then fermented by a combination of neutral and native yeasts. Reds receive once daily manual punchdowns and are pressed at cap-fall, whites are given twenty-four to 48 hours of skin-contact prior to pressing. Elevage is low-intervention and reductive with no racking and a long lees exposure of ten to 24 months. Fermentations, including full malolactic, generally continue into the spring following harvest. Barrels are topped weekly. Minimal sulfite additions are made at crush and bottling. All wines are gravity bottled without fining or filtration.
Grapes come from vineyards in the Finger Lakes region of New York, about a hundred miles west of the winery. The deep glacial lakes hold an enormous thermal mass which moderates the surrounding temperature allowing for the cultivation of classic European vinifera vines. We source fruit primarily from the same handful of growers we have been working with since starting the winery nearly twenty years ago. Grapes are hand harvested directly into our picking boxes and trucked to the barn in Long Eddy where all processing, fermentation, elevage and bottling takes place. Annual production averages about one-thousand cases.
Barrels and tanks stacked to the ceiling.
DIRECTIONS FOR USE: Because the wine is bottled without fining or filtration and only a minimal amount of sulfite it is important it be kept cool at all times. High temperatures can greatly diminish flavor, aroma and quality. Just a brief amount of time in a hot car can ruin a bottle of wine. Ideal storage conditions are a temperature of fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit with seventy percent humidity and complete darkness. Cork finished bottles should be stored on their side. An unfiltered wine will often have some amount of sediment in the bottle. This is a natural, harmless deposit that can be easily removed by decanting. Serve cool but never cold. For best results drink wine outside with good food and people you love.
The Winery is built into the hillside which provides natural cooling.
ABOUT THE FARM: Eminence Road (the actual road) was named by settlers who came here in the 1850s from the hamlet of Eminence in Schoharie County. Sometime around the 1940s a dairy farm was established and was in operation until the mid-1970s. After the dairy shut down the farm changed hands several times before we purchased it in 2001 as a weekend retreat. The winery is set up in what was originally a cow barn. With low ceilings, little to no insulation and rough concrete floors it is a less than ideal space for winemaking, but at least it has floor drains. Over the years we have established a small, half-acre hobby vineyard planted primarily to the French-American hybrid landot noir along with rows of petit pearl, louise swenson and itasca. All are self-rooted. The east facing slope is fairly well drained but the surrounding mountains limit sunlight and that, combined with poor soil, short summers and extreme winter cold, creates a difficult growing situation for even the hardiest cold-climate grape varieties. Raspberries and blueberries fare a bit better. In addition to the struggling vines we also have extensive vegetable gardens and manage to grow a good portion of our own produce. Andrew also has a thing for giant pumpkins.
Solar panels provide all of our electricity.
SUSTAINABILITY: It's difficult to make any claims about being ecologically friendly when your business is producing wine, something the planet ultimately does not need. But here we are. Wanting to at least do something, in 2018 we invested in a forty-five panel solar installation set up in the field across the road. It covers all of the power needs for the house and business and also generates extra energy that goes back into the grid. In the winery we keep our packaging low impact by using light weight bottles, natural corks (made from sustainably harvested tree bark) and kraft paper labels that we print and cut ourselves and attach with non-toxic, water soluble adhesive. We strive to generate as little waste as possible (especially plastic), reuse everything and compost everything else.
Brigette, Barry and Otto chilling by the pond. All these beautiful mutts were adopted from the Rock Hill Animal Shelter.
DOGS: We love them.
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3734 Eminence Road, Long Eddy, New York 12760