ripe red wine grapes on the vine

How Many Grapes In A Bottle Of Wine?

close up bottle pouring wine into glassFUN FACT!!
Did you know that it takes 600-800 grapes to make a bottle of wine?
Wine grapes can vary from about 50-100 grapes per cluster. It could take anywhere from 8 to 12 grapes clusters per bottle. Each variety of wine grape can hold anywhere from 30 to 50 clusters, depending on what a winemaker requires.
Thus, the winemaker and the wine grower are entwined in their efforts for the grapes to reach their maximum potential for the wine produced.
We believe that wine is defined by its “terroir” (the characteristic taste and flavor imparted to a wine by the environment in which it is produced) and shaped by the decisions of both the grape growers and winemakers!

2020 Sangiovese takes Platinum!

Sip Magazine has hosted their 12th annual Best of Northwest wine competition. They place an open call for submissions put out to wineries of all sizes across the Pacific Northwest with an impressive 665 wines sent in this year. These submissions underwent blind tastings, meticulously evaluated by a distinguished panel of judges comprised of sommeliers, wine buyers, journalists and industry professionals. The top four medalists (platinum, double gold, gold, and silver) and Judges’ picks were selected for each respective wine category.Bottle of Sangiovese wine with glasses behind

We’re proud to announce that Williamson Vineyards 2020 Sangiovese received the highest award for a Sangiovese this year. Full article can be found here: Sip Magazine BEST OF THE NORTHWEST WINE AWARDS

2023 Harvest Wrap up

grapes on grapevines with yellow leaves, backlight by sunlight

With roughly 310 tons of grapes, this was our largest grape harvest ever to date!! We experienced a compressed harvest, meaning that there was a lot of grapes to harvest and everything became ripe and ready to pick, basically at the same time. This compressed harvest was caused by a cool, wet spring that delayed bud break by 10 – 14 days. The vineyards were delayed again when we had 20 days of temperatures over 100°, causing the vines to go into “survival mode” versus expending energy to ripen.

This year also marks the latest start date to harvest on our records. Luckily, the weather held through the end of October. We didn’t feel a killing frost until end of October but this was late enough and it stayed cold enough that it helped to dehydrate the grapes and concentrate the sugars in the grape berries.

Since everything was ready to pick all at once, we ended up machine picking all our white grapes, something we have never done before. We are excited to see how this will translate into the glass. Especially the Grüner Veltliner, which will hopefully be ready to bottle by June or July of 2023. We will also be patiently waiting to see how a few red grapes will do. The 2022 vintage will be a first for our Petite Verdot and Tempranillo, but we will have to patiently wait until spring or summer of 2024 for these wines.

Cheers and Happy Sipping!

Grapevines Sleeping Sweetly

Harvest is over and the weather has been cooperative so that our vines have safely gone to sleep, to rest and get ready for the next growing season. Our vineyard guys have been busy getting all the harvest paraphernalia put away for another year.

While the leaves where still green on our vines this fall, they where sending valuable carbohydrates into the woody trunk and roots as fuel to get the vines through the quiet winter months. This reserve is essential to keep the vines fed until they wake from their winter sleep and send leaves out to allow photosynthesis to generate the spring growth to begin another year.

Sleep well, little vines and we’ll see you mid-winter for a bit of trimming.

2020 Albariño Receives Double Platinum

We have received a wonderful acknowledgement of our delicious 2020 Albariño with a Double Platinum from Great Northwest Wine. It’s available for purchase right now, check out the webstore here for more details. Of course, we love to see you in the tasting room too! If you’re interested in what Great Northwest Wine has to say about our award winning Albariño, check out their details here.

 

Vineyard Update – November 2021

Vineyard Update

In the vineyards, we have our crews working to prep the vineyards for winter. This means planting our cover crop, taking down any bird nets left from harvest, and checking (and if necessary) repairing the trellis wire to be ready for the pre-pruning machine in January. Plus any other last minute cleanup that we need to finish before the snow flies.

Our crews have worked hard this year, putting in long hours to get all the work done before the freezing temps move in to put the vines to sleep for another year.

Cheers!

Mike & Patrick Williamson
The Vineyard Guys

New Wine Releases!

We’ve got some tasty wines back on the shelves!

2020 Dry Riesling –  A clear, bright, pale straw colored wine, this is beautiful in the glass. Aromas of minerality and jasmine at first whiff, it completes with sweet notes of pear and lychee. This silky wine has  flavors of pineapple and peach milkshake, and harbors hints of slate on the mid-palate and finishes with floral notes.

2019 Homestead Red (Wine Club Only) – 66% Cabernet, 34% Syrah
A deep opaque garnet with blue undertones, this wine promises a lush mouthful. Dark cherry and baked berry crisp leads on the nose with hints of bramble and wet slate. Plummy cherry preserves explode this big fruity wine onto the palate, and is balanced with bright acid and firm tannins. This is a chewy wine with a long finish.

2019 Petite Sirah (Wine Club Only) – Gorgeous ruby tones and opaque in the glass, the aromas of raspberry, blueberry, prune are balanced with a light dusting of white pepper and earthiness tease the nose. Firm tannins are balanced with a medium astringency creating a soft mouth feel. Flavors of raspberry and cherry jello, are balanced  with hints of pistachio and white pepper on  the palate end with a long finish of earth and blackberry jam and seed.

Click here to for more information and pricing.

Wine club members, please remember to  sign into your account in the webstore to see wine club only wines and receive your special pricing.

Volunteer Spotlight

 

Hip and Anne Delgado have been volunteering in the vineyard for Williamson’s since 2020 brix testing. Whether testing brix or powering through cluster counting in the spring, they have been amazing vineyard warriors!

Both Hip and Anne come from a rural background, with Hip being raised in plum and apricot orchards and Ann enjoying her summers at her great grandfather’s farm in Michigan. When they moved to the Sunnyslope, they planted a couple grape vines on their property and wanted to learn more about vineyards.

They love big bold reds and think the Williamson Vineyards 2018 Cabernet is the perfect compliment to their favorite farm to table offerings. Anne says “It’s been a pleasure to serve our community, get to know the Williamsons and learn more about vineyard living.”
Thanks so much, Hip & Anne!

Idaho’s wine industry builds on its success

Brad Carlson of the Capital Press headed out to the Sunnyslope region to talk with grape growers about how the vineyard plantings have been increasing in acreage. Even with production steadily increasing since the 1990’s, Idaho still experiences more demand for Idaho grown grapes than supply. See what different growers had to say about the increasing quantity and quality of Idaho grapes.

Read the full article here: Way to Grow, Idaho wine industry

Virtual Happy Hour – July 8

Patrick and Teresa taste through our newest white wine releases. Check out the video where they talk about everything from the vines, to the 2020 weather and growing season to tasting notes on the 2020 Riesling, 2020 Viognier, 2020 Dry Rosé, and 2020 Albariño.  Grab a glass of your favorite and enjoy.