FAIRHAVEN MAKES HISTORY AT THE JEFFERSON CUP!

THREE GOLD MEDALS AND TWO SILVER!

History was made last week at the Jefferson Cup National Wine Competition by Fairhaven Vineyards. Or perhaps a better way put it might be history was restored at the competition!

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The long, and arduous road to the restoration of the American Hybrid wines to their rightful place in history made giant strides in this difficult competition. Beginning in 2003 Fairhaven had identified a group of cultivars inside this 117 year old treasure house of wine genetics for production of table wines. Much of the early information on these varieties was gleaned from publications so old that some of them, literally, fell apart while the study process moved forward. The materials were written in the period from 1883 to 1918, included newspaper articles, farm reports, grape texts, agricultural circulars, and experiment station reports.

The first four of these terrific historical wines sent shock waves through the entire competition.

The new wines were:

Brilliant: Gold Medal- A marvelous pink grape that produces a delicate white wine with notes of white peach and cantaloupe with a soft floral bouquet.

Nitodal: Gold Medal-Deep and brooding red wine , posing with dark blueberry notes with raspberry underpinnings.

Delicatessan- Gold Medal- Stunning astral purple juice with fresh, wild plum and raspberry notes.

Extra-Silver Medal-Soft pink rose’ captured by free run press. Supple notes of strawberry with layers of cherry and raspberry.

All Smiles!

All Smiles!

 

In the meantime Lomato racked up its second consecutive Silver Medal, clearly showing the tenacity in head to head competition of this superb 1902 variety, bred in Denison Texas. Literally exploding with wild fruit flavor, blueberry notes, a distinctly wild brambly soul, wrapped in an swirling veil of currant and ripe plum, with soft hyacinth notes.

Production levels of these wines will continue to increase with the planting of over 900 vines of these cultivars with many more coming on line next year. We plan to continue on this great endeavor and have targeted 12 more American Hybrid varieties for elevation based on new juice chemistry data.

 

 

 

 

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