Pinot Gris Wine Grapes
June 3, 2026
Regent Wine Grapes
June 3, 2026
Lemberger Wine Grapes
Cool-climate Lemberger from mature Hammond Road vines. A serious dry red grape, grown 60 miles from most of the wineries that want it.
Why buy from our farm
- Mature, settled vines farmed for fruit quality, not maximum tonnage.
- A locally grown dry red vinifera, hard to source anywhere near most Eastern wineries.
- Dry-farmed, IPM, low-spray, on well-drained ground built for a thin-skinned red.
- He will move the pick window within reason to hit your Brix and pH. You are buying fruit farmed toward your spec, not just his.
- Roughly 8 to 10 tons available for 2026, with multi-year contracts on the table.
- Pickup at the vineyard, with help sorting logistics.
Pricing available on request.
The grape
Lemberger, the grape Austria calls Blaufränkisch, is the cool-climate red that actually ripens where most reds can’t. Medium body, dark fruit, peppery spine, and firm but approachable tannin. It makes a real dry red, not a blending afterthought, and it pairs at the table the way few cool-climate reds manage. It has a quiet but loyal following among Eastern winemakers who know that Riesling country can grow a red worth bottling on its own. Most buyers who want it have to look hard to find it.
Where it grows
Hammond Road sits on a gravel bluff about a mile back from Lake Erie. The lake buffers the winter and stretches the season, which is what lets a red vinifera ripen this far north at all. Rows run north to south, and the gravel drains hard, so the canopy dries fast after rain and disease pressure stays low. That drainage and airflow are why Bill can farm a thin-skinned red on an IPM program without leaning on the sprayer.
How Bill grows it
An acre and a half planted in 2014, cordon-trained on VSP, dry-farmed start to finish to balance the crop and push fruit quality over sheer tonnage. The vines find their own water, which concentrates the fruit. Spray program is IPM, sprayed to threshold. Harvest is mechanical, so when the numbers are right the fruit moves fast.
Why winemakers want it
Lemberger gives an Eastern winemaker a locally grown dry red that carries real varietal character, and that is genuinely hard to source in PA, NY, and OH. In the strong years this block delivers exactly what the grape promises: 2022 came in at 22.4 Brix with 7.35 TA, ripe and structured at once. Across five vintages Brix has averaged around 20.8, so the sugar is there in a normal year, and Bill will set the pick date to your stylistic target rather than his own.
One straight point, because you’ll see it on the data sheet anyway. 2025 was a short, light vintage here. Winter bud damage cut the crop to about 5 tons and pulled the ripeness down with it. That’s the risk profile of a cool-climate red, and Bill names it rather than papering over it. The four vintages before it tell you what the block does in a normal year.
