The 2025 season was yet another wonderful year in the Finger Lakes. It seems we’ve been blessed with so many in this decade – let’s keep it going!
The 2024-2025 winter was a mild one with moderate snowfall but no extreme weather changes. It was marked by a longer period of moderately cold temperatures, and if you lived through it, most people would say it was a “long winter”.
Spring 2025 was probably the most nerve-racking part of the season, where rainfall was quite high during the more sensitive periods of budbreak through bloom. This is where we needed to be very diligent about fungal pathogens, most notably botrytis and downy mildew, getting sprays on early before buds opened and continuing the cycles to ensure no disease was present at the onset of fruit development. Battling the rain is always a challenge to be able to get not only get spray material on but also getting a tractor through the vineyard, so props to our spray manager, Taylor Cartwright, for getting it done because we saw no fungal issues come harvest time!
After the rain subsided in June, the summer months were warm and dry with abundant sunshine – a far cry from the springtime of clouds and rain. Due to the rainy spring, budbreak was delayed about 1 ½ weeks from average, so we were looking at a slightly delayed start to the season, which ended up being the case regardless of the sunny summer months. The lack of rain meant the summer weeds were easily managed with only a couple passes with the Braun hoe, which is always welcomed by our incredibly busy vineyard team. Our spray program also saw some adjustments once the rain subsided, allowing us to use predominately organic materials for the season.
The picking season started on September 3rd at three different vineyard sites where we picked pinot noir and pinot meunier for our sparkling programs. Sparkling harvest is usually fast and hard but this year there was a nice flow to it where we would pick for a few days, wait a few more, and then pick again. Another welcomed timeline from the cellar team as it’s always nice to ease into the chaos that is harvest and dust off the cobwebs of machines and minds! Sparkling picks continued with more noir and meunier, as well as bringing in chardonnay and cayuga white. The drought and sunshine brought great sugar accumulation and the acids held on well due to moderate temperatures at picking, which will yield some spectacular sparkling wines in 2025.
We started our still wine picks mid-September with chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, pinot gris, and pinot noir. On the last day of September, we picked our first riesling fruit for a new wine we’ll introduce in the coming years – a Damiani sparkling Sekt riesling. At the beginning of October, we started picking more reds with merlot and lemberger, helping round out the cellar. As the drought continued, the fruit that remained on the vine became more and more concentrated through dehydration, so we began to see sugar levels rise faster than we normally do, allowing us to pick at ideal ripeness. This brought on the fast maturation of some of our lower-cropped cabernet franc sites in mid-October; these are vineyards we usually don’t start picking until the end of October.
The steady flow of the remaining fruit coming in and red ferments getting pressed off is always a bit of a dance and this year was no different. I always tell folks that winemaking is 70% logistics, and harvest is just a beautifully chaotic synchronized dance routine. So, as things ferment away and we keep picking every day, things begin to get full in the cellar and we need to press things off in order to fit what’s still out on the vine. The Dance.
The season ended with the harvest of Davis Vineyard cabernet sauvignon on October 28th. Our final day of picking and processing is truly one of my favorite days of harvest, not because it means we can finally rest easy knowing all fruit is inside the winery but because the Damiani crew makes it so much fun. Our last day traditions include silly hats and glasses, a group playlist where we guess who picked what song (it gets pretty funny), the winery team does the last haul out as the vineyard crew looks on and laughs at us, the entire Damiani team sorts the last few lugs together as we sing celebratory songs like “Another One Bites the Dust” and “We Are Family”, and as we all scream out when we dump the “LAST LUG!!” on the sorting table we quickly jump into car and drive down the hill and jump into the lake! It is by far the silliest day of them all – and we have some silly ones – but it just encapsulates our motto of working really hard but making sure we have fun doing it.
I love this team so much! Each person gives everything they have every single day, everyone has each other’s back and helps without hesitation, but rest assured, we are certainly a Band of Merry Pranksters, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
To our migrant crew who, without them, the way we grow grapes and make wine would not be possible, we are so thankful for all of the hard work throughout the entire year.
To everyone in our 2025 production team: Angel, Cian, Julian, Marc, Michael, Nancy, Nora, Taylor, and Timmy – you all are amazing humans as well as coworkers, I am grateful for you every day.
We can’t wait to share these wonderful wines with you all. Until then, be well, take care of one another, and don’t forget to have fun.
-Katey
