Finger Lakes Winemaking with Jordan Harris of Heron Hill Winery

Laurie Forster (00:04.958)

Hey guys, it's Laurie Forster and I'm so excited to be with you this week. In a little bit, we're going to bring in Jordan Harris of Heron Hill Winery in the Finger Lakes and learn all about that cool climate winemaking and taste some of his best wines. But every week, as you know, we start out with...

 

a sipping point, a little wine tip, some wine education that you can take, some practical info. I do events all around the country, whether they be corporate or fun consumer events, and people are always asking me questions. So I'm going to leverage some of those, but I'd love to answer your questions. So if you have any wine questions or topics you want me to cover, email me at laurie@thewinecoach.com or find me on all the socials.

 

at The Wine Coach. I'd love to hear what you want to know more about and cover that here in the show. But this question actually came to me about talking about a wine's legs. I don't know if you guys know about the legs of your wine, but it's actually a fun little tip and trick that we use in the wine business to learn a little bit more about the wine without maybe knowing exactly

 

what's in our glass. We do a lot of what I call blind tasting, meaning you're tasting the wines, not knowing its identity. It helps you really focus on the wine without bias, without what you think you already know about that grape or that winery or the price. And it allows you to really work on your tasting skills. And if you know any other wine professionals like me, know, tasting is everything. So let's go ahead and talk about a wine's legs.

 

Here I have little bit of Jordan's classic dry Riesling, which we're gonna talk about here in a minute. But if you wanna go ahead and look at it, we usually tilt, we look at the color, but then what we'll do is swirl the wine and hold it up to the light. Eventually you're gonna see little trails of wine traveling down the side of the glass. Now it may take a minute, and so you may need to get the vantage point.

 

Laurie Forster (02:18.606)

of your light as well, give it a second and eventually you will see like I am those drips or tears or legs as we call them traveling down the side of the glass. Now, if you watched many years ago, the movie sideways, you probably might think that these legs tell us about the quality of the wine. Nope, nope, no. They do not. The quality of the wine has nothing to do with these legs, but what they do help us really understand

 

is the body of the wine. And the body of the wine is that light, medium, or fullness you feel on the texture when you take the sip. And light wines are typically lower alcohol wines. Fuller wines are typical higher alcohol wines. So how does that all tie in with the legs, right? Well, as you look at the legs of the wine, these are running quite fast because this is a lower alcohol wine.

 

If these were fatter, more slower moving legs, then we're moving into that medium or fuller body category. So the legs give you a little indication of the alcohol percentage of the body in the wine. And that body is, as I said, pretty equatable to the alcohol percentage. So that's the real deal with the legs. And if you're just at a wine store and you don't have the opportunity to look at the legs of your wine,

 

but you want to know is it a light wine, is it a medium, is it a full body? Just look at the alcohol percentage. Anything under 12 % are light bodied wines. Anything between 12 and 14, you're medium bodied and over 14 % alcohol are your full bodied wines. So that's a little tip and trick for when you go into the wine store and that's this week's sipping point. But I'm so excited to bring in my friend

 

Jordan Harris we met years ago. I think it might be 2011 when he was a winemaker at Terraria vineyards in Loudoun County, Virginia But he actually grew up in Canada and has always been passionate about food and wine He studied at the Niagara College In Canada, he studied winemaking there and was really rated one of the up-and-coming under 40 winemakers by wine enthusiasts

 

Laurie Forster (04:41.228)

But his winemaking in Canada led him to Virginia where I met him. But he always had that little notion to get back to the cool climate, to get back closer to home. And in 2020, he did just that by joining Heron Hill Winery. And I had the pleasure of visiting the winery in mid May of this year, 2024, was blown away with the wines from his winery and the entire region.

 

So I'm very excited to have Jordan Harris this week on The Sipping Point, and here we go. So welcome to The Sipping Point. We have Jordan Harris here. You are dialing in from up there in the Finger Lakes at Heron Hill Winery. Thank you for joining us. thank you so much, Laura. This is really exciting. It's a beautiful time of year. I know. And we met years ago when you were making wine in Virginia.

 

And I was so excited when I visited the Finger Lakes in May to find out that you're up there now. So tell me a little bit about your journey with Heron Hill and why you're loving it so much. Yeah. So and I know that you also met my wife as well. Jen. So that's that's kind of exciting. But it dates back to even when the two of us were in school for knowledge of video culture in Niagara in Canada.

 

And so both of us are born and raised in Canada and we would, you know, on our off time, we thought, you know, let's go to the Finger Lakes. We'd come visit every once in a while. And while making wine in Niagara, we always just kind of thought, you know, wouldn't it be fun to go make wine in the Finger Lakes one day? And it became this dream of ours. But then the dream got derailed. You know, we got married and then we went to Virginia. And honestly, we thought we'd be in Virginia for six months.

 

It's like we were just a couple of kids with nothing to do and we're like, you know, we just wanted to try something new. And we thought that we would do Northern hemisphere, Southern hemisphere, just bounce back and forth and do harvest. 13 years and three kids later, we were sitting there in Virginia going, huh, I guess we're not going to Australia in the winter, we? So, but then when COVID hit, it just sort of, I mean, it like everybody.

 

Laurie Forster (06:59.202)

regrouping and kind of trying to figure out life and what's going on. You know, we just decided at that point that was, you know, let's live out that dream that we thought about, you know, 15 years ago almost. But it also brought, I mean, it brought us closer to home. And, you know, when we had the opportunity and I saw Heron Hill come up, it just has such a storied history here at this winery. You know, I had heard about the Ingalls in the past and...

 

Engel Vineyard and wines that had come off of that site. And you know, just like, you know, it's really cool to be able to work with these 50 year old vines with one of the pioneers of this cool region. And we always said we want to do it. That opportunity is here. We have nothing else that we're doing at the moment. So let's give it a run. And man, what a cool decision. I mean, absolutely love it here. Yeah. Yeah. And it's been on my bucket list for

 

the longest time and I finally was able to get there this year, which was amazing. I was blown away by first of all, how many wineries are up there. I didn't really understand the magnitude. I knew there was great wine and great cool climate wines. Specifically Riesling was one of the things that drew me to the region. You know, back in the day with Dr. Frank and some of the other big names there.

 

And I know we have a couple wine wines that you sent me and one of them is your classic dry Riesling. I feel like I've been on a personal mission for I don't know how many more years than I can count to get people to drink Riesling because people still have this idea that it's going to be sweet. And and I love the finger Lake dry style of Riesling. So tell me a little bit about why you make it this way and what you love about this style.

 

Yeah, so I mean, part of the decision of coming back here as well was, you know, we love Riesling and Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir and you know those, well Cabernet Franc is plentiful in Virginia, but there's not a whole lot of Pinot Noir and Riesling. And so we missed those. We missed the cool climate, viticulture and you know, Riesling being a big part of that from when we lived in Canada. So as well, that was more than draws here. You know, stylistically,

 

Laurie Forster (09:22.978)

What drives towards that dry riesling is, I mean, it's just, the big part is it works. It's just something that does well here. There's a lot of places that are doing a great job with it. You know, you mentioned, I Dr. Frank has several dry rieslings as well, just up the street from us. You we make, most years, five different dry rieslings.

 

And then we do have, we have a semi dry and we have a semi sweet as well. But, you know, within our category, we do a lot of Riesling. And so, yeah, I mean, what drives it is, you know, the sites and how things work here, the Finger Lakes. mean, everything is either East or West facing for the most part, because you've got the lakes running North South. And I tend to like the Riesling coming off of the West side of the lakes or the East facing where it's got that bracing acidity, but something that

 

you know, is really cool in the Finger Lakes as opposed to even other Riesling producing areas, is we could get this really neat balance and complexity that comes from having the two different slopes. You know, the east facing, they tend to be these really electric, know, racy wines, but then you have some of the west facing slopes that are this riper.

 

you know, stone fruit, viscous styles of wine, right? So like you're taking the best of both worlds and being able to create this dry wine. And because we have some of those areas where we can get some really ripe characteristics, that's what's balancing the drier Rieslings as opposed to sugar having to balance the acidity. So the acidity still there. So it's still that racy, refreshing style, but balanced with just a ripeness and a viscosity that comes with the slopes that we have.

 

And also from great drainage, right? So all of our soils for the most part, I they're pretty sandy loams. There's not a lot of topsoil before you start getting into shale. And so the drainage is there. It's all in these slopes. So the water rolls away from us as well. So yeah, I mean, all combined, it's just about getting that ripeness that balances with the acidity that we can do pretty well here. It really is. And so much great citrus on the nose and stone fruit, nectarine.

 

Laurie Forster (11:48.27)

what I love about the Finger Lakes that I was definitely looking forward to and it came through is there's also mineral notes because of that cool climate and the way you guys are styling this that is European in a way. guess if you want to think of it that way. But it's a beautiful Riesling. And one of the other things, and I'll paint the picture for everybody, if you get a chance to visit Jordan at Heron Hill, the views.

 

are spectacular. I know you guys just won best of views or something for a winery in your area. You're kind of on top of this hill and just all directions. It's just beauty. Yeah, I mean, and especially this time of year is kind of exciting because Harvest just started and our crush pad is right underneath where the tasting room sits looking out towards the lake. So yeah, this is I mean.

 

This is my favorite time of year, not just because of, you know, it's the new vintage and all that kind of stuff, but I spend most of my time hanging out on this crush pad, looking down towards the lake and the view with dealing with grapes. It's pretty exciting. So yeah, I do love the view. That's awesome.

 

Your crush pad, sounds very, very fun. Yeah, great name for a wine bar or a club. Yeah, maybe we should open one. Now I know, you know, there are also great sparkling wines and I did have some sparkling options. Jesse in your tasting room took great care of us. But red, you know, a lot of people might not think red wine finger lakes. They certainly would, if they know anything about it, think Riesling.

 

But the red wines you're making you mentioned Cabernet Franc, but we also have the Blaufrankisch grape, which people may not be super familiar with, but that's kind of what I put here in the middle as our next one to talk about. I've obviously seen it here on the East Coast and in Austria, but tell people a little bit more about when they see that crazy name  Blaufrankisch, what should they expect? Why is it so well suited for the finger lakes?

 

Laurie Forster (14:00.622)

Yeah, so it's funny when we talk about  Blaufrankisch I mentioned that I... part of what drove me back here is recently Pinot Noir and Cabaret Franc. You know, if I were to be gone and then had to come back again,  Blaufrankischwould be thrown into that mix. I just didn't even know how much I loved Blaufrankisch until I got here. And I certainly didn't know how much I loved making it because I never had, I'd never grown it, I'd never even seen it in the vineyard before, you know, I knew obviously.

 

know, Austria makes a decent amount of Blaufrankisch But even that, like, I hadn't tried a ton of them. I just had them, you know, here and there. It wasn't something that I chased after. But now, I mean, it's something, like, Jen and I drink probably more  Blaufrankisch than we should. You know, and it's from all over the world. Yeah, but it's just me. Because I learned that it is, you know, a true love.

 

for me for wine and grape and it's right from everything. Growing it, making it, drinking it, it's just a spectacular variety. You know, it's funny, I oftentimes equate, because Pinot Noir is another big one for us, but I always look at Blau Franguish and Pinot Noir as they're similar to two of my kids. know, so like Pinot Noir is like my middle child.

 

And so my middle child, if you remember me, he's ADHD and he's your typical middle child as well. And that's Peter Duarte. It's like just gangly. It's like running all over the place. And it's like, there's the sun. No, but I'm looking over here and it jumps. And that's just what Peter Duarte does. It makes you fight for it, makes you fight constantly. When you get it right, it is just the most spectacular thing you can imagine as well though. So like it's very exciting to work with. But Blau Frankish is like my oldest who's very...

 

theatrical and he loves song and dance and plays and that's Bluff Right. He's just like, look at me. It just reaches the sky and he's just happy. Look at me. And it's like that from the vineyard right through the glass. And so in the vineyard, it grows beautifully. does everything you want it to do. And it's these, you know, beautiful clusters. And then it shows up into the winery and it doesn't even matter if I try to mess it

 

Laurie Forster (16:18.528)

It's hard to mess up. Like it is, it is just a, it's a very giving variety. and what to expect in the glass. I oftentimes, you know, for people that don't know it, because obviously Blau Frankish is still not a household name everywhere. I kind of think like if you were to have Merlot, Seurat and Pinot Noir somehow had a baby together, it would end up being Blaufrankisch Cause it's got this.

 

you know, silky, know, medium body and juicy characteristic of Merlot, but it's got this delicacy and, you know, brighter acidity and even, you know, softer tannin and some of the flavor profile of Pinot Noir. And then it has this like spicy black pepper animal side of Syrah. And then so it all, brings them all together. And to me, it's just that, it's that

 

Perfect Right in the middle wine. It's not yes overly aggressive, but it has substance I love yeah, and I feel like if you were having a party Yeah, and you're not sure of everybody's red wine You know Direction and what they like this would be one that everyone can agree on you know It's nice and expressive on the nose, but really good fruit smooth round

 

It's definitely, I would think, crowd pleaser. Yeah, absolutely. If you want to put it that way. I just wish we could come up with a better name. Yeah, it, blow, I guess, is what some people just shorten it to that. But yeah, it is, it is a little hard to say, but I often say hard to pronounce, easy to love. So you know what? Say it however you want to say it, but you're going to love it if you get it in your glass. So.

 

And these are all part of your classic line, which seems to me like focuses on the varietal and varietal characteristics and what the fingerlings can do with each of those. Is that correct? Yes. So the Blau Frankish that you have actually comes from our Engel Vineyard Bottlings, but there is a Blau Frankish in our classic line. So our classic line is exactly that. It is the varieties that we feel are most representative of.

 

Laurie Forster (18:43.318)

the finger legs. Yeah, so that was the Engel Vineyard bodily. Nice. Yeah, so that's our

 

higher end for the lack of a better word. I was trying to figure out how to kind of go about that because actually my favorite wine on our menu right now is the classic dry Riesling, which is technically our entry level. But when you talked about minerality and all that kind of stuff, I love minerality in wine. Don't get me wrong before I say this, but the thing with the classic, the classic is all about showcasing what

 

we feel is the best representation of the entirety of the finger legs for that variety. And so I find the classic picks up, you know, some of that stone fruit, as you said, and some of that citrus and some of the minerality, it picks up some of these, all of these things, but it's, it has this really cool balance versus some of our single vineyard wines. They might just be like racy and angular and full of minerality, but don't necessarily have the stone fruit like our estate vineyard here, the Cuca estate site.

 

it's never going to give you that really opulent side of the wine. It's just gonna be tension, which is really cool in its own time, but that's why I like the classic because it just has that balance all over the place. But yeah, so the Engel Vineyard, that comes from a particular block that John and Joe Engel have planted as well. with all of the...

 

Yeah, yeah. So I the classic line is about showcasing varieties and that's Riesling, Chardonnay, Bluffwreckage, Cabernet Frog, Capino Noir, Fall in the classics and then, yeah, there's the Cabernet Frog. So that's our old label. Yeah, so if you do see, that is the one that is currently released. the Riesling that you have there is what the new label is. Yeah, 22.

 

Laurie Forster (20:38.862)

So Cab Franc, you had experience within Virginia, of course, and maybe up in Canada. I don't know if they're growing it up in Canada as well. I did visit Niagara-on-the-Lake, but it was many, many years ago before I was even in the wine business, so I probably need to go back for a refresher course up there. So tell me about your Cab Franc and your thoughts on this varietal and what it does in the Finger Lakes.

 

Yeah, so that was probably the biggest shift for me. But it's a shift that I've gone back and forth toward. Because yes, I did make a lot in Niagara as well. But when I was making the wine in Niagara, I think that that was a little bit before we got to the level of viticulture that we are today. And understanding grape growing and understanding varieties is a little bit younger. mean, we're going 20-some-odd years now.

 

in the past. So, and I know that I've certainly learned a lot more. And so I found that those were a little bit greener than I liked. So it was never really my thing. And then going to Virginia, you know, that I was building Cabaret Frott of just opulent, rich style. Like that was just what I was able to do where I was in Virginia. And I love the whites. They're really interesting, but

 

You know, I found myself particularly, like maybe about 10 years ago, I found myself yearning for more elegance and refinement and a complexity aside from this just like really rich, powerful fruit. I wanted something else. And so I started drinking a lot more wines from the Loire Valley as well and just exploring Cabernet Frog from all over the world. And so coming back.

 

to a cooler climate, I'm not saying that it's Loire Valley, but everywhere is its own place, and Finger Lakes, Cabernet Franc, and certainly Finger Lakes. But I found that we don't have the opulence here, we don't have that richness, I'm never gonna make a powerhouse Cabernet Franc, and I don't want to, because I love the Cabernet Franc that's coming from here as well. I also love the Cabernet Franc that I made in Virginia, they're just completely different styles and completely different times in which I'm going to drink them, right?

 

Laurie Forster (23:03.406)

You know in these there's an herbal component meets a fruit component. It's a little bit more angular. It's a structured style of wine. It's just a really exciting variety to work with but very different wines. so yeah I mean like would be a really fun sort of tasting the setup and maybe a Shinon.

 

you know, want a Virginia Cab Franc and then a Finger Lakes Cab Franc and taste them all side by side. And it's a great way, I think, for people to learn. I hate to use fancy words, but you know, we talk about terroir in the wine business, which is that expression of the grape based on the place and the climate and the winemaking. But, know, Cabernet Franc is not just Cabernet Franc. It depends, right? Yeah. That's kind of what you're saying.

 

Yeah, it makes it so versatile and such an exciting variety. And there was a point where I was not a huge fan, but I've really come into this side of really embracing and leaning into Cabernet Frog for anything that it can be, right? And it's not like other varieties in that, if we were to take Riesling and have planted it where I was in Virginia, it would just simply wouldn't work. The acids would not have lasted.

 

and a flabby Riesling is just gross. it is. then, like vice versa, if I were to try to plant Viognier or Petit Mainsain or Petit Verdot here, they're just not going to, like, we're not going to get the delicious fruit out of Viognier or we'd never be able to tame the acidity of Petit Verdot or Petit Mainsain, right? So like everywhere has its thing. But Cabernet Fra somehow

 

as much as they are different. They're very cool wines in multiple places. It just has this really neat versatility. That's amazing. Awesome. Well, I hopefully we've inspired people to want to come up to visit you in the Finger Lakes and to check out Heron Hill. But even if they just want to go to your website, order some wine or get on your wine club. I know folks can go to heronhill.com. What do you think is the

 

Laurie Forster (25:21.516)

best time of year to visit the Finger Lakes if folks are gonna take a trip? If you want to come for like the peak of what Finger Lakes beauty is all about, October. I mean when the foliage starts to change around the lakes as well it is just magical. But if you want to get the greatest of out of your wine experience and

 

You know, truly get to talk to the people in the tasting rooms and get a good wine experience. You know, when you're here in May is typically a very good time of year. If you come just before Memorial Day, it's already beautiful out and you have the spring air. it, you know, the towns haven't filled up with the seasonal traffic yet. So April and May, I would say are like your really good go-to months for

 

a wine experience, but to see the overall just magical beauty of the Finger Lakes, October's fabulous. Awesome. Well, Jordan, thank you so much for joining us on the Sipping Point. These three are all delicious. I love it. And there are so many more great ones that I tasted in the tasting room. So I invite everyone to check out your website and I can't wait to come back and visit you guys and see you and Jen when you're in town. So I look forward to that.

 

I look forward to it as well. Thank you so much. It's been awesome. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. What a treat that was to have Jordan Harris from Heron Hill. If you want to check him out and their wines, go to heronhill.com. And I'm so excited to be with you guys again next Wine Wednesday. Next week we'll be dropping our next episode. So go ahead and subscribe on Apple iTunes, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

And also if you wanna see some video clips from this interview, check out my YouTube channel, The Wine Coach. Subscribe and you will be able to see this interview live. Also, if you wanna download my free app, it's called The Wine Coach for iPhone and Android. You can access the podcast, my YouTube videos, and all of my wine suggestions from my monthly virtual tastings on Wine Down Wednesdays. And we can connect that way as well.

 

Laurie Forster (27:44.044)

This has been such a treat. I'm so glad to be with you guys each week and until then, keep on sipping.