Stone Crop Acres Winery & Vineyard
Norene Hyatt-Gervais is the owner and winemaker at Stone Crop Acres Winery and Vineyard. After spending years researching and learning about the vines, vineyard design and trellissing, Norene set her sights on winemaking. Finding fantastic mentors and friends in Tom and Janet Moul of Jabulani Winery near Ottawa, Norene spent hours with them learning the craft of wine making with cold climate grapes.
Stone Crop Acres grows 5 acres of cold climate grapes. These varietals thrive in our climate of long cold winters and love our hot summer (especially the dry ones!) in 2007 and 2008 they planted Frontenac Noir, Frontenac Gris, Louise Swenson, Marquette, Sabrevois, Adalmiina and Muscat Osceola. In 2015 they added a beautiful red grape called Petite Pearle. All of these varietals were hybridized at the University of Minnesota using research and breeding stock from a near mythical grape breeding pioneer Elmer Swenson. Stone Crop's vines have survived winters as cold as -40C. They do all their own pruning, trellising and harvesting by hand. Stroll through the vineyard and feel the joy in these well-loved vines.
All of Stone Crop's winemaking is done on site. After harvest, the reds and whites are handled very differently. Whites are gently pressed off of the skins, fermented at cool temperatures in stainless steel tanks and then months are spent clarifying and stabilizing and aging in stainless steel. The results are clean, crisp whites that dance on your palate with bright clear flavours and aromas. Their reds are crushed, fermented on skins in fermentation vat at warmer temperatures than the whites. They are then pressed off of the skins and aged in stainless steel tanks for several months after undergoing malolactic conversion. Transferred to French oak barrels, the reds are then aged until bottling and release.
Each release of their first vintage has been a special celebrated event as they share their new wines with their customers.
