Wine starts first and foremost in the vineyard and we consider ourselves winegrowers as much as winemakers. With this mindset as our guiding principle, we take immense pride in all aspects of our vineyard management. With the creation of the new winery, we have engaged with Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing and New York Wine & Grape Foundation in our mission to immediately take steps towards certified sustainability.
Sustainable wines are made with a goal to protect the environment as well as practice self-generating farming practices, support social responsibility and forever strive to produce high quality wines. Throughout the grape growing and winemaking process, the health of our vineyard is always a top priority. Using cover crops instead of herbicides, maintaining biodiversity in our vineyards to ensure soil health, implementing recycling measures that conserve precious resources such as water, keeping a close relationship with our vineyard manager and vineyard team, designing pruning programs individual to each vineyard block that promote vine health and limit yields and doing as much work by hand as we can are just a few of the ways we maintain our sustainable efforts.
In The Winery
Just as we take great pride in our vineyard, our winemaking philosophy is no different. Our goal at Ev&Em Vineyards is to achieve wines that represent the North Fork of Long Island. This terroir is singular in expression and we are proud of the style of honest wines we produce. Our wines are balanced, expressive, and aromatic, allowing for individual vineyard characteristics to shine through. For this reason, we began blocking our vineyards with the 2021 vintage in order to allow these individual tiles to come through. We believe in well-balanced wines with fresh acidity, strong, smooth tannins, and vibrant, expressive aromas and fruit flavors. Our use of new oak is limited, with the majority of our aging focused on vessels that allow the primary characteristics of the wine to show, such as stainless steel tanks and neutral barrels. Our wines go through natural cold-stabilization, taking advantage of the climate we live in. The naturally high acidity, lower alcohol wines we produce are capable of readiness to drink as well as ageability.
Our Renovation
The 2021 renovation was focused on energy efficient measures and recycling natural materials. From lighting to material-sourcing to water-saving fixtures we allowed sustainability to be our guiding principle. Much of our existing interior finishes were recycled, refurbished, and refinished. All of the wood came from recycled efforts located in NY state. These spaces were designed in partnership with Architecture Outfit to take advantage of the deep covered terraces, pergolas, and porches that provide shaded microclimates which passively regulate solar heat gain. The landscaping surrounding the winery was replanted with climate-tolerant native plants that do not require fertilizers or pesticides. Trees that once abutted the winery were relocated to parts of the property that will allow them to grow healthily without blockage for their root systems or need for irrigation. We are extending this philosophy to what we sell in our tasting room, focusing on small businesses and NY-based companies wherever possible.
