Cool Ridge Vineyard - Boutique Vineyard & Winery
Winery and Vineyard, Washington County, Md
Winery and Vineyard, Washington County, Md
Growing Our Grapes...
Growing Our Grapes...
Cool Ridge Vineyard’s terroir is accentuated by a combination of steep, south-facing slopes and fertile, well-drained limestone soils creating a special environment ideal for growing wine grapes.
Our 15 acre Estate Vineyard is planted in 9 varietals of vinifera grapes.
The vintner has selected the vinifera white varieties of Chardonnay, Viognier, Gruner Veltliner, Riesling, and Pinot Gris and the big reds of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Merlot. While all of these varieties provide many challenges, the careful hand pruning in winter to the hand harvesting in fall, and the many footprints in the vineyard in between, create a balanced vine yielding superior fruit. Our goal is to grow grapes and produce wines of the highest quality by maintaining hands-on, personal nurturing of each grape grown and each bottle of wine released. We believe that the Piedmont Region of Western Maryland has proven to be ideal for grape growing and fine wine production…....We hope you agree!
Cool Ridge Vineyard grapes are grown on VSP trellising, with row spacing of nine to ten feet. The space between the vines are four to five feet. Our vineyard is "dry farmed", which means there is no irrigation. The soil is hilled up in the fall after harvest to protect from extreme cold that may occur in Winter. Vines are spur "double pruned" by hand each Winter. This means that shoots are first pruned to ten inches and then in Spring, when the chance of severe cold has passed, they are pruned again to three inches. In the Spring, shoots are thinned and leaves are pulled by hand, with only the hedging done mechanically. Veraison begins in early August and the hard green berries begin to get soft; plump with sweet pulp. They are netted to protect against birds. They are hand harvested in the Fall to be processed and the vineyard is groomed and preparations are made for the new Spring cycle to begin once again!