What's Terroir
An excellent wine evokes memories of its origins: vineyards, countryside vistas, and gentle summer days. Good wines are but well-crafted expressions of their terroir and that provenance includes geography, topography, soils, microclimate, and the vineyard-caring culture. The art and science of great wine production is to so manage the vineyard and wine-making disciplines that the local terroir is expressed to perfection.
Johnson Estate’s terroir is most like the Rhine and Moselle areas of Germany, both in climate and soils. Since Lake Erie is a more effective heat reservoir than a river, this terroir, is arguably better than its Old World cousins.
Welcome to Johnson's Estate
NYS’s Oldest Estate Winery
The 220-acre Johnson Farm is located in one of the largest and finest grape growing regions in North America – and the largest east of the Rockies. Here, along the shores of Lake Erie, 30,000 acres of vineyards are testimony to the excellent terroir for growing grapes and making wine. Johnson Estate grows eleven different varieties of grapes and produces 30 varieties of wine including world-class Riesling and Ice Wines, Port and Cream Sherry, and other award-winning vintages.
As an estate winery, producing “in the chateau tradition”, their vineyard practices are wholly-integrated into the production of their wines, and quality, rather than quantity, is the governing principle of their business. Simply put, the advantage of an estate winery is this: The prosperity of any grape grower depends on achieving the highest yield in tons per acre at the lowest cost while still meeting the minimum standards of acceptance from his or her juice or winery customers. In contrast, grapes grown at an estate winery, like Johnson Estate, are cultivated to maximize wine quality, which is the foundation of any successful wine business.