Wine can be no better than the grapes from which it was made. This concept is the basis of the centuries old estate or chateau wine making traditions of France and Germany. An estate winery which uses only grapes grown in its own adjacent vineyards has several advantages that no large winery can match. First, an estate winery can carefully and directly supervise the cultivation of its grapes. Secondly, since grapes ripen at different times from vineyard to vineyard, a small winery is much better able to harvest the grapes at their optimum ripeness. Finally, grapes start to deteriorate the moment they are picked, and the farther they must be transported and the longer the time until they are crushed, the greater this problem becomes. An estate winery has an obvious advantage in this regard. Thus, it has long been recognized that estate wineries usually produce the finest wines and they are proudly labeled Erzeuger-Abfullung in Germany, Mise du Chateau in France, and Estate Grown and Bottled in the United States.

Grapes have been grown on the Johnson Estate for well over a century, and the Johnson Winery, established in 1961, is now the oldest exclusively estate winery in New York State. All of the choice European and American wine grapes used to make our wines are grown within 3000 feet of the winery. This allows us to take full advantage of the chateau system of wine-growing and making. Every vintage is a “handcrafted” limited production, and the entire vinification process, including the crushing, pressing, fermentation, aging, and bottling occurs on the estate under the Johnson Family’s direct control. Thus, the superb quality of our wine is constantly supervised from the vineyard to the bottle, and, like the finest wines of Europe, Johnson Estate wines are “grown, vinified and bottled in the Chateau Tradition.”

The largest and finest grape growing area in the East is found along the southeastern shore of Lake Erie. Combined here to produce classic wine-growing conditions and a northern latitude resulting in long hours of summer sunlight, well drained gravel and shale soils which grapes prefer, and a climate moderated by an adjacent body of water, Lake Erie. This “lake effect” on the local climate is held in and concentrated by the hills of the Allegany Plateau which parallel the lake shore. Located in the heart of this area, the 200 acre Johnson Estate overlooks the lake at the closest approach of these hills to the lake and, as a result, has one of the finest wine-growing microclimates to be found. Thus, the Johnson Estate is able to continue excellent wine-growing conditions with the old world care and concern of the chateau winemaking tradition to produce some of the finest wines in New York State.