Johnson Estate Winery

Johnson Estate is New York’s oldest estate winery. An estate or farm winery uses grapes grown from its own adjacent vineyards. The entire vinification process, including the crushing, pressing, fermentation, aging, and bottling, occurs on site. Since grapes ripen at different times from vineyard to vineyard, an estate winery is better able to harvest the grapes at their perfect ripeness. Grapes have been grown at Johnson Estate for well over a century and our grape varieties have been selected for their excellent wine-making quality and suitability for the Lake Erie microclimate. The Lake Erie Viticultural Area has excellent grape-growing conditions: a northern latitude that results in long hours of summer sunlight, well-drained sand, gravel and shale soils, and a climate moderated by Lake Erie and the hills of the Allegany Plateau which parallel the lake shore. Johnson Estate’s terroir is most like the Rhine and Moselle areas of Germany, both in climate and soils. We manage our vineyards and winemaking so that this special local terroir is expressed to perfection.