The first vintage for Averill Creek was in 2004. This was a difficult year weather wise. The spring was warm and sunny and as a result bud break, flowering and veraison went well. However, in late August the weather took a turn for the worse. There were four weeks of cold rainy days, which delayed the ripening. The weather was also very conducive to the growth of powdery mildew. The combination was a bit much for the third year vines and consequently only seven tons of grapes were picked in October of 2004. Despite this, the Pinot Gris and the Gewürztraminer came out very well with the Gris at 24.6 brix and having very good flavors. The Pinot Noir and Merlot did not fare as well. They were picked at 21-22 brix because of the lateness of the season and the imminent onset of the October rains. The wines had great varietal character but were light in colour and intensity. The 2004 vintage was released to the general public in April of 2006 when Averill Creek had its grand opening.

Averill Creek’s second vintage in 2005 once again ran into some problems because of the weather. This time the rains came in June, which delayed the flowering and prevented berry set. In particular the Gewürztraminer suffered. Powdery mildew again became a problem. Despite this, in October of 2005 twenty tons of grapes were picked, of varying degrees of ripeness. The Pinot Gris in barrel is looking very good and the Merlot and the Pinot Noir clone 777 are also both showing great promise in barrel. The 2005 vintage was released in April of 2007.

The 2006 vintage was a very warm year, with a good fruit load on all the mature vines. Averill Creek picked 35 tons of grapes and produced some very fine award winning wine.  In 2007 the weather was the coolest it had been since 1997 and all the varieties had to be cropped down to less than a ton an acre. Even though the three year old Marechal Foche and Foche/Cabernet cross were producing their first crop, we only picked 23 tons. There was quite a bit of Mildew and Botrytis stress and we were forced to pick with fairly low brix levels. In spite of this the fruit had good flavours and made some very nice wines with good varietal character. These will be released in April of 2008.