A Look Back on Two Years at Lincoln Peak

Our story in real time

Suddenly, we blinked, and it’s been over two years that we’ve been back in Vermont, raising our girls and building our dream at Lincoln Peak. Our individual connections to farming started long before we met; Nichole was raised on a peach orchard in California’s Central Valley, and Kevin grew up here in Vermont’s Champlain Valley. We both got bit by the wine bug back in 2013 and after a decade traveling around and making wine with some of the best in the world, we finally found ourselves where we always wanted to be. We took over Lincoln Peak in April of 2024, and we pruned the vineyard, reopened the tasting room, and welcomed our second daughter before June. Talk about a whirlwind…

Fast forward two years and our baby is a toddler, our love for making wine in Vermont grows stronger every day, and our vision for the future of Lincoln Peak has never been more clear.

This is our story, in media res. An update in real time.

Here’s what stands out for each of us:

Nichole

As a native Californian, I am somewhat ashamed to admit that my first impression of Vermont was, “That’s a wine region!?” Thankfully, after our first harvest, I was convinced; now, I can’t imagine living or working anywhere else. I am so proud to be a part of Vermont’s nascent winemaking story. Cold climate-appropriate hybrids are no longer just a footnote in the winemaking world; they are becoming a large part of the conversation around sustainability and resilience in the face of climate change. Growing hybrids is not easy from a marketing perspective — the market still wants Pinot Noir and Cab and Sauvignon Blanc — but it allows us to make wines that are far more sustainable, and that story is one I can tell with integrity. Hybrids are the future, and to think that we’re among the trailblazers of this Brave Little State is something I’m immensely proud of.

While moving to Vermont has infused my career as a winemaker with new excitement and motivation, the most unexpected abundance has come in the form of community. In California, the industry is simply too big and developed for the closeness that we have found here in Vermont. From the small business collabs to the open sharing of advice among winemakers to you, our biggest fans — I am deeply grateful for the community we are building. My cup is already overflowing and we’re just getting started.

As we look to the future, we have one simple goal: make serious, world-class wine that doesn’t take itself too seriously. To do that, we’re going to continue focusing on two things that really matter: the land and the community. Our what and our why.

Kevin

I’ll admit that moving back to Vermont was a selfish decision. Making great wine here always felt like a pipe dream, and a secondary goal to just living here. When you’re raised in Vermont, its soul becomes an indelible part of your own; living and working in different parts of the world was formative and foundational, but the call of Vermont was never silenced. It was time to head home and, thankfully, Nichole was on board.

When I look back at our first two years at Lincoln Peak, I’m overjoyed. We’re making wines that I’m super proud of and we haven’t had to sacrifice quality to farm the way we want - with a focus on sustainability, ecology, and soil health. That’s a choice you have to make in a lot of places, but when you work with varieties suited to your climate, it’s a no brainer. Farming this way makes you an intimate part of the ecosystem. The land becomes your colleague: a living, breathing entity that has a personality and preferences and idiosyncrasies just like we do. I love to imagine how time spreads out in front of me, allowing me to deepen my relationship with this place and these plants.

Sharing the vineyard with our community has been everything. We wouldn’t have been able to entertain the idea of this dream without the help of our village: parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, the community coming out to harvest, our regulars at Friday Night music… it’s overwhelming to think about how much support we have. Thank you to every single person who has been a part of our story.

Here’s to many more!

The soft return to light

Spring came to us slowly this year, as if time reluctantly withdrew from the sweetness of winter’s hibernation. The vineyard awoke lazily, which meant we finished pruning with time to spare. The weather oscillated from warm to cold, never quite making up its mind. Consequently (and thankfully), bud break was delayed, sparing us from the devastating spring frosts that just keep happening. Our thoughts are with all of our friends farming fruit in the Northeast, some of whom lost their entire crop in just a couple hours on the morning of April 21st. Here’s a sobering reflection from Tom Croghan at Dodon Vineyards in Maryland.

Though we escaped the worst of it, we did see some damage from a radiation frost on May 21st. With clear skies and no wind, the soil, warmed all day by the spring sun, loses heat quickly to the atmosphere and cold air from above is allowed to settle. On mornings like these, temperatures can be 3-4°F warmer just a couple feet above the ground. On May 21st, our frost line was around 6” so only our renewals were damaged. This is one of the reasons why we train our vines five feet off the ground – to let the fruit grow in the incubator of warm, chest-level air.

The frost was preceded by a brief stretch of mid-80s, which sent shoots into overdrive. On Sunday, May 17, we had half-inch swollen buds; by Tuesday, May 19, the shoots measured six inches. It was cinematic. You could have set up a lawn chair and watched them grow. Mowing and shoot thinning became a priority almost overnight, and so we got to work writing new choreography to Mother Nature’s rhythms. Our vocation demands agility and improvisation, as we learn new steps to a new dance, season after season. 

As any Vermonter knows, spring is a sacred passage from dark to light. After months of cold days and long nights, the return of spring buzzes with limitless light and life. We feel the shift in our bodies, like our cells are responding to a higher frequency, to a more social sun. The yeast feel it, too. Many of our wines, having retreated into dormancy after being tucked away for winter, come alive once again. The textbooks say it’s because the cellar is getting warmer, but we’ve kept it warm all winter. Maybe it has more to do with the light. Maybe it’s the reawakening of the world, the pheromones of plants, the songs of birds and bees, the lingering of light that make the difference. Frontenac Blanc suddenly resumes its fermentation, ending dry as the yeast eat the last grams of sugar. A stubborn and tired barrel of Marquette gets spritzy, then softens and begins to taste whole. It’s hard to see it as pure coincidence.

As we shed the layers of our long wintering, as we celebrate the staying sun, so do all living creatures. We’re reminded every spring of our gratitude to work so closely with the earth and to notice these subtle shifts. We’re sure you’ve noticed them, too. 

In light of the turning of seasons, our tasting room has transitioned to summer hours, and we have plenty of events on the docket! We hope you’ll join us soon for a Friday Night Music concert and a glass of wine, or a relaxing Sunday afternoon on the porch, enjoying the soft return to a little more light.

Spring Wine Release - 2026

Our long-awaited spring release is almost here! We’re thrilled to be popping the corks on the first of the 2025 wines: Limestone, La Crescent, and Black Sparrow. Compared to the rich, powerful wines of the 2024 vintage, 2025 delivered brighter, more delicate wines with lots of complexity and nuance. It was a cooler growing season in ‘25, allowing for slow, even ripening and greater retention of acid. Translation: these are bright, fresh, and fruity wines perfect for the advent of summer.

2025 Limestone

As a blend of every white variety that we grow, Limestone is a great representation of the unique terroir of our vineyard. Louise Swenson is the backbone, its intense minerality and firm acidity laying the foundation on top of which the other varieties shine. La Crescent and Prairie Star bring juiciness and a floral, citrusy lift, while Adalmiina adds a waxy, lanolin-like texture you might find in Chenin Blanc.

Compared to 2024, the 2025 Limestone is delicate and nuanced with intense minerality and more subtle fruit. It was a cooler growing season, which meant that ripening was slower and more even, resulting in a wine with beautiful finesse and plenty of zip. This is a great example of vintage variation - the difference in how a wine tastes from year to year based on the weather’s influence on the grapes during the growing season.

You’ll like Limestone if you like Sauvignon Blanc, Grüner Veltliner, or Txakoli.

2025 La Crescent

This wine comes from the Lower Vineyard where the silty clays typical of the Champlain Valley provide the vines with plenty of water and nutrients, helping them grow vigorously and creating wines with great fruit intensity.

We pressed the bunches as soon as they were picked and fermented the juice slowly to retain its enchanting aroma. We went a bit drier in 2025, letting the yeast eat more of the sugar before stopping fermentation when we thought the balance was just right.

Just as it did with Limestone, the 2025 vintage gave us La Crescent with a lighter body and more pronounced acidity than in 2024, and punchy aromas of melon and flowers. We love the idea of vintage variation. Wine has the ability to clarify and communicate the character of a growing season in ways that fresh fruit can’t.

You’ll like La Crescent if you like Riesling, Chenin Blanc, or Alsatian whites.

2025 Black Sparrow

Black Sparrow and La Crescent are sisters. The two wines are made from the same vineyard block, but the fruit for Black Sparrow is picked more than a week earlier. On the east side of Lower La Crescent the vines are less vigorous, so the fruit has more sun exposure and tends to ripen a bit earlier than the rest of the block. These are the vines that grow Black Sparrow.

In the cellar, we arrest the fermentation early to leave a small amount of residual sugar and just over 11% abv. Light-bodied, citrusy, and just sweet enough to stand up to spice makes it the perfect wine for sushi or curry.

You’ll like Black Sparrow if you like off-dry Riesling, Vinho Verde, or Pinot Grigio.

Nurturing New Life in the Vines

It’s hard to believe the first quarter of the year has come and gone. We’ve been spending the early days of spring in our favorite way: among the vines, enjoying the rising temperatures and watching the season’s colors give way from white to green. As the snow melts, pruning becomes a softer dance, suckers and ground shoots revealing themselves more freely, renewals becoming easier to identify. Our job becomes twofold: to select strong, healthy canes as the source of this year’s fruit, cutting everything else away, and to identify future trunks, or renewals, now just tender suckers peeking out from the base of the vine. 

Since starting this chapter at Lincoln Peak, our number one focus in the vineyard has been on trunk renewal, drawing up new growth from the roots to replace old, diseased wood. Many of our vines are nearly 25 years old — long-lived by Vermont standards. Historically, the modus operandi was to remove all suckers so that the vines only needed to focus on ripening fruit. But without an eye to the future, we’ll lose many of our vines to cold damage or ubiquitous diseases like crown gall. Trunk renewal, then, is our greatest act of sustainability. To rip out and replant would not only be costly, but would erase a quarter century of root networks, of biological memory, of relationship to the land.

And so, during the winter, we carefully select our renewals, getting on our hands and knees in the snow, searching for the strongest cane able to withstand Vermont’s arctic chill. In the spring, we’ll clear the grass around this renewal, making sure it’s getting sun and air flow, and in the summer, we’ll tie up the new shoot, securing it to the trellis so that it may continue to grow into a healthy trunk. It’s an intimate thing, this act of renewal, tenderly nurturing a new life for this beautiful, wizened plant.

While we’ve been busy selecting our renewals, we’ve also been continuing the oh-so important work of pruning. As winegrowers, there are only so many levers we can pull to impact the trajectory of the vineyard—pruning is without a doubt the most consequential. A single cut that we make this winter will be impactful five, even ten years from now. The question is certainly where to cut, but also when.

We practice delayed pruning, whereby we prune in the opposite order in which the vines wake up. The theory is that pruning the vine just as it’s stirring from hibernation, it becomes distracted, focusing on healing the wound rather than creating new growth. In Vermont, where temperatures are wont to nosedive on a whim and spring frost is a constant fear, delaying budbreak by even a few days can save our vines from bud damage—and save us from losing a season’s crop. Mother Nature is powerful and mercurial; as farmers, we have signed up for a life of appealing to her better angels while preparing for her worst demons. Delayed pruning is like insurance against the latter.

But of course, one can never truly see the future. As our anticipation of the growing season mounts, so too does our anxiety. When snow still blankets the ground, we feel safe knowing the vineyard is asleep. But as the sun starts to linger over the vines a little longer, sap stirring in their phloem, we begin to feel under the gun. Time is ticking until our last two varieties, Marquette and La Crescent, wake from their slumber, pushing fuzzy little buds, within them the secrets of the season to come.

For now, we’ll be in the vines, making our last pruning cuts, waiting in anticipation for the gifts of another vintage.

Pruning Season!

As the sun strengthens and the days grow longer, we jump boots first into our favorite vineyard task of the year: pruning. Pruning is like pressing a vine’s reset button, shedding the wood that laboriously produced last year’s harvest and making room for new growth. We may remove up to 90% of the vine’s wood every year, each cut strategically placed to maximize the plant’s potential and longevity. Nothing we do in the vineyard has a bigger, more lasting impact on the vine’s ability to fully and sustainably ripen fruit than pruning.

To better understand how and why we prune, let’s start by looking at the cycle of growth that the vines go through every year.

After we harvest the fruit in October, the vine sheds its leaves and enters dormancy in the same way that many other plants do. The once tender, green shoots harden and lignify into woody canes and the vine is left looking much like a tree in winter (1). Once fully dormant, we prune the vine, removing most of the previous season’s growth, shaping the vine along the fruiting wire, and selecting the buds from which next year’s shoots will grow (2). In spring the vine awakens, growing new shoots from the exact buds that we intended (hopefully) and quickly adding leaves and grape clusters (3). The fruit ripens, we pick it and make wine, and the vine prepares for its winter rest, starting the cycle anew (4).

It’s important to understand that these vines are not particularly interested in growing delicious grapes and making great wine. Left to their own devices, they prefer to grow mostly from their tips, spreading wildly as vines do. Spaced evenly along each of the canes depicted above are dozens of buds from which new growth originates in the spring. If left unpruned, all of these buds would push, growing hundreds of new shoots stunted by a fierce competition for resources and supporting tiny clusters of grapes that would struggle to ripen in the crowded, humid, shady canopy. Yuck.

So we prune, strategically selecting just the right number of buds for the vine to focus on to keep it balanced and organized. There are a few different pruning systems but we mostly use a technique called cane pruning, whereby we pick two strong, healthy canes, trim them to the correct length, and cut everything else away. In order to keep the vine compact and remove as much old wood as possible, we look for canes that are growing close to the trunk. Upstream of these we leave two renewal spurs - canes cut back to a little stump with a single bud that we hope will generate the perfect cane for next pruning season.

We then gently maneuver our precious fruiting canes to the supporting trellis wire and tie them up. The buds on these canes - now referred to as cordons - are the source of all of the next season’s growth. The new shoots will grow in one direction, evenly spaced, each supporting a couple clusters of grapes neatly organized into what is called the fruit zone. We can now easily manage the vines throughout the season, maximizing sunlight and airflow, and focusing energy on ripening the very best fruit we can. After all, great wine starts in the vineyard.

We're back at it for 2026

After a lovely little January break and lots of quality time with the fam, we are back at the vineyard. The vines are deep in sleep under a light blanket of snow while the wines are abuzz in the cellar. Most of the 2025 wines have finished primary fermentation with just a couple stragglers working through the last grams of sugar at their own pace. It’s remarkable how much the young wines change this time of year as they slowly shed the veil of fermentation and begin to reveal the character of the vintage. Two weeks without tasting them feels like an eternity.

Some of the wines - the early whites made from fruit harvested in September and fermented in stainless steel - are really starting to sing. Blending season begins. Louise Swenson, Prairie Star, Adalmiina, and La Crescent, picked, fermented, and aged separately, will make up a few of our favorite wines - Limestone, Black Sparrow, and La Crescent. We’ll taste each component and carefully blend them to craft these wines. Teasing out flavors, popping aromatics, and building textures. Seeking complexity, intensity, balance, and beauty. Taste, discuss, conceptualize, blend, taste, discuss. Repeat. And enjoy, of course.

We’ll bottle these early whites in March, but first: BUBBLES. In just a couple weeks the new Piquettes, more Sparkling Marquette, and a teeny bit of Brut Rosé will go under crown cap and get tucked away on their sides in a dark corner of the cellar. There they will slowly ferment again, filling the wine with pillowy bubbles. We hope to be drinking Piquette again as soon as the weather warms, but we’ll have to wait till 2028 to pop the Brut Rosé. There will be lots to celebrate.

RELEASE WEEKEND: Farnsworth & Sparkling Marquette

The wait is over! This weekend we welcome Farnsworth back into the tasting room with a benchmark example of our beloved variety. The story goes that Farnsworth first came to Lincoln Peak in 2005 as an experimental variety from the University of Minnesota, quickly finding a happy home in our soils. While the vineyard expanded, the university gave up on the variety and never released it, making our little 1.5-acre block the only known planting in the world.

We love Farnsworth for its big chewy tannins and complex medley of spice that makes Dr. Pepper seem one-dimensional. It’s a wine you might find yourself comparing to cool-climate Syrah or classic California Zinfandel, but make no mistake about it, Farnsworth is its own beautiful beast. The 2024 vintage treated Farnsworth well, with flawless fruit, massive sugar levels, and thick, ripe skins. After 10 months in barrel and another four in bottle, the wine is singing and is ready for its big debut.

This weekend also marks the release of a wine that we’ve been dreaming of making for a while: Sparkling Marquette. We’ve had a bit of a love affair with Lambrusco over the past couple years, swooning over its fruity, floral nose and juicy, bright bubbles. It’s such a perfect pairing for everything (or nothing at all) and as drier versions of Lambrusco have come into favor, we’ve begun to appreciate how interesting these wines can be. With its light tannin profile and complex bouquet, Marquette is an ideal candidate for sparkling red, and an abundance of fruit in 2024 meant we had to give it a shot. Featuring label art from the brilliant Deana Allgaier, these beautiful bottles are a must for the holiday table. We only made 17 cases so come in this weekend to grab yours!

2024 Sparkling Marquette
A traditional method, lightly sparkling red inspired by the great wines of Lambrusco. Light maceration on skins. Stainless. Six months en tirage. Brut nature. Think raspberry dark chocolate mousse with bubbles!
wild blackberry. brown sugar. dark chocolate.

2024 Farnsworth
From the original blocks of Farnsworth. Handpicked and fully destemmed with extended post-ferment maceration. Aged 10 months in neutral oak barrels. Intense spice, subtle fruit, and decadent, chewy tannin.
blueberry compote. tobacco leaf. ground coffee.

Turkey Wines

…but is cider actually the perfect bev for Thanksgiving?

This year we’re thankful for a vintage that delivered loads of Limestone (!) and reds with depth and structure we didn’t think was possible in Vermont. We’re thankful for grandparents and early childhood educators. We’re thankful for our devoted community of pickers and oenophiles who love Frontenac Blanc as much as we do. We’re thankful for 39” of snow on top of Mt. Mansfield and friends with inspirational and infectious stoke. We’re thankful for grandparents. Did we say grandparents?

Thanksgiving dinner is our favorite meal of the year to pair with. Turkey and taters are a great foundation on which to layer flavor, and from bubbly, light-bodied ciders to bright, cleansing whites and rich, textural reds, you really can’t go wrong. With so many different dishes on the table and plenty of people to share with, it’s worth opening a few bottles for the feast. Check out what we’ll be drinking below. \

2024 PERRY
dry sparkling cider | $22
Potomac pears from Champlain Orchards fermented dry, then rested on pressed cranberries from Vermont Cranberry. Secondary fermentation in bottle for natural bubbles. Cranberry sauce just got an upgrade.
rose petal. lemon peel. fresh mint.

2024 RESERVE LA CRESCENT
dry white | $32
100% La Crescent from the Upper Vineyard. The last pick of the 2024 harvest. Fermented and aged in a mix of neutral oak and stainless. Who brought peach pie to Thanksgiving? Good call.
grapefruit peel. marzipan. grilled peach.

2024 MARQUETTE
dry red | $32
100% Marquette from throughout the vineyard. A complex blend of multiple lots, including partial whole cluster, spontaneous fermentation, neutral oak, and stainless. Plummy, spicy, youthful. This pairs with absolutely everything on the table.
black raspberry jam. clove. plum.

2024 Marquette Release

Plus a very special Frontenac Blanc

For the first time in three years, a new vintage of Lincoln Peak Marquette graces the tasting room. Marquette has been the keystone wine of Lincoln Peak’s portfolio since its planting back in 2006, and has redefined the quality ceiling of cold climate wines internationally. While we’re sad to see the 2021 go, we’re beyond excited to start pouring our take on this iconic wine from a spectacular vintage.

Alongside the Marquette, we will be releasing the super limited, super delicious 2024 Frontenac Blanc. Our five precious rows of Frontenac Blanc sit in a sheltered corner of the Lower Vineyard where cool air settles and drying breezes struggle to reach. This requires us to be extra attentive when picking, carefully sorting in the vineyard to bring only the best fruit into the winery. Even with hefty crews of dedicated volunteers, it took us four days to pick the Frontenac Blanc in 2024. As soon as we tasted the juice, we knew the effort had paid off and our love affair with this wine began. After 10 months in the cellar, we’re finally ready to share our little secret with the world.