Welcome to Nine-Four Wines.

I am so happy to introduce to you this month’s featured winery, Nine-Four Wines. One of my goals in leading this ongoing wine adventure is to uncover and share the stories of our region’s hidden gems. And this tiny-micro-nano-project is a perfect example of something you are unlikely to discover anywhere else.

Nine-Four is a ‘family-run’ winery, but not in the traditional sense. According to one of the three principals, it is their chosen family. Brought together by a shared love for wine and hospitality, Nine-Four is a collaboration between friends Melissa Thompson, Josh Carlsen, and Phil Arras.

Phil was most recently the winemaker at Damiani, a super-respected producer on Seneca Lake, and focuses on the winemaking at Nine-Four. Melissa, now overseeing FLX Hospitality’s Corning empire (The Quincy Exchange, The Maillard Club, and Provisions), handles the business side of things. And her husband Josh – a gracious sommelier who formerly ran the beverage program at Stonecat Café – works on the blending trials, tasting, and sourcing.

Together, these three teamed up back in 2016 to begin a passion project that – depending on the year – yields somewhere between 300 and 800 cases of wine per year. That’s it.

They control 100% of their winemaking, yet have no formal tasting room. They purchase grapes from growers they know and trust, and give plenty of time for the wine to find its voice. In Josh’s words: we work very hard to do as little as possible. What does that mean? We work closely with our growers to ensure the highest quality fruit. We walk the vineyards throughout the growing season and as harvest approaches we regularly sample the grapes looking for ripeness and development. When the fruit starts coming to the winery, we rigorously sort out any sub-optimal berries. Once the juice is out of the press we get out of the way. Minimal sulfur additions, no added yeasts, gentle racking to leave behind the gross lees. Fermentations are slow and relatively cool. Careful sensory monitoring through fermentation and maturation. The heavy lifting is all up front.

By the way, in case you were wondering what ‘Nine-Four’ stands for… it is the shared birthday of Phil and Josh. Due to their unrelenting work schedules in hospitality, doing a big birthday party with all their friends in September was challenging… so they always pushed it back until after the busy holidays and celebrated sometime in January. It became their ‘Nine-Four’ party, and the rest is history.

— Cheers, RP