Club Newsletter July 2021

Jump for Summer savings!

Complimentary shipping in July to our valued club members.  Take advantage of having your favorite wines shipped FREE right to your door.  Of course, that is in addition to your regular 15% club membership discount.  Go Shopping with FREE Shipping!

We are continuing to tag Adopt A Vines! So vine parents, come on out to our not-so-little vineyard out behind the RiverWalk Resort and check out their progress!  They are growing like crazy and the first 4 rows (planted in 2019) already have pea-sized grapes on them.

Travel note:
If you ever get to travel out to California and Napa wine country (like I just had the pleasure of doing), I highly recommend the Napa Valley Wine Train.  The daily tour is from 10-4 and the train rides adjacent to many vineyards with amazing views. The train provides a nice small breakfast, a mini wine tasting, and lunch. The train stops at 3-4 wineries and the winery tours at each location are included in the price.

I posted some pictures of my recent trip to Napa in our Club Member Facebook group.  Make sure you join the group!

The Riverwalk Tasting Room is ready for what is sure to be another busy season in the White Mountains!  The veranda continues to be a gorgeous place to grab a glass and enjoy the scenery. The flowers are hung and the tasting menu has a rotation of fun, refreshing cocktails to help you cool off.   Hello, Summer!

At our Rhythm Craft Cider Studio tasting room we have expanded our food menu to include pita chips and hummus, chips and salsa, and our cider tasting platter that comes with pretzels, mustard, and Summer sausage. So c’mon in and sip n’ snack!

Patio and Veranda are open!

FREE SHIPPING IN JULY

July 4th  Independence Day 

July 22 Syrah/Shiraz Day

Following the busy-ness of the last few months, things for the production staff have slowed down a bit, giving us and the wine much needed rest. The white wines that are not going through malolactic fermentation (MLF), Alto, Symphony, and Solstice White, are going through fining processes. Gravity is the great helper at this stage in winemaking. Gravity pulls anything suspended, or unstable, in the wine to the bottom of the tank. Fining is what makes a good, young wine into a great wine. These young wines have a light haziness to them at this point in the process; the particulates that make up this haze are slowly pulled naturally by gravity over time to the bottom of the tank or barrel, creating what is known as the “lees” or sediment. The lees are made up of dead yeast cells, grape skin fibers, seed/stem fibers, and tartrates. After a certain amount of time settling, the wine is racked into an empty tank; this gets the wine “off the lees.”

The wines that are going through the malolactic fermentation are Gusto, Shadow, Satori, Karma, Classique, spring 21’ Legacy, and Chardonnay. Unlike alcoholic fermentation, where yeast convert sugars into alcohol, malolactic fermentation is when the Malic acid in wine (tastes tart like a green apple) is converted into a lactic acid which is a silky, smooth acid, which is the same acid that is in milk. These wines have been racked off their gross lees, but stay on their fine lees until malolactic fermentation has completed. However, we cannot just let the wine sit on the fine lees forever, so during this time the wine undergoes a process called Bâtonnage.   Bâtonnage is the process of stirring the lees so that it does not settle for too long on the bottom of the tank or barrel. Here is a short little article for pronunciation and definition if you are interested, https://www.winespectator.com/glossary/index/word/batonnage.

Summer is officially here at Seven Birches Winery! Mark received a call from Pierson’s Farm in Bradford VT saying that this year’s strawberries were ready to be picked, and they are tasty! Mark picked up the first half of the strawberries, 810 pounds, on Wednesday 6/23. Those strawberries have been added to an empty tank and the yeast of our choosing has been added to start fermentation on this year’s 2021 Strawberry wine! Come grab a bottle of our 2020 Strawberry vintage, while supplies last, to save and compare it to the 2021 vintage… if you have the willpower to save it for that long.

The Vineyard is growing strong and healthy. As of now our Brianna vines  have the largest grapes, about pea sized already! We are extremely happy with how the Vineyard is looking this year. When you’re up visiting, make sure to take a walk through the vineyard; once the majority of yearlings that we planted this year (far the left side of the Vineyard) reach above the blue grow tubes, they will be strong enough for us to remove those tubes.

Finally, I would like to introduce the newest member of the production staff, Brittney Smith. She is a transplant coming from Tennessee, but has been with us in the Live Free or Die state going on six years now. As of now she will be just helping out one day a week giving a much-needed extra set of hands and a sharp mind. If you spot her while you’re up make sure to say hello!