Club Newsletter July 2026

Hello to our wine club family and happy summer! We’ve had a cold long spring, but we’ve gotten through it and now summer is finally and truly here. Once the snow melts and the mountains close we are all about looking towards and celebrating the perfectly hot summer days and coolish nights that are perfect for sitting around a campfire. Our summers might be short up here, but we sure know how to get the most out of it. Whether it be hiking up one of our 48 high peaks, finding a new river spot, getting out with one’s irons, or getting on any one of our pristine mountain fed lakes. Summer here is whatever you want to make it into and boy do we know how to squeeze every last drop out of these months. Past the weather outside or the date on the calendar there are two events that signal it’s summer here at Seven Birches. The first thing is STRAWBERRIES! The second is a full canopy and fruit set in the vineyard. Our strawberry harvest came in right at the end of June. All of our strawberries came from just over the Vermont border from Pierson’s Farm. Even though this strawberry patch is in Vermont we get our strawberries from them for a few reasons. First Pierson’s Farm is one of the closest strawberry patches to Seven Birches geographically that can supply us with the amount of strawberries needed to make this wine. The second reason is that they just grow phenomenal strawberries. I have never been disappointed by a harvest from this farm. There are few things more exciting to a winemaker than getting an amazing harvest into the cellar. Not going to lie, I get a little giddy. The fruit source for our Strawberry wine is 100% strawberries. No grapes are ever added to this wine. Right around when the current year’s strawberries are ready for pick up is when we release the previous year’s strawberry wine. From what I have been hearing, the 2025 Strawberry wine might be one of the best vintages to date. If strawberry wine is your thing make sure to get up here, or order it online, before it’s all gone. (It usually doesn’t last the summer). The other identifier for us that summer is officially here is the vineyard. Right around this time of year the canopy has filled in and the vineyard looks full and lush. This is obviously extremely important, but when the fruit finally sets is when I know we are in the midst of the true summer weather. The stages of the new growth start with budburst. Budburst is just what it sounds like. The little buds on the vine start to swell and then burst open with the first leaves of the year. Then those little leaves that break out turn into shoots, or new vine growth. We consider the vine at the second stage of growth once these shoots are 10cm or about 4 inches. The third stage is flowering. These little white flowers pop out on what looks like a tiny, tiny little cluster of pin head size grapes. These flowers are then pollinated and the little flower stems all fall off signalling the third stage is complete. Finally, the fourth stage is the Fruit set. The fruit set is where the fertilized flowers turn into little berries. The fourth stage is followed relatively quickly by the fifth stage which is pea size grapes. The signal for summer is when the vine is right in between the fourth and fifth stages. We have a few other things that Gage and I are working on, but I’ll give you updates on those a little later in the summer. I hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July and are able to get up here sooner rather than later to enjoy this phenomenal summer weather we have been having so far. We’ll see you soon and I’ll make sure to raise a glass to you all in cheers for summer and wine; a combination that will never go out of style.