Club News with Faith
Faith Cunningham, Wine Club Manager
Let the Fall festivities begin!
The leaves in the White Mountains are beginning to turn, so grab your favorite bottle of Seven Birches wine or Rhythm cider, take a hike, and enjoy the view!
Club Members, you may have seen our email blasts letting you know that you now have exclusive access to SIX wines!
- 2020 Apple Wine
- 2020 Ice Apple
- Eté (Peach Moscato)
- 2020 Oaked Chardonnay
- 2019 Merlot (2nd bottling)
- 2019 Sangiovese (2nd bottling)
Just head to our tasting rooms or shop online to take advantage of this offer……available ONLY to CLUB MEMBERS! Your 15% is automatically applied to your order.
Save the Date for our Fall Release Party!
NOV 5-7 2021
This Fall, in lieu of our CRUSH Festival, we invite Club Members to visit the winery the first weekend in November to celebrate our Fall Release Wines. Tickets are limited to 40 participants so first come, first serve. Tickets are $130.00 per person.
The intimate three day event will include:
- Friday Night Social
- Saturday will include a wine blending activity, experimental mead tasting, and the release party
- Sunday you may pick up your Fall Release wines.
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More details coming soon!
Tasting Room News with Brian & Katie
Tasting Room Managers in Training
The Riverwalk Tasting Room has hosted many friendly vacationing families this summer.
As the season winds down, we welcome our fall audience! Foliage followers from around the country flock to the White Mountains every year to admire the views. One of the best places to spend the day is from our veranda, with a glass of red in your hand and Loon Mountain’s warm hues in front of you. Who knows, maybe a warm treat might be waiting for you if it starts to get chilly.
Save the Dates!
Good Stuff Right Around the Corner
New releases available now!- Fall Harvest CRUSH Wednesday, September 22, 2021
- November 5-6th-Fall Release Party
Production News with Nate
Nate Maser, Assistant Winemaker
OnTuesday,9/14/21, we harvested the grapes produced on our very first “test” vineyard block. Brianna, LaCrescent, Marquette and Sabrevois grapes were picked off of these test vines and brought into the winery. A few weeks ago, we made the conscious decision not to install the bird netting as we wanted to know what bird activity in the vineyard would look like. Well, come to find out, the birds (and likely other small animals) love our grapes. They ended up taking nearly 75% of the crop that we had on the vines. So… needless to say, the harvest did not amount to much. We learned a great deal, and now know that next year we’ll need to get the nets out mid-August.
The good news is that on Tuesday, 9/21/21, we are expecting to take delivery of our 2021 Fall North American harvest. 16.4 tons of grapes and juice are on their way to NH to make up the 2021 Fall Vintage. The very next day, Wednesday, 9/22/21, we will process (or CRUSH) the fruit and prepare it for fermentation in the winery. The whole crush will take about 1 day to get through. Then, into the winery we go to get the next lots of wine going.
The 2021 Vintage will include the following grapes from California:
Cabernet Sauvignon- Merlot
- Tempranillo
- Syrah
- Pinot Noir (from Washingtong State)
- Sauvignon Blanc
- Pinot Grigio
- Chardonnay
From these grapes, we will make a few of our blends and other fanciful wines that you have all come to love. IF you happen to be in the area on Wednesday, 9/22, we welcome you to stop by and see how it all begins. Wish us luck!
Wine Tidbits:
What is the difference between Apple Wine and Hard Apple Cider?
Apples do not have enough natural sugar to make wine. So, if you ferment apple juice alone, you will get hard cider, which is in the 4-8% ABV range. In order to make wine, in the 12-16% ABV range, we have to chaptalize (add sugar) to the fermentation. As a winery, we are required to have our alcohol percentages in the 7% to 27% range. Apples on their own (without added sugar or some other process) will not get us to the required amount of alcohol. So, we add sugar, (usually cane sugar or honey) to get us to the desired potential alcohol. We can adjust how much alcohol by how much sugar is added. When we make wine, we allow the apple juice to ferement nearly dry. With cider, we start with less sugar, end with less alcohol, then carbonate the “apple cider wine” into a “hard cider” at 7% ABV.
From time to time, we will also put the juice through “cryoconcentration” which simply means freezing it, then thawing the juice, removing up to 50% of the water content, concentrating the sugars and getting more alcohol. Right now, you can actually taste all of these various apple wines by trying them in our tasting rooms. Hard Ciders, Apple Wine, Ice Apple Wine and even a Mulled Apple Wine are all favorites this time of year.
