Vervino Vermouth Variation #1

VerVino Vermouth is a fortified, aromatized wine. Inspired by the long history of vermouth and aromatized wines and wanting to make local, seasonal examples we fortified our wine with neutral grape brandy and macerated twenty to forty different aromatic local botanicals in the wine, then sweetened it slightly with local honey. All of the botanicals were grown or foraged by us or our farmer friends all within a few miles from the winery. Marilee Foster, Eileen Roaman and Dave Falkowski played important roles as did Mary Woltz whose Bees’ Needs honey, which come from the same farms as the plants, was used. We made five different variations, a white VerVino with Spring botanicals, a white and a red with early Summer botanicals and a white a red with late Summer botanicals. These VerVino vermouths are a reflection of our place through wine as well as other edible aromatic plants. It is amazing to see the other farmers we worked with have an opportunity to taste their work from a glass long after the harvest is over! For Variation 1 we fortified sauvignon blanc wine with neutral grape brandy (to 17.8% alcohol) and macerated thirty different aromatic botanicals in the wine, then sweetened it slightly with the local honey. This dry vermouth (residual sugar is 4.16 grams per liter) is a reflection of our place through wine as well as other edible aromatic plants. We encourage you to drink this wonderful elixir many ways but suggest you start by first tasting and smelling it on its own at cellar temp. Then move on to chilled VerVino…over ice…maybe a spritz…or some juice. Go wild and make a martini or some manhattans…next create your own VerVino cocktails! We have found we love it (and it goes dangerously fast) when we fill glasses with crushed ice, pour over with VerVino and top with a bit of lemonade and garnish with some mint or maybe lemon balm…oh boy! We have tasted a few folks on our wonderful concoction and honestly have been stunned by the reactions. This really is supremely aromatic, tasty and inspiring stuff. This is an example of a response emailed by a friend: “We drank the VerVino last night. It was so enjoyable and so complicated; I'm still trying to figure out what feedback to share. We finished nearly half the bottle. First straight up, then on the rocks, then with soda and gin. (Seriously.) I kept having images of fairies and other woodland creatures drinking this ambrosia.” You may by now be asking what the botanicals are that we and our friends grew, harvested and aromatized the wine with. There is a long history of keeping these recipes proprietary which is intriguing and somewhat fun. But we like you to have a window inside and thus the label is an actual photograph of the plants steeping in the wine. You don’t see everything but a quite a bit can be discerned…calendula, fennel, sage, nasturtium, lemon balm, rose, basil, spiked za’tar, and much, much more. We believe VerVino is a unique expression of our terroir and joins a long history, thousands of years really, of people fortifying and adding special plants to wine. Not only is VerVino a local vermouth but a seasonal one as well. This was made with spring botanicals and is labeled Variation One Spring 2013.