AKA - How to make wine from everything besides grapes!
It seems to me that what we have called wine and revered as wine and created certifications and diplomas about, is not actually wine. It’s one perspective on one kind of wine from one region of the planet. And I think the first step, the lowest hanging fruit if you will, to having an authentic local wine culture is simply using local ingredients. Put another way, culture grows out of the earth. If it is imported and forced onto the land, it is neither sustainable nor is it culture. Do we even know what American wine, or Australian wine, or Chilean wine actually tastes like? Or do we only know what French wine tastes like when you make it in various places around the planet?
My guests for this episode are the gentlemen of Hermit Woods Winery in New Hampshire: Ken Hardcastle, Chuck Lawrence, and Bob Manley. They have an incredible story of asking these questions and beginning a journey of discovering and creating their local wine culture. These guys are exploring unexplored territory in wine, and they have a lot of knowledge to share about what they are finding.
The wines of Hermit Woods Winery are well-aged, dry, textured, complex, with great mouthfeel and nuanced aromas, but they aren’t made from grapes. They’re made from blends of things like quince, day lily, kiwiberry, black raspberry, honey, and rhubarb, and many other fruits and plants, herbs, flowers, and spices that thrive in New Hampshire. They make about 35 different wines, at least, every year, and they have been at this for over 15 years. They started by asking “Does it have to be a grape?” and I think they’ve answered that question with an emphatic “Absolutely not.”
We cover their philosophy and their unique approach to winemaking, and this conversation has an inordinate amount of practical and helpful ideas for anyone who might want to consider joining this local wine movement. These guys are an incredible resource, whether for technical advice on navigating the particular challenges of fermenting things like tomatoes and how long you need to wait before Japanese knotweed wine stops smelling like baby wipes, or for how to reconstruct a metaphoric grape.
Though this should be obvious, I think it’s very important to point out that the diversity of ingredients that Hermit Woods uses supports, honors, and generates more biodiversity and more diversity of wines. There are many practical advantages to not relying on a single variety of fruit for your entire production, and in the bigger picture it also leads to a healthier, more resilient, and more beautiful wine culture. These three friends are changing the world of wine as we know it, and they seem to be having a lot of fun doing it.
https://hermitwoods.com/
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Sponsors:
Centralas Wine
Eric Shatt - Redbyrd Orchard Cider & Cosmic Connections
Brian McClintic - Rethinking Wine, Letting Nature Lead
Drew Herman - Microbial Democracy for a Healthy Vineyard & World
Michael Juergens - Developing Bhutan’s First Ever Wine
Tim Graham - Local & Wild Fruit with Left Bank Ciders
Greg La Follette - How Wine Is Made In The Vineyard
Brady Shepherd - Mortgage Banker for Vineyard Real Estate
Bardos Cider - Gleaning Fruit From Abandoned Orchards
Gabriela Fontanesi - Vineyard Worker & Force of Nature
Organic Sucks & Natural Wine Will Save The World
Jack Sporer - Fres.co Wine and Magnolia Wine Services
Darek Trowbridge - Old World Winery, Soil Carbon Management Co., & Pastoral Winemaking
Jerry Eisterhold & Jean-Louis Horvilleur - TerraVox, American Native Wine Grapes in Missouri
Ian Thorsen-McCarthy
Jason Kesselring - The Only Vitis Riparia Vineyard in the World
Martha Stoumen - How To Make Natural Wine
Stephen Hagen and Andrew Smith - Antiquum Farm & Grazing-Based Viticulture
Christopher Renfro - The Two Eighty Project
Is The Cost of Organic or Biodynamic Certification Worth It?
Martin Bernal-Hafner - Alta Orsa
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