Winery and Vineyard

The name of the vineyard I went called Brotherhood winery and vineyard is located in 100 Brotherhood Plaza Drive Washingtonville, NY 10992. This vineyard is located within an AVA. Brotherhood, America’s Oldest Winery have been open since 1839, so it has a rich historical past with the modern day present.

What can you find in the Brotherhood winery? In the winery, there are several parts that you can visit. They have a museum & cellar(that you can join the tour to visit their historical history), the Vinum Cafe, the wine garden, and varietals vineyard. In their wine garden, they are selling variety wines of their own brand. Most of their 750ml bottle wine cost around 12 to 20 dollars. The wine they sell included sparking, white, red, traditional and dessert wine. In sparkling wines, the grapes they use included Grand Monarque, Blanc de Blancs, Carpe Diem Spumante. The white wine grapes have Chardonnay, dry Riesling, White Zinfandel, and Riesling. The red grapes included Pinot Noir, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. At the end of the wine garden, they also have a wine tasting and tour registration. The tour and tasting with glass will be 10 dollars. If only doing one, that will be 7 dollars. The tours will be available several time a day and tours takes about 35-40 minutes.

When I went to the Brotherhood winery, it was during mid-November and the weather was very cold that day. I was kind of disappointed about what I saw there because when I first get inside their gate, I expect to see a large area of the vineyard, but nothing was over there. After I join the tour, I understand why there is no grape at all. Back into the years ago, they did have a huge area of land for planting the grapes. But now, they had sold off most of the vineyard and only a small piece of land left.

During the tour, I got to visit their museum & cellar, that you can “… get a glimpse into brotherhood’s legendary history, wine winemaking techniques and barrel aging methods.” When we first got into the underground museum, 6 -7 posters are on the wall and is about their history since 1839 to now. After we walking deeper in, we saw some huge barrels and a lot of small barrels. The large barrels are not used anymore, only the small one are still using. Some barrels with the CS161117, ME160618, RPort0517, and PN170118 on it. The letters mean the name of the grape; CS(cabernet sauvignon) and the letters mean the data. Also, there is a room that has a thousand bottles of champagne aging in bottle. I learned from the tour guide, all of the champagne is ferment in the bottle. some champagne is sitting in the riddling rad, those bottles will turn twice a day with ⅛ turn and tap on the back and that goes on two weeks. Then they will put that champagne with a cap on it and put in the solution of dry ice, so only freeze the bottom bottle. Take out the cap and there is about an inch of sediment, take it out and put more champagne. Cork and wash the bottle. That is how their way of making the champagne.