The winery and vineyard that I visited with my fellow classmate Gabriel Harris is Brotherhood Winery in Washingtonville, New York. Upon arriving to the vineyard and passing the gates we were greeted by a row of grape vines near the parking lot. The were dormenting still so there weren’t any grapes growing just yet. The employees were very welcoming and the tour group was very intimate; about 10 people. The tour guide mostly spoke about he history of the location and the original owners who are from Chile. The tour guide explained that their style of producing wine comes from there and it is also used in their other Vineyards in California.
Before going under ground to the cellar, he points out to the bottling factory where all of their wine are being processed and bottled. Across from that building there is a small patch of land with about 8 rows of vines that are used for experimental purposes. Their actual Vineyard is actually 2 hours north of their current location and they have about 40 acres.
In the cellar we were greeted by old corkers and champagne corkers from the late 1800’s. Further in, we ended up into a different rooms where they had huge wooden barrels where the fermentation process took place. Another room that was for aging had had hundreds or barrels marked with Merlot and Pinot Nior that have been down there since 2007. One thing I noticed was that the air was humid compared the dry air outside.
When it was time for the ine tasting were were able to taste 6 wines, but there was a choice of 12 wines to choose from half were dry and the others were fruity and sweet. My favorite wine that i was able to try and also purchase after was the Carpe Diem. Its a traditonal method sparkling wine. The grape variety is a Moscato Spumante. Over all I had an amazing time on the tour and being able to see and feel the tools that are used to create these wines helped with my study on wines.
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