Vintage 2022 (First Release): 

This is the first time we have made this wine. It is an sparkling orange pet nat made from the Brianna grape grown in our home vineyard in Derry, NH.

 

This growing season was the best so far. It was extremely dry and sunny. Most of August was very warm.

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We still have not sprayed these grapes with any sort of chemicals. The vineyard workers had been actively removing leaves to allow the sun to hit the berries and dry them out. While this is a lot of manual work (and associated costs), the results speak for themselves.

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We harvested 2.1 tons of Brianna grapes on a cool morning of September 3rd, 2022.  We had a medium size harvest crew, large clusters, and got harvest complete just after lunch. 

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Due to supply chain issues (again), we did not get dry ice to cool the grapes. We found out only a few days before harvest. Mother nature cooperated after a very warm September afternoon with a cool night that let the grapes rest before crushing.

 

We crushed the most golden clusters for this wine. The next two days were cool and drizzly. Fermentation started spontaneously and fermented quickly on the skins - at the same rate of the other Brianna wines with commercial yeast. 

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Our Brianna is grown without the use of pesticides and only in our vineyards surrounding #thecrushpad in Derry.

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We bottled this wine in sparkling wine bottles on September 16th, 2022. We released the wine to our wine club members on October 8th, 2022 and to the general public on October 14th, 2022.

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- Mike Appolo