Lantern Wine is a project we've been hard at work on for over two years. It is inspired by our approach to brewing farmhouse ales, we harvest, process, and blend our wine in our wild fermentation facility. All of our grapes are sourced from vineyards in New York, and all of our wines are naturally fermented. Some spend time in oak, some are bottled fresh, and all are meant to reflect the same bright, delicate, and exciting flavors we love in our farmhouse beer.

We are thrilled to share the first sparkling fruits of those labors: 3 delightful blends from our 2022 Lantern Wine project.

We took our first trip out to the Finger Lakes in October of 2021, to harvest grapes from our friend’s vineyard on the northwest shore of Seneca Lake. We spent all morning clipping plump Seyval Blanc bunches from the vines. It was hot, our hands were sticky with grape juice, bees were everywhere. We had a cooler full of cold Feel No Way cans. It was amazing.

When we got those two tons of grapes back to our brewery, we crushed and destemmed them, and let them ferment for a week or so before pressing them off to freshly emptied barrels. These barrels have their own legacy: once full of one wine or another, from California Chardonnay to Italian Cianti, they came to us years ago as neutral oak, and have since been the home of our beloved Valley Beer and all the lovely microbes that are part of it. It felt special to be pulling out finished Valley Beer, after nearly 2 years maturing, and to be filling those same barrels with a beautiful, high-acid white wine bursting with grapefruit and pear. It was a turning point in our life as a brewery; these were our first real steps as winemakers.

We’re also taking our time with it. Most of those projects will go into bottles this year, and while new harvests of grapes come in, we are looking forward to the exciting ways we can work in, what feels like to us, a unique position between beer, cider, wine, and whatever else we can think up. But for now, we are thrilled to share the first sparkling fruits of those labors: 3 delightful blends from our 2022 Lantern Wine project.