Viticole is closing!
Thanks to everyone who has been with us along this great adventure! The Viticole Wine Subscription includes grapes but extends to a diverse range of perennial beverages in fermented form. We’ve worked hand in hand with artisan growers from around the world, crafting special bottlings for our subscribers which showcase a shared ethos and commitment to nature-led winemaking practices.
2024 is our final year! To close, subscribers are receiving two shipments, 12 bottles in the Spring (April 2024) and 12 bottles in the Fall (November 2024). 2.0 members receive a double allocation, 3.0 receive triple, and so on.
Both collections contain a custom curation of classic grape wines from years past, not found anywhere in the marketplace, including rare collectibles from Brian's personal library, some of which today would retail well beyond the value of your subscription (think Hiyu, Ganevat, et al.)
Both collections are also sprinkled with delightful custom coferments, personally assembled by Brian and his winery partners, representing the heart of Viticole's present-day ethos, a land-centric vision that imagines wine (and the fields from which they are tended) beyond the grapevine.
Many of these library wines have only gained in value (some significantly) since their initial debut, and we’re more than thrilled to deliver them to your doorstep at the same monthly subscription price…
For tasting notes and drink-by dates, please consult the forthcoming member e-book “Selections from Viticole,” mailed out with the final Fall Collection. Thanks for being here!
Our Subscription
Viticole Wine Subscription ($99 per month): Our subscription represents ciders, meads, botanical infusions, sake and multi-fruit ferments, featuring grapes and whatever delicious comestibles present themselves (apples, pears, quince, rice, plums, etc).
You can expect to taste the rainbow: red wines, white wines, orange wines, blends of red and white and sparkling.
While the average retail price of our custom bottlings are $50, recognize that this is a holistic average with some cuvees falling below that price point, with others rising above. This gives us a touch more flexibility with the precious margins of our grower producers, which will inevitably help us deliver supreme value to you.
Upon gaining access, members are processed for two bottles monthly at the fixed rate of their respective journey. At the end of six months, when a full case is complete, your wines ship in the two most ideal weather months (Spring and late Fall). To learn more about our biannual shipments, click here.
Your monthly subscription allows us to do what we do, as the majority of our collaborative growers require the collateral of upfront payment for these special bottlings. So thank you in advance!
Why Wine Beyond Grape?
The case for wine as a perennial beverage is multi-fold. Here are my top five reasons:
1 Biodiversity
As plant diversity on a farm advocates for a thriving ecosystem, rich in life, so must our commitment in the supply chain be with the range of products we carry. In another words, if by voice, Viticole does not support monoculture, then by deed, we cannot be one either…
2 Reduced Impact
What’s true in a field, is often true in a glass (and vice versa). Fruit-bearing trees such as apples and pears are sturdier than grapevines. They require less spraying, can yield an impressive crop, and are more resistant to grape-specific ravages such as smoke taint. The proposition of working hands off in the cellar - ambient yeasts, no additives, no filtration, no sulfur - is a much more complicated path to stability with wine grapes alone. In cider/multi-fruit ferments, there is an uncommon resiliency to the elements that continues in bottle on its journey to your doorstep.
3 Nature-Led
To use the phrase ‘naturel-led’ with respect to an agricultural endeavor, much like using the word ‘natural’ in front of wine, requires that a metamorphosis be allowed to unfurl in how we relate to an ecosystem. The demand for (and regulation of) single variety wine incentivizes farmers to specialize and perhaps overlook the potential for a more befitting abundance of life to flourish on their property. Ironically, the genesis of wine in antiquity arose out of pharmacological intention, utilizing all aspects of indigenous flora in the winemaking process.
It is our belief that in order to bring polyculture back to the land, we must once again bring it back to the glass, so that crops like elderberries and blackberries and rose hips and wild herbs—native wilderness that would normally be eradicated from a cultivated space in favor of the ‘cash crop’—become assets utilized in fermentation. Welcoming medicinal flora to the landscape, in lieu of mistakenly dismissing such plants as ‘weeds’, creates opportunities for farmers to approach raw land more sensitively and, simultaneously, wine to transcend the spectrum of flavors and textures we narrowly cling to.
4 Enhancing the Food Chain
I can’t count how many orchards I’ve walked past in the Pacific Northwest; either abandoned or unharvested, as fruit just lays on the ground decaying. It is one of the least talked about pandemics that afflict our world. Supporting the cider & multi-fruit movement provides produce farmers another potential revenue stream (via collaboration with wineries/cideries) to supplement what would otherwise have been a flailing business.
It also incentivizes industrial farmers to make the transition away from chemical sprays. Our culture’s obsession with blemish-free fruit has led to highly extractive practices on land, but in fermentation, no consumer ever sees a scarred apple or misshapen plum. It is exactly this ‘waste fruit’ (much like an heirloom tomato) that is prized for its flavor and probiotic potential in wine and cider production.
5 True Terroir
I look forward to a day when the lines between that which is cultivated and that which belongs to the wild are blurred. There, multiple species of fruit-bearing perennials and edible plants co-habitate shoulder to shoulder, symbiotically, to enhance a broader ecosystem. Modern concepts of vineyard and orchard give way to a food forest, a place devoid of trellis wire and irrigation lines and plastic ties, and all the right angles that define the baseline commerical farm. A place where tenders of such landscapes become foragers in the palm of nature’s provision.
We hear the echoes of paradise lost in famous French vineyards: Genevrieres (juniper), Clos des Chênes (enclosure of oaks), Poissonets (land of fish). Griotte-Chambertin (sour cherries in Bertin’s field). Chatenieres (chestnut trees). Chenevery (hemp fields). Les Forêts (the forest). When this abundance returns, only then we can have a more complete conversation about terroir.
Why the Grace Period?
The Viticole Grace Period exists for no other reason but necessity. Because our model is unique, involving custom collaborations whose quantities are agreed upon, often years prior to their processing and shipment, the only way to prevent underselling or overselling a given bottling is to control wine subscription growth at a measured rate (i.e. let a fixed block of members in per month so as to accurately forecast quantity needs years in advance).
Cellar Standards
It is our belief that the life potential in a given agricultural space is the beating heart of a fermented beverage. Our goal is to safeguard and shepherd that lifeblood to bottle. This is how a wine pulses. This is how it vibrates with dynamism. Simply by being allowed to live and breathe, with nothing added or taken away.
As such, the artificial aspects that define viticulture and wine production are being walked back. With all Viticole bottlings, there are zero additives used in the cellar, except that which is fermenting and its ambient yeast. The result is an energetic expression unlike the vast majority of wines on a retail shelf.