Our Story
Bill Meserve and Bob Elliott
We started out with 28 vines in 2011 and grew that into a 2,400 vine vineyard and winery located in Newfields, New Hampshire.
Our mission is to provide the seacoast region with the highest quality, handcrafted, local wines; while using sustainable farming methods, maintaining open space along the pristine riverfront, and providing educational opportunities for those interested in preserving this ancient craft.
We offer unique local wines that are handcrafted from our vines, using environmentally friendly and minimally invasive techniques both in the vineyard and winery. Our wines are vegan because we do not use any fining agents, often made from animal protein, and our grapes are hand-picked and sorted so that we are able to use minimal sulfites.
The vineyard sits on 12 acres of lush, green fields alongside the protected shores of the Squamscott River - a tidal river that flows into Great Bay in the Seacoast Region of coastal New Hampshire, and where many forms of wildlife live in the salt marshes that hug the shoreline.
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When we first hatched the idea to start the business, we made a choice to produce wine from “estate” vines grown in our vineyard, to be able to offer the highest quality wines. Some wineries rely on purchasing grape juice or importing grapes for their wine production. That is a good option when you want to get into the business fast and be able to generate cash flow in the first year of operation. Choosing quality over speed, has allowed us to invest our resources into creating a sustainable vineyard that gives us control over the source of grape supply – a key ingredient in the wine business.
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When we say our memorable wines are handcrafted we mean that they were hand-pruned, hand-picked, hand-harvested, and hand-sorted; before we crushed and pressed the grapes and began the fermentation process. All of our wines are the product of our sustainable farming, with an emphasis on minimal intervention in our farming and wine making processes.
There is a story to be told in every bottle of our wine. When you open the bottle, you are releasing the story that made the wine unique. Every bottle of our wine tells a story of nature and nurture shaping what will become the wine that you will share with friends and family. Nature, in particular the specific terroir – i.e. the microclimate, geography, surrounding plant life, soils, and ancient, coastal riverbed - give the wine its signature sense of place. Nurture – how the vigneron and vintner’s philosophies, history, love of agriculture, and connection to nature orchestrates the transformation from grape to wine.
Our wines are made to convey both where and how they were “grown”. We believe that the wine making begins in the vineyard and ends when the fermentation process is complete. We don’t want to force the wine to be something that it is not. Our wines speak to the unique place where they were “grown”. We have learned that our vineyard is an ideal place to “grow” wine – it is a place that has been farmed for over a century in modern times, and for thousands of years by the Native Americans that called the Squamscott River home. When you taste our wines, you will taste the place where they were created. You will taste the minerality that gives the wine its distinctive character. We don’t subscribe to the common practice of “manipulated winemaking” - what we do subscribe to is highlighting the purity of place – or terroir as the French say.
The story in the bottle changes from year to year - revealing what took place in the vineyard, in the winery, and as the wine aged slowly and gracefully. Every bottle has a “fingerprint”, an authenticity that reveals the journey from vine to vat. Every bottle has a complexity that unfolds with time, and every bottle contains a mystery to be uncovered as it breathes - from the moment you open it.
We hope that you will enjoy these special wines, and value the story waiting to be told in every bottle.