By Monte Belmonte For the Valley Advocate   Western Mass. is known for a lot of things. Colleges. Asparagus. Apples. Lesbians. Basketball. But wine? Not as of yet. Beer? For sure. With stalwarts like Berkshire Brewing Company, The Northampton Brewery and The People’s Pint, alongside well-decorate d newcomers like Treehouse, western Mass. is solidly on the map when it comes to beer. But wine from the 413 is still very much up-and-coming. As a person who prides himself on celebrating all things local, and who does his best to shop local and eat local — and who also imbibes in a fair amount of wine — I face my own shame when it comes to how little local wine I drink. But perhaps the 19,000 vines planted across 18 acres in North Hatfield will broaden my horizon. I visited Black Birch Vineyard in North Hatfield on a blisteringly cold morning in January. It was a few days after a foot and a half of snow fell on their vine-trellised fields. With the winter sun still low on the horizon, scattering sunlight across the snow-covered vines, the drive up the long driveway to the tasting room felt magical. I met the dog, Yogi, and the cats, Pinot and Chardonnay before I met one of the Black Birch owners and vintners, Ian Modestow. The farmer-meets-mad-scientist was working on a natural process to remove tiny harmless crystals from their white wine when I arrived. While the frozen tundra of a vineyard looked beautiful on the drive in, I wondered what that much cold and snow does to the vines. Black Birch owners and vintners, Ian Modestow and Michelle Kersbergen.Monte Belmonte “Vines actually acclimatize well to cold weather. But they need to acclimatize,” Ian answered. “Our vines, when they’re getting ready for the winter, they actually lose water and develop a little anti-freeze. So, the colder it gets earlier in the season, the better the vines are prepared for real cold.” But with New England’s unpredictable weather, how cold is too cold? “If it gets below -10 we do get damage,” Ian said, “And that happened last year. We had two nights of -20.” And that cold created some major loss. “Typically we’ll pull four or five tons from our Cabernet Franc,” Ian said, “Last year in 2025 we pulled maybe 600 pounds.” Ian’s partner in life and libation, Michelle Kersbergen, entered the chat. “The tender varietals like Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot, Cab Franc, the cold is putting a lot of pressure on them as far as survivability,” she said. “But we do have some hybrids growing here.” These hybridized grapes were designed for survival in cold weather, specifically for cultivation in places like the Finger Lakes in New York. Some of the names of these grapes have started to become more well known, and thus more popular to consumers, like Traminette and Marquette. Michelle said “Those are sort of our insurance policy when those tender varietals can’t handle those temperatures.” The award-winning wines of Black Birch Vineyard in North Hatfield are created by hand in small, individually numbered batches that are available based on growing conditions.Monte Belmonte And Black Birch also gets creative with blending, so the 600 pounds of Cabernet Franc didn’t go to waste. “We’ll take those grapes and do a fun estate-blend, that we’ll barrel age,” Ian said. “Or we’ll make a young fresh Nouveau wine.” They’ve even created two specific labels for when the farming is less ideal and when the winemakers need to get creative. They call them “Grace” and “Redemption.” Those styles have become so popular their customers ask for them, even when they haven’t had as rough of a farming season. “Our goal is to be an estate grown winery,” Michelle said, “We’ve had some great years and we’ve had some not so great years.” One of the benefits of being a local estate-grown winery, versus being a winery from a better-known region, is they don’t have to suffer under the threat of ridiculous tariffs. And despite an overall dip in alcohol consumption across the board, Black Birch is still making it work. “People want local wine,” Ian said, “so we’ve been fortunate not to see the impacts that larger companies in California are seeing.” Plus, Black Birch keeps its production small. “We do on average about 4,000 cases a year,” Michelle said. “That’s not a lot. And our price point is not so extravagant that it’s unaffordable.” Having cultivated a dedicated local clientele helps to keep Black Birch in the black. Pinot the cat at Black Birch Vineyard.Monte Belmonte Wine is more than alcoholic grape juice. It’s a lifestyle. And Black Birch brings that to The Valley in spades. They have a beautiful tasting room, amidst the giant stainless-steel tanks where the wine is vinifying. They have a gallery of sorts, where the walls of the tasting room are adorned with local art. They have a book club. They have music. And, especially in the warmer weather, they have glorious outdoor concerts. Over the past few years, they’ve teamed up with the record label and concert promoters, Signature Sounds Recordings Co., to bring some top-notch performers to a farm in North Hatfield. Artists like Rachael and Vilray, Darlingside and Heather Maloney. “Living in The Valley here, in western Mass., is just like a focal point for such great things,” Michelle said, “And I feel like wine and our space can be a hub for that. That’s what we want it to be.” Wine is also more than lifestyle, it’s a time capsule. Each bottle is a message … in a bottle, from a year of farming. We’ve heard what can happen if a winter is too cold. But if a summer is too hot or too dry or too wet, it will all translate into a message from the vines. Black Birch has an appropriately dusty library of all of those messages. “You really have to ask about purchasing these bottles,” Ian said. “These are no longer for sale.” But occasionally Black Birch hosts what’s called a “vertical,” where you taste the same grape or style of wine from, say, 2017, 2018 and 2019, to taste how the message in those grapes and in those bottles has changed from year to year. Their library goes back as far as 2010, when Black Birch left Southampton and what is now Glendale Ridge Winery and focused on creating their estate grown wines in North Hatfield. Wine is a time capsule, and a lifestyle and alcoholic grape juice, but perhaps most importantly it is a farm product. And Ian and Michelle are farmers. They not only farm grapes, but they also have 25 acres of pasture with 40-50 sheep that they raise for meat and for wool — sheep who graze between the rows of vines and fertilize the fields with their feces. These farmers are our neighbors. And they work really hard to make a well-crafted and delicious crop. I only buy asparagus when it’s in season from our farmers in Hadley (and yes, sometimes in Deerfield). Why don’t I make the same commitment to the farmers of wine in North Hatfield? In a time where mutual aid, community support and neighbor-helping neighbor is becoming more important than ever, maybe I should. If I’m being honest, I’ll never give up my love of wines from France or Italy or Spain. But I’m ready to fall in love with a wine from North Hatfield, Massachusetts. USA. With the winter sun still low on the horizon, scattering sunlight across the snow-covered vines, the drive up the long driveway to the North Hatfield tasting room felt magical.Monte Belmonte ...read more read less