The Wine Collective’s locally made, artisan crafted vermouth, Vermú Rosé, now available in parts of the U.S.
Baltimore, Feb. 23, 2021 – A beverage long steeped in social tradition and history, the renaissance of consuming vermouth has been rising for the past several years. While makers in the UK, Spain and Italy have stepped up their production, the U.S. has slowly caught on. With today’s official launch of Vermú Rosé, Baltimore-based winemakers, The Wine Collective, is one of the few dozen in America to manufacture a craft vermouth. Available to adults ages 21+ through online orders (https://winecollective.vin/
Vermú Rosé is crafted in small batches from the grapes of its local vineyards. Grape spirit is distilled from their wine and then made into tinctures by macerating with herbs, flowers, fruits and natural botanicals to achieve the perfect balance and complexity including cinchona bark, Spanish oranges, chamomile, wormwood, gentian root, juniper berries, clove, and star anise. The elaboration of Vermú Rose follows practices of care and sustainability. Using only ingredients from the earth, and nothing artificial added, Vermú Rose is made from grapes carefully grown in Maryland and with minimal intervention and minimal added sulfites. It contains half the amount of sugar than commercial vermouths and amaros, which have between 130 and 160 grams per liter. And unlike most wine, Vermú Rose is completely vegan, and contains 16.5% ALC.
“Vermouth is a potion of sorts. It is an aperitif wine, a fortified and aromatized wine, not a spirit. But most importantly, it is the summit of the bounty of nature. Vermouth—as people in Turin, Madrid and Barcelona know so well—is not just a drink. It is something you do, a way of life. This is why we created Vermú Rosé,” said Enrique Pallares, The Wine Collective’s Managing Partner and General Director. “Vermú is an old drink for a new generation. While we used traditional methods of manufacturing, our recipe is unique, and the end result is young, and approachable. Vermouth is an aperitif for anytime since it’s not high in alcohol. I think Americans are reaching a point where they look forward to tasting, not just consuming, alcohol. Drinking is about the appreciation of taste, and craft, and enjoyment. Decades ago, vermouth may have been that bizzare bottle that sits in the liquor cabinet deteriorating for years, but today it captures a way of life, enlivens our taste buds, and provokes our imaginations.”
Vermú Rosé joins a robust product line from The Wine Collective, including a long line of whites from Grüner Veltliner to Viognier, bright and crisp Rosés, and beautiful reds like the 2019 Nomad.
About The Wine Collective:
Inspired by both the ancient tradition of viticultural collaboration and by the daring innovation of modern garagistes, we are a group of makers with an insatiable obsession for quality and sustainability, gathering under one roof in a warehouse in Baltimore City to make and enjoy exceptional wine and food. Our two founders, John Levenberg and Enrique Pallares, were united by an almost quixotic quest for quality. Over long hours of conversation under the quiet skies of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, John, Enrique and their families ate, drank wine together, and began crafting an ideal winery in speech, a place where wine and food of the absolute highest quality was made together with others, where collaboration was at the center of excellence, where the veil could be lifted and people could be invited in to drink wine and eat food in the winery, seeing and learning the process of this amazing craft.
They dreamed up a place where truly excellent things could be made and enjoyed with quality and community at its center. The Wine Collective is the result of those conversations. Our winery’s “tasting room” (more like a warehouse than a “room”) is also a Pintxo Bar and Vermutería conceived and run by the Pallares brothers. Enrique and Felipe grew up in Ecuador. They spent their teenage years and early twenties traveling the world as professional polo players, living in Argentina, Spain, California and many other places before they settled on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where they started Casa Carmen, a boutique winery producing small lot craft wines. Learn more at www.winecollective.vin and connect on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/
