Collection: Botanical Wines

Amaro, vini amari, vermouth, quinquina: aromatized wine has many names and faces. In deciding how to define ours, we settled on botanical wine. European genres speak to European traditions and stylistics. We have neither.

We are American Mid-Atlantic. Our wines are rooted in the plants that reflect this place. They needed a different name. Botanical wine fits the bill.
Botanical Wines

The first of our 2022 batch is now available.

See currently available wines

Previous Wines

For details on our previous batches (prior years' wines), feel free to explore the archive:

Previous Batches

The Lineage of Botanical Wines

From China, to the Mediterranean, to the Mid-Atlantic

We call our wines botanical wines. More commonly, they're known as aromatized wines: vermouth, vino amaro, and such. This style of winemaking has a long lineage. Our work adds a chapter to the story of these wines in the Mid-Atlantic.

Botanical Wine: An Origin Story

Botanical wine begins in Traditional Chinese Medicine, where herbs, roots, barks, flowers, and fruits were (and still are) infused into tinctures as medicine. Jump forward a few centuries, and this practice made its way to the Mediterranean by via the spice trade. Europeans of the era preferred to add these remedies to sweetened wine to make them more palatable. This sparked a litany of styles of vino amaro (literally "bitter wine"). Some widely persist today, including vermouth (a botanical wine that includes wormwood) and gentiane (a botanical wine that includes gentian).

Botanical Wine on the Bar

Aromatized wine saw a second resurgence in the late 1800s as "tonics" of all sorts become increasingly popular in both Europe and the Americas. You'll find botanical wine throughout early American cocktail culture. Think of of the classics: a Manhattan, a Martinez (and later Martini), and an Adonis — all use a botanical wine as a key ingredient.

A Broken Tradition, Mended

The zeitgeist of globalization over the last two centuries has led to most of these wines being made from botanicals spanning the globe, with little geographic specificity. This approach is not only unsustainable in the modern day, but lacks the intentionality and unique terroir that defines the early genre. Our work recenters botanical wine to a sense of place. Our wines focus on the plants and flavors of the Mid-Atlantic.

How We Make Our Wines


Available for Tasting at Farmers Markets & other Events

Visit us at farmers markets and special events to taste or purchase these wines.

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