Boston Flora

Tag: Wine

  • Saturday, November 11, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm – Establishing a Vineyard in Your Backyard

    This Berkshire Botanical Garden class with author J. Stephen Casscles on November 11 from 10 – 12 will cover how to establish and maintain a backyard vineyard. Topics covered include: identifying suitable fruit growing land or modifying your current backyard to grow grapes; how to layout and plant a home vineyard; selecting suitable grape varieties, including heritage grape varieties; trellising and training options; how to prune vines; and how to annually maintain a vineyard to produce bountiful amounts of grapes for wine, juice, or fresh consumption. Visit https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/establish-vineyard-your-backyard where you can also register. $25 for BBG members, $40 for nonmembers. At the end of our class, copies of his book Grapes of the Hudson Valley and Other Cool Climate Regions of the US and Canada, will be available for sale with the author’s signature.

  • Saturday, October 12, 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm – Cultivating Grapes for Eating, Wine, and Juice

    Come to Tower Hill Botanic Garden on October 12 at 1:30 pm and learn about selecting and cultivating grape varieties which thrive in Massachusetts and the rest of New England, for fresh grapes, juice, or wine. The talk will cover how to select the perfect site for your vineyard, whether on a farm, suburban home, or village/city lot, as well as how to plant, prune, and manage your new vineyard, and how to harvest your grapes. The grape varieties covered will include disease resistant and cold hardy varieties, including 19th century heirloom varieties that were developed in New England, such as Agawam, Salem, and Massasoit and in the Hudson Valley, such as Jefferson, Empire State, and Bacchus, and varieties developed in France and other parts of the United States. Wines will be poured to during the class to highlight the kinds of wines that you will be able to make from these grapes.

    Must be 21 years or older. Tower Hill member price $30, nonmembers $44. Register at www.towerhillbg.org

    J. Stephen Casscles is an accomplished author, grape grower, winemaker, horticultural historian, and lawyer. Stephen has been a winemaker at the Hudson-Chatham Winery, in the Hudson Valley for the past 10 years, but has been making wines from grapes, apples, and other fruits for the past 40 years. In addition, he has a 12 acre fruit farm, Cedar Cliff, in Athens, NY. At Cedar Cliff, he grows over 75 different grape varieties which he evaluates for their prowess in the field and potential to make quality wines. For the past 15 years, Mr. Casscles has been concentrating on growing and evaluating 19th century Heirloom grape varieties that were developed in the Hudson Valley and on Cape Ann and Boston’s North Shore. As an author, Stephen wrote Grapes of the Hudson Valley, which includes chapters on how to make and bottle wines. Further, he writes wine and grape growing articles for regional and national horticultural and wine industry journals. His research and interest has recently expanded to include the study of grape culture and winemaking activities in Korea.

  • Friday, May 12, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Trillium and Wine

    Drink wine while listening to live music on a beautiful spring evening in the Garden in the Woods, Hemenway Street in Framingham, on Friday May 12 from 6 – 8. Stroll the Garden after hours during Trillium Week and enjoy the largest collection of trilliums north of Delaware during their peak flowering time. Wine will be available for purchase from Hardwick Winery. All guests must be at least 21 years old and proper identification is required. $8 for NEWFS members, $10 for nonmembers. Register online at http://www.newfs.org/learn/our-programs/trillium-and-wine

  • Monday, April 14, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Extreme Fermented Beverages

    Call 617-384-5277 and join the wait list for the Arnold Arboretum’s Director’s Lecture Series April 14 offering, Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Extreme Fermented Beverages, presented by Patrick E. McGovern, PhD, Scientific Director, Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum.  The presentation begins at 7 at the Weld Hill building at the Arboretum.
    Fermented beverages have probably been with the human race from its beginning in Africa. Following a tantalizing trail of archaeological, chemical, artistic, and textual clues, Patrick E. McGovern, the leading authority on ancient alcoholic beverages, will describe how enterprising our ancestors were in concocting a host of beverages from a vast array of natural products (honey, grape, barley, rice, sorghum, chocolate). As humans spread around the planet, this had profound effects on our cultural and biological development. Some of these beverages, including the earliest alcoholic beverage from China (Chateau Jiahu), the mixed drink served at the King Midas funerary feast (Midas Touch), and the chocolate beverage (Theobroma), have been re-created by Dogfish Head Brewery, shedding light on how our ancestors made them and providing a taste sensation and a means for us to travel back in time. The talk will be followed by a tasting of ancient beers recreated by Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales. Participants in the tasting must be 21 or older.  $10 Arboretum member, $20 nonmember

    Read about an ancient Nordic grog, McGovern’s latest beverage discovery, and it re-creation. Fermented beverages have probably been with the human race from its beginning in Africa. Following a tantalizing trail of archaeological, chemical, artistic, and textual clues, Patrick E. McGovern, the leading authority on ancient alcoholic beverages, will describe how enterprising our ancestors were in concocting a host of beverages from a vast array of natural products (honey, grape, barley, rice, sorghum, chocolate). As humans spread around the planet, this had profound effects on our cultural and biological development. Some of these beverages, including the earliest alcoholic beverage from China (Chateau Jiahu), the mixed drink served at the King Midas funerary feast (Midas Touch), and the chocolate beverage (Theobroma), have been re-created by Dogfish Head Brewery, shedding light on how our ancestors made them and providing a taste sensation and a means for us to travel back in time. The talk will be followed by a tasting of ancient beers recreated by Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales. Participants in the tasting must be 21 or older.
    $10 member, $20 nonmember

    Read about an ancient Nordic grog, McGovern’s latest beverage discovery, and its re-creation, at http://www.penn.museum/press-releases/1031-patrick-mcgovern-nordic-grog.html.

    http://www.dogfish.com/files/imagecache/billboard-default/billboard/26/images/AAbanner3.png

  • Saturday, January 26, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm – Massachusetts Farm Wineries Day

    The fourth season of the Wayland Winter Farmers’ Market has begun! The Market runs weekly on Saturdays from 10 AM to 2 PM through March 9 at Russell’s Garden Center, 397 Boston Post Road (Route 20), Wayland. Over 40 food vendors attend weekly, bringing fresh vegetables, cheese, meat, maple products, honey, eggs, fish, jam, pickles, pasta and other specialty foods. Come enjoy truly gourmet breakfast and lunch, while sitting in a lush, warm greenhouse.

    On Saturday January 26, we will have our 3rd Annual Massachusetts Farm Wineries Day from 10 AM to 2 PM. Legislation passed in August 2010 allows both tasting and sales (by the bottle) of wine produced from farm wineries within our state at farmers’ markets and other agricultural events. We are delighted to have nine Massachusetts farm wineries celebrate this event with us:

    Alfalfa Farm Winery (Topsfield)

    Coastal Vineyards (S.Dartmouth)

    Green River Ambrosia Meadery (Greenfield)

    Mill River Winery (Rowley)

    Obadiah McIntyre Farm Winery (Charlton)

    Running Brook Vineyards & Winery (N.Dartmouth)

    Still River Winery (Harvard)

    Turtle Creek Winery (Lincoln)

    Westport Rivers Winery (Westport)

    If you have questions please contact Peg Mallett: mallettpeg@gmail.com or call (508)358-2283 ext.336.

  • Monday, November 14, 4:30 pm – Wine: A Matter of Life and Death

    On Monday, November 14, beginning at 4:30 pm at the Wellesley College Botanic Garden, John Varriano will examine two aspects of the cultural history of wine – its central role in theories of medicine from ancient Greece to the present and its changing meaning over the ages in art and meditations on the afterlife. Recently retired from the faculty of Mount Holyoke College where he taught courses in European art and architecture since 1970, John Varriano’s special interest is the art and architecture of seventeenth century Rome. He is also the author of over three dozen specialized studies in his field including several books, the most recent being Wine: A Cultural History.  This is a free program, and you may call 781-283-3094 for more details.