About Catherine Hill Winery
It was a dreary downeast day in November of 2010. Almost by accident we stumbled upon an abandoned , weathered farmstead. Seemingly forgotten by time, and in serious need of intervention, this deserted, neglected place whispered to us. The barn in particular, held fast by post and beam and peg, seemed a fine space in which to launch our small winery. Paired with a local ghostly legend, we had the impetus for creating Catherine Hill Winery. The project was set in motion, and following a thorough conversion of the barn to wine making facility, we crushed our first grapes in this new world. We opened with six wines in the spring 2012, and are extremely proud to currently offer more than 15 uniquely crafted wines.
About Our Wines
All of our wines are made onsite here in Cherryfield, from scratch by us.
Small batch premium wines of in lots of 10 - 40+ cases. That's what we do. Lovingly crafted. It's how we do it. The grapes we use are sourced from small, independent vineyards in some of the most desirable AVAs anywhere. Tenbrink, Koch, Lanza-Musto, Knight Hill, Two Mountain, Konnowac and Randall Standish are just some of the growers we work with. Our own vines, grown using organic practices, produced their first viable crop in 2014. The fruit for our berry wines is sourced locally from Hancock and Washington county growers and suppliers.
Daily punchdowns, gentle pressing, barrel aging and attention to detail are but some of the hand crafting techniques we employ in making our wines. From grape to must, must to wine, and wine to bottle, we claim responsibility for the wine in your
Every winemaker has his or her own philosophy, defining their style and approach to creating wine. Our non industrial method of winemaking blends traditional, artisinal hand crafting methods with currently recognized best practices in an attempt to extract the true character of the fruit we work with, capture that elusive essence, and ensure its stability once bottled so that the wine can age gracefully. Our intention is to create irresistible wines that delight each of the senses.
At Catherine Hill Winery, no enzymes, adjuncts, additives, color enhancers or artificial ingredients are used to produce our wines. Acidity adjustments are accomplished through natural cold stabilization, malolactic fermentation and blending. Our grape wine "ingredients" include only grapes, yeast, yeast nutrients for healthy, successful fermentation, and when desired, malolactic cultures. No animal or shellfish based fining products are used on our wines. All of our Red wines are unfiltered, unfined, and enjoy minimum aging of 16 months using a combination of American, Hungarian and/or French Oak Barrels. We don't use oak cubes, chips or dust. White wines are naturally cold stabilized during the long Maine winter. Our berry wines are made using whole berries, yeast and yeast nutrients, pure cane sugar and water. Our white grape and berry wines may be fined with Bentonite Clay, and filtered for stability and clarity. Please note that Sweet wines do require sterile filtering and a stabilizer to prevent unintended, renewed fermentation in the bottle. If you stop for a moment to consider that wine may be expected to store for many years , high quality Potassium Metabisulfite, better known as "sulfites", is added at bottling to preserve freshness, measured onsite and in our own lab, to 30 parts per million (ppm) or less. Our wines are Vegan and Gluten Free. Experience the difference of Catherine Hill wines. Cheers!
