Open: Year-Round

Hello, my name is Brian Smith and I am the winemaker at Oyster River Winegrowers.  I have a traditional education in winemaking from Fresno State University, but I use that knowledge base to make distinct wines in ways that may have been common in pre-industrial times.  I believe my role in the winemaking process to be more nature's assistant than winemaker.  Our winery is very low tech.  We use no refrigeration in our winemaking process and our winery is just very gently heated through the winter with wood harvested from our farm.  Most of our fermentations start spontaneously with native yeasts that occur on the fruit and in the cellar, and play out over the course of several months. 

We add nothing and take nothing away from the natural chemistry of the fruit.  No acidulation, deacidification, chaptalization, amelioration, tannins, enzymes, or yeast nutrients are used.  All of our Ciders and our Sparkling Wines are bottled without the addition of any sulfites and are not filtered.  Our still wines are minimally  sulfited and filtered gently where necessary.  Our farm supplies the fruit for "Panacea", our homegrown traditional method sparkling wine, and a good portion of our Cider.  In addition to these products I enjoy making wines with grapes from other regions that inspire me.