Conjuring the wine spirits

In 2014, when local farmers/winemaking couple Berton and Carol Bertagna were looking to expand their Son-Kissed Vineyards operation to include brandy-making, they flew out to Kentucky in search of a still. While there, they got a call from employee/soon-to-be-distiller Connor Vaccaro, telling them he’d found one here—out in a field in Nord, northwest of Chico, covered in overgrowth but intact.

It turned out that the landowner, who lived on the East Coast, had purchased one of the copper Prulho-brand stills from French Cognac-maker Rémy Martin after it closed its Napa distillery in 2002—and then left it exposed to the elements until the Bertagnas called and arranged to purchase it.

Today, after a couple years of refurbishment, the polished copper charentais alembic-style still (the traditional vessel used to make Cognac for centuries) looks brand new sitting inside the barrel room at Almendra Winery & Distillery in Durham. The winery/distillery opened in 2016, and officially added brandies (and other spirits) as well as the Almendra wine label to the portfolio. Almendra now boasts a restaurant and full bar, too.

Given the Bertagnas’ experience, it was a natural progression to move into making brandy. “[We figured], ‘Heck, we’re doing wine, why not start distilling,” Berton Bertagna said during a recent interview at Almendra. Brandy is, after all, wine that’s been distilled—whereby the liquids are further separated via a process of heating and condensation to create a more concentrated form of alcoholic beverage that’s then aged in barrels.

Bertagna and Vaccaro started out just experimenting with distillation. Vaccaro interned as a winemaker at Son-Kissed while working on a viticulture and enology degree at Oregon State. As things progressed, Bertagna sent him to the distilling program at Dry Fly Distillery in Spokane, Wash.

The fruits of those labors are a series of Monkey Face-brand spirits—vodka, gin, bourbon whiskey and brandy—as well as a handful of infused brandies under the Almendra label.

The vodka, gin and bourbon whiskey are produced with a corn mash (not grapes), with the fairly smooth Kentucky-style bourbon aged for two years in American oak barrels. The gin is wonderfully unique, with a light touch on the juniper berries and a balanced blend of rosemary, mandarin oranges, lavender and almonds, making for a refreshing take on the style that’s perfect for a summer cocktail.

The star, though, is the Monkey Face brandy, which is aged in toasted French oak barrels for 20 months, then finished in wine barrels for four months. It’s oaky and faintly sweet—a perfect sipper.

The barrel-aging actually takes place in a separate metal warehouse from the wines, which are housed in the climate-controlled distillery.

“We keep it exposed to the elements,” said Vaccaro, explaining that, as the temperature fluctuates from hot to cold, “it pushes the spirit in and out of the barrel,” which allows for the characteristics of the wood to be more fully extracted.

The infused brandies, however, are not finished in barrels. Instead, the clear grape spirit straight from the still is infused with what Bertagna grows. “Being a farmer, I have access to [ingredients],” he said. That means the light and wonderfully aromatic Almendra Grove orange-flavored brandy is made by crushing mandarins in the alcohol, then straining the infused product. Same with the Almendra Harvest, infused with roasted organic almonds that give the brandy its delicate flavor and copper color.

With the distillery established and the aged brandies in bottles—available at Almendra and many grocery and liquor stores around the North State—Vaccaro is now able to put the copper still to work on new varieties. Already in the bottle is a second version of the Monkey Face vodka, made with half vodka and half clear, unaged brandy. And in the works is a brandy that, instead of going into toasted oak barrels, is being aged in charred oak bourbon barrels, making for what promises to be a bold and rich update on the style.