Drink

Reinventing the Martini

Upscale vermouth turns the tables on drinkability

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“What we’re doing here is probably a crime against nature.” Westport Rivers winemaker Paull Goodchild may be exaggerating when he says this, but he might actually make a few French and Italians raise an eyebrow when they see what he’s doing to vermouth.
Vermouth is a fortified, aromatized wine infused with botanicals (herbs, spices). In layman’s terms, per the Westport Rivers website, “we booze (wine) up and toss in some bits of plants.” In the US, vermouth is generally known as a cocktail ingredient - martinis, in particular.

Westport Rivers puts its spin on vermouth by using sparkling wine as the base wine. Paull’s baby began as a “happy accident” of sorts: “once in a while we’d have orphaned lots for various reasons... I came up with the idea of ‘ruining’ them and turning them into something else.”

The aged sparkling wine is fortified to 17-18% ABV and a proprietary mix of botanicals (each comprising of about 25 different ingredients) is added for flavor and “nose.” While early vermouth producers may have added flavors to cover up simple, mediocre or even spoiled wines, these botani- cal mixes can be as influential as the grapes on the final product’s desirable characteristics and nuances.

Westport Rivers’ line of vermouths is named Grace ‘Prodigiosa’ (Latin for ‘amazing’), and there are currently three blends in stock, whittled down from many rounds of experimentation. The flagship is the dry, white “NE3.0” - version 3.0 of a New England-inspired blend of ingredients like cranberry, pine, birch and rose hips. “P1.1” - also a dry, white - is version 1.1 of a “Pastisy” blend dominated by anise, caraway and licorice (“pastis” is an anise-flavored French liqueur). Finally, the pinot noir-based “S” line is aptly named for its “sweetness.”

Our tasting would be “neat” – un-mixed vermouth at room temperature. The two dry, whites were subtle – the New England inexplicably conjuring up “peach-iness” for me, and the P1.1 with strong licorice on the nose but not the taste buds. Both finished bitter as vermouth does. For me, the S was the most interesting of the bunch, but not just because of the sugar. Rather, it was the amazing, varied ride you took as the vermouth made its way across your taste buds – from intense, happy sweetness to sneaky, head-shaking bitterness in a second.

Although vermouth can be perplexing, Paull explains the upside of a premium product: Because we’re basically using aged champagne, the quality (and price point) is higher. With higher-end vermouth, you can be much more playful... instead of a martini that’s three parts gin and one part vermouth, you can up the ratio to 50-50 or even a reverse mar- tini that’s three parts vermouth.”

Grace Prodigiosa is currently available at the winery. The “New England” is the only style sold individually, but all three flavors can be sampled with the “Prodigiosa Trio” package. Production will be limited to small lots for now, so vermouth-lovers, adventurous drinkers and locavores should act fast for one of the most unique products on the local wine scene.

Westport Rivers, vermouth, the bay

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