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Date: 2/8/2022
HATFIELD – It’s no surprise that Michelle Kersbergen, co-owner of Black Birch Vineyard, enjoys talking about food and wine, how they stimulate culture.
“I particularly love getting people together to enjoy a really nice meal with wine. It’s enjoyable for me to be able to share that,” Kersbergen said. Her love of wine and food, “that comes from our travels where food and wine are culturally important.”
Kersbergen and co-owner Ian Modestow recently went before the Planning Board, seeking more flexibility in the events they offer at the vineyard on Straits Road. Black Birch sells 4,000 cases of wine yearly, but wants to host more engagements for the community, with a focus on wine, food and music.
And sheep.
“We have sheep, a small flock, and half of them will have lambs, and we’re excited about that,” Kersbergen said. “Sheep are a sustainable way to farm, and we use them between the rows. They help us with fertilization and grazing, so they actually are part of the whole picture of keeping the vineyard healthy.”
The flock of sheep may explain the black-and-white dog in the tank room, intelligent and assertive, kept company by two cats. The tank room in the main building stands half-filled by stainless steel holding tanks of 2,000 to 5,600 liters each. The floor is concrete, and a mix of café and picnic tables suggests the wide range of clientele at Black Birch.
A door across the room lets into the barrel room, long and narrow, a conference table and plush chairs taking up what space the barrels don’t.
“We have 50 oak barrels. We age our reds, in oak barrels, for at least a year,” Kersbergen said. “A vineyard owner has their own way of dealing with their grapes … especially during the harvest season. It’s a daily process, the decision making about when to harvest.”
The barrel room suggests a corporate boardroom, and Black Birch occasionally hosts a wedding, but Kersbergen focused on the events they stage. The winery organizes wine tastings, seminars on wine topics, release parties, music concerts, winery tours, and tours of the starry heavens.
“Our vintner is an amateur astronomer,” Kersbergen said of her partner, Ian Modestow. Ian is a brother of Darius Modestow, superintendent of schools for the Frontier Regional School District. He is also a dentist. Kersbergen said, “There are some similarities between wine and dentistry. They are both an art and a science. There’s a lot of chemistry involved in winemaking.”
The vineyard supports quite a few sole proprietorships, especially food makers and florists. Kerspergen explained that the vineyard collaborates with other local businesses to stage workshops, principally about wine and flowers. The Rose Thief, Forest Flowers, Many Graces Flower Farm, and Rooted Flower Farm provide the blooms and expertise.
Food makers include the Laughing Tomato, Thai Chili Food Truck and Ginger Love Café. The vineyard hires Signature Sounds, the group behind the Green River Festival, to stage music shows, including the Crush Festival in the fall.
“The Crush Festival, it’s just fun,” Kerspergen said. “We have music and food, and people come, and we have vineyard tours.”
The joy Kersbergen finds in wine and food is a learned pleasure. The couple began traveling to wine countries in the 1990s. They often stayed at mom-and-pot wineries, where they soaked in the culture of wine and the culinary arts.
“The culture itself is fascinating,” Kerspergen said. “There’s history there, mystique, so many layers to it. Wine has so much to offer in terms of food as culture. It brings people together. It opens people up. It’s fascinating and forever evolving and changing.”
Black Birch contributes to the culture of wine with several prize-winning varieties. Standards like chardonnay, pinot noir, and Riesling are more familiar, while Blaufrankisch, Chelois, Marquette, an American hybrid, and Traminette offering something different. All the grapes grown at Black Birch are cold weather varieties, with shorter growing cycles.
“We had a wet year last year, and it made for a very interesting harvest season,” Kerspergen said. “Then you can tell that story while you’re pouring the wine, what happened, why it tastes that way. Every year tells a different story.”
Black Birch Winery is located at 108 Straits Road in Hatfield, MA. Details can be found online at blackbirchvineyard.com.