Jerram Winery is holding a Valentine’s Day Celebration this week-end at their winery at the top of Town Hill. Our reporter attended the wine-tasting on Saturday and she had a wonderful time. Please visit the Jerrams this afternoon between noon and 4:00 p.m. if you can and enjoy a wonderful experience right here in New Hartford. NewHartfordPlus

As someone whose childhood memories include sitting at a long wooden table ‘al fresco‘ with 20 or so relatives eating good food and drinking Zio Angelo’s best home-made wine, I watched with great interest – and just a tad of skepticism – as the big brown house sitting behind a screen of trees at the top of Town Hill was slowly transformed into a winery. Little by little the trees were cut to make way for newly-planted rows of grape vines, and the house emerged as a large pink-washed Victorian sitting gracefully among the grape vines. ’Jerram Winery’ became one of the places whose progress I checked on during the years as I drove by on my way to Bakerville, so when I saw the ad. this past week for a Valentine’s Day Celebration at Jerram Winery I decided it was time to make a stop and check it out.

As I drove into the small parking area behind the tasting barn a group of four young people came out of the barn and stood talking in the sunshine. I asked if they had come for the Valentine Day’s celebration and if they had enjoyed it and immediately they launched into an enthusiastic retelling of their experience. ”The owners’ daughter-in-law was very accommodating and very knowledgeable”, said Meghan McBride.

“She had us all sit down at a table,” continued Carissa Ferguson, “and she was so nice and funny and she really knew the different wines and she explained each of the wines we tasted”. I took a photo of the two young couples, Ned Denslow of Bristol and Meghan McBride from Southington, and Carissa Ferguson of Plainville and Kody Kilmer of Norfolk, and promised to post it on NewHartfordPlus and to send them a copy if they emailed me. The four friends were not only celebrating Valentine’s Day but also Carissa 21st birthday. And if that wasn’t cause enough to celebrate, Carissa and Kody were also celebrating their first anniversary together! I gave the young couples directions to Chapin Park Bed and Breakfast on the Pine Meadow Green, and Meghan said how nice Mary Ann Gunning had been on the phone and how much they were looking forward to staying with her.

I made my way into the tasting barn where Maureen Jerram stood ready behind the bar to greet me. She set a small plate in front of me, with slices of camembert cheese, fig bread, a thin wafer of dark chocolate and a beautiful dark chocolate truffle. Maureen gave me a wine list of 11 of their wines and at my request, she selected 5 wines for me to taste, ending with a sixth wine ‘Our Sweet Rose‘ whose label depicting a young woman holding a heart, had roused my curiosity. Maureen served me the wines she had chosen and as I sipped them she told me her husband Jim was lying on their couch at home, not yet fully recovered from a cold. She confirmed that he had worked at Heublein in Hartford before that company had been taken over.

We continued chatting, exchanging the names of friends we had in common in New Hartford, while I slowly sipped the different wines and Maureen pointed out the main characteristic of each wine. Carlene Jerram, Maureen’s daughter-in-law came to join us, and a little while later another couple arrived for the wine-tasting. I turned my attention to Mike Jerram, Carlene’s 8-year-old son. Mike had come to the tasting barn to ask his mom a question, and was headed out when I joined him. I asked Mike if he shared in the work of the winery and he said yes, everyone in the family worked at the winery. Asked the kind of work he did, Mike very seriously told me how he helped to harvest the grapes using cutters, how he sometimes drove the tractor, and how he helped with the wine press – not the old-fashioned one, he was careful to add, but the new press his grandpa had bought. Mike also told me that he sometimes leads tours at the winery and after letting me take his picture in front of the wine-making barn, Mike left, agreeing to take me on a tour on my next visit to the winery.

Back in the tasting barn the young couple, Sarah Ellsworth and Mark Foster of Windsor were busy tasting wines, as they told the Jerram women of their previous three stops at other wineries before arriving at Jerram Winery. The couple was doing the CT Wine Trail and they reported that other wineries had also opened for the week-end. The couple obviously knew their wines, Mark being from the Finger Lakes wine-making region of New York, and Sarah who had gone on trips with Mark to the Finger Lakes wineries. The chat turned to the small, simple home-made sign outside the winery which Maureen characterized as: “A French sign – a litte bitty thing”. Maureen said that they had made an old antique shutter sign that was very nice and which didn’t get blown over by the wind. ”It was stolen by some students,” she said regretfully. ”I know because they called here” she added. Sarah wondered aloud “What kind of a ritual must they have wanted it for?” and Carlene immediately started to say “In college some of the things we stole…” and then she remembered where she was, and laughed and the conversation moved on. Sarah and Mark got ready to leave, Mark holding a paper bag with a bottle of Nor’easter inside. ”Why did you choose that wine?” I asked. ”Well, I actually didn’t try it but Sarah tried it and she like it”. We all admired the label on the bottle, a painting of a sailing ship. Maureen told us that they were slowly replacing all their labels with images of art that she and Jim had collected especially for that purpose. It was a process that would take years, she said, because they had to get Federal approval and then state approval for any change they made to their wine labels. Sarah and Mark complimented Maureen on the quality of her wines, and then they left, smiling happily as they headed home. I too collected my camera, my note pad and my paper bag, in which Maureen had placed the Jerram Winery glass I had used for the tasting.

“Which wine did you like best?” Maureen asked as I was taking my leave. “Our Sweet Rose” I said. “It wasn’t too sweet and it wasn’t too sharp. I really liked it” I said. And we all smiled at each other as I made my way home, a short mile down the hill.

Jerram Winery has 11 varieties of wines, all made with grapes that the Jerrams grown right here in New Hartford. The wines don’t have the sunny taste of my Zio Angelo’s golden-colored wine, but the Jerram wines remind me of New Hartford: they are beautiful wines, bottled in a tasteful and simple way. Definitely worth going back for, again and again. Visit the winery online at http://www.jerramwinery.com/.

Thanks So Much:

To the three generations of the Jerram family whose love and hard work has created a winery that has put New Hartford on map of the CT Wine Trail. Please take a trip to the winery this afternoon and enjoy the wine tasting and the good company of the Jerram women, and hopefully of Jim and the grandchildren. Maria Moore, NewHartfordPlus Editor

For photos of my visit to Jerram Winery, please see the “Valentine’s Day Celebration at Jerram Winery” album in our Photo Gallery.