# Midrash Red (NV)

- **Producer:** Chertok Wines
- **Colour:** orange
- **Type:** still
- **Grapes:** Frontenac Noir, Marquette
- **Region:** Vermont, United States
- **Style:** Natural
- **Alcohol:** 11.0%
- **Average price:** €25
- **Vegan:** Yes
- **Contains sulphites:** No
- **When to drink:** Now
- **Serving temperature:** 10–12 °C
- **Aromas & flavours:** apple, cherry, raspberry, plum, herbaceous, smoke, dried cranberry

## About this wine

Chertok Wines was founded in 2017 by Max and Katey Rose in Massachusetts before moving to Belmont Orchard in Shoreham, Vermont. The winery takes its name from a Yiddish word referring to mischievous spirits that protect farms and hearths. Midrash refers to a Hebrew concept of creative storytelling, matching the winery's focus on experimental small-batch co-fermentations from cold-climate grapes and heirloom orchard apples.

## Interesting facts

- The name Chertok is derived from a Yiddish term for mischievous farm spirits.
- The winery uses free-roaming Brahma chickens for pest control in place of synthetic sprays.
- Undervine management is done manually using scythes to prevent tractor soil compaction.

## Food pairing

The lively acidity and gentle skin-contact tannins of this natural co-ferment balance fatty, rich dishes and savory cured meats, while slicing through rich melted cheeses.

## Wine making process

This natural wine is a wild co-fermentation of whole-cluster hybrid grapes and milled cider apples. Hand-harvested Frontenac Noir and Marquette grapes undergo open-top foot-trodden fermentation before cider apples are added near the end. Following two months of post-fermentation skin maceration, the cuvée ages 8 to 9 months on gross lees in food-grade eggs and qvevri. It is bottled unfined, unfiltered, and with zero added sulfites.