November 2025

Dear Casa Carmen Family,

Fall at the farm is a season of nostalgic abundance. As trees, bushes, and vines overflow with the fruitful fulfilment of sun-soaked days, the cold winds from the north begin to reshape our landscape in the form of winter. With John Keats, in his poem To Autumn, we wonder, “Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?” But with Keats, too, we hear the answer, “Think not of them, thou hast thy music too.” But what music is this? What is the music of fall?

It is the culmination of the songs of summer and spring. It is the song of harvest, the song of water and sunlight. It is the song that contains the symbiotic relationship that we call farming, where we are the “close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; / conspiring with him how to load and bless / with fruit the vines.” It is the song of a world that buzzes with ephemeral ripeness, as we rush, like the bee and the wasp, to gather all that bursts with sweetness. In tanks, we gather grapes. In vats of pure spirit, we pour flowers and herbs. 

And just like the song of fall is the culmination of summer and spring, vermouth is the culmination of harvest. This is because no wine captures the bounty of harvest as fully as vermouth does. To make vermouth, we first ferment grapes into crisp white wine and then distill a portion of that wine into pure, high-proof spirit. Then, we macerate a unique blend of botanicals in that spirit, including the black walnuts from the farm, wormwood, saffron, oranges, rosemary, clove, sage, cinnamon, vanilla, and many others. Finally, we blend it all back together to create a perfect harmony of sweet, acid, and bitter. It is the polyphony of the budding showers of spring, the sunlight of summer, and the ripening of fall. It is simply the highest expression of abundance.

It is only fitting that after the richness that culminates in autumn, winter is punctuated with holidays of gratitude, birth, and the endurance of light. This is why nothing pairs with the coming months like vermouth. It is the evidence that we carry from the days when the sun was young. 

We hope that our vermouths (and wines!) serve as a reminder of that beautiful conspiracy between people and nature that we call farming, that they are the songs of bounty that keep you in the coming months. And we hope that you enjoy these wines with those whom you love during this season of “mists and mellow fruitfulness,” while the “gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”

Salud!

Enrique Pallares