Vermont Wine Country

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🤓 Did You Know?

Shelburne Vineyard in Shelburne is Vermont's most celebrated vinifera producer, growing Marquette, La Crescent, Frontenac Gris, and Aromella in the Lake Champlain basin — where the lake's 400-square-mile thermal mass moderates temperatures enough for genuine grape viticulture.

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About Vermont Wine Country

Vermont wine country is New England at its most authentically itself. Thirty-eight estate wineries and cideries in a state of 650,000 people operate within a farm-to-table culture that takes local food and drink more seriously than almost anywhere else in America. Shelburne Vineyard and Lincoln Peak Vineyard have established that the Champlain Valley can make world-class cold-climate wines; the question for Vermont winemakers is no longer whether to make wine, but how to make it better.

The Champlain Valley is where Vermont wine reaches its highest expression. Lake Champlain's enormous thermal mass — 400 square miles of water — moderates temperatures enough to extend the growing season by 4–6 weeks compared to inland Vermont sites. Shelburne Vineyard's Marquette and La Crescent, Lincoln Peak's Marquette, Snow Farm's Frontenac Gris from its Lake Champlain island vineyard — these are wines of genuine quality, not just regional curiosity.

Vermont's apple orchard heritage feeds naturally into its craft cider industry, which has now grown larger than wine by volume. Many estate wineries offer both: a glass of Marquette alongside a flight of heritage ciders from Roxbury, Cox's Orange Pippin, and Northern Spy apples. The combination is quintessentially Vermont, and quintessentially delicious.