What Does "Estate" Mean?

While here at Wholly Spirits, we sell rum and liquor, I do enjoy the occasional glass of wine. Last spring, I traveled to central California for about a week, making my way around Santa Barbara and Pismo Beach. Our family has Danish heritage so we also made sure to visit Solvang, a touristy Danish village in the middle of wine country. We visited several wineries and tasting rooms, as there were at least four on every block, complemented by bakeries. I took notice of the names. Family, Estate, Cellars, seemed to appear several times. Curious as I am, I decided to look into what these mean. I found that if the word “Estate” is featured on a wine bottle, it means the wine was made solely from grapes grown in the vineyards owned by the winery. It also means that the wine stayed at the winery during the entire production process, including fermentation, aging, and bottling.

At Wholly Spirits, we pride ourselves on being transparent with our distillation process. We may even like to show off a little bit. Customers are welcome to take a tour of the distillery at any time during our hours of operation. We guide them through our facility, walking them through our fermentation room filled with vats, the aging area featuring oak barrels, and when the weather cooperates, we can even take guests to see our fields. The fields aren’t just owned by us, they’re planted, farmed, and harvested by us. Crops rotate depending on the season to keep the soil healthy, but we’re always growing something that will be used in our spirits.

No need to double check our labels or do a google search to know that our products start and stay at the distillery for the entire process. That’s our whole concept - locally made spirits.