Blackberry Wine and Summer Memory: A Walk Through Rose Hill Farm Winery

At Rose Hill, the blackberries don’t bite.

They’re thornless by design—carefully chosen to grow tall and trellis to eye level like gentle arches of summer sweetness. The work is quiet, almost meditative, as the season rolls in with buzzing bees and sun-warmed fruit. Rows and rows of glossy black berries, ripening slowly under a Pendleton County sky.

The first canes were planted in 2007. Another wave followed in 2010. Since then, they’ve returned faithfully each July—provided the old growth is cleared in early spring, and the land is given the care it needs. With a little stewardship and a lot of patience, the blackberries come back year after year, heavy and generous.

Of course, no season passes without a story. One early summer, a hand reached into the bramble and found—not a berry—but a baby raccoon. Another year, the crop was so abundant that friends made the drive down from Erlanger to help pick. Their reward: jars of jelly, spoonfuls of jam, and slices of blackberry jam cake made from a recipe passed down through generations.

At Rose Hill, fruit is rarely just fruit. It’s memory. It’s tradition. It’s something handed off, hand to hand, year to year.

A Winter Transformation

Once the last berries are picked and the freezers are full—usually by the end of July—another rhythm takes hold.

In winter, the transformation begins. Berries are thawed in 50-gallon tanks, their fragrance rising into the stillness of the cellar. A carefully measured blend of yeast and sugar is added, along with just enough to guide fermentation and guard against spoilage. The berries begin their quiet work of becoming wine.

Nothing artificial is added—only what’s needed, and only what’s real. Each batch is carefully recorded, refined over more than 15 years of notes and experimentation, becoming a kind of living recipe—always improving, never rushed.

When fermentation ends, the filtering begins: three stages, moving from coarse to fine. Then comes backsweetening, where sugar is reintroduced gently. Each batch is tested for specific gravity and adjusted until the wine lands at just the right level—not syrupy, not sharp, but balanced. Full-bodied. Familiar.

The final check is for “mouthfeel”—texture, weight, how the wine sits on the tongue. Once it feels right, bottling begins. The entire process can take up to three months. And the result is unmistakable.

A Wine Rooted in Memory

Rose Hill makes other wines—grape varieties that require meticulous pruning and regular sprays—but Blackberry Wine remains the most beloved. Visitors return for it, not just for the taste, but for the stories it stirs.

For many, it brings back memories of grandparents bottling wine in the basement, or jam cooling on a counter in a warm kitchen. It’s a flavor that lives in memory, and in this place.

The wine made at Rose Hill uses only their own berries—grown, harvested, frozen, fermented, and bottled on the farm. It’s a product of Pendleton County, shaped by its climate and its people, its seasons and its stories.

And it always begins the same way: a row of thornless canes, a sunlit July morning, and the quiet work of hands gathering what summer has offered.