The Fine Spirit of Brandy
- Anastasia Stanmeyer
- 22 hours ago
- 14 min read
KLOCKE ESTATE IS SERIOUS ABOUT CREATING SOME OF THE WORLD’S BEST BRANDIES
By Anastasia Stanmeyer
ON A HILLTOP above the Hudson Valley stands an impressive structure called Klocke Estate. It’s not a Gilded Age mansion, nor is it a baron’s private residence. Nothing of the sort. It is, in fact, an earth-to-glass brandy distillery, farm, and dining destination set on 160 acres of land in Claverack, New York, a short drive from the Berkshires.
The building is new, but the buildup started some 40 years ago, when an MIT student by the name of John Frishkopf decided to take a wine-tasting course on the side. His interest in making wine continued through the decades, shifted to fine spirits, and in 2016, he began realizing his dream of developing a location with the goal of becoming a world-class distillery that embodies the entire process—growing the fruit, pressing the juice, fermenting the wine, distilling the spirit, mixing the blend, and aging to the final product.
The investment was significant, upwards of $20 million to make this dream a reality. Frishkopf hired architect BarlisWedlick, who designed the estate to be configured as a farm cluster of buildings that house the production facilities, as well as a tasting room, restaurant, and event space. The main building’s dark bronze façade, whose design is both dramatic and simplistic with expansive windows, has subtle nods to the distillery process and the rural location. Innovative concepts were incorporated, such as the heat from the stills being captured and used for radiant heating in the hospitality spaces and snow melt in the entryways.
The interior designer was Ken Fulk, whose vision was to create spaces that feel rooted in this particular place but in no particular time. The region’s history of Dutch settlement (which I will get into later), as well as being an artist enclave and a getaway destination, inspired Fulk to select a subdued color palette of deep blues, grays, and greens. The team leaned heavily into the decorative traditions of the mid-19th century and tapped into the talents of local artisans and artists to bring the vision to life.
The stage was beautifully set for my first taste of the Klocke Estate. (“Klocke,” I learned, is Dutch for "clock.") When I walked into the entryway, I was met by a surrealist landscape mural by California painter Rafael Arana. Embedded into the pastoral scene were emblems of time—wristwatches, clocks, an hourglass. I continued into an expansive bar area displaying a custom gantry and amber-hued lighting that framed the view of the Hudson River Valley. Flanking the bar was a formal dining area on one side and a distillery room open to tours on the other. I then walked up the stairs and came face-to-face with a curious painting of two siblings—it looked personal, not just some random artwork purchased at an auction. I later learned that it is a painting of Frishkopf’s mother and uncle, discovered when his aunt was decluttering. She sent it off to Frishkopf, and somehow the artwork ended up with the furniture that went to the the estate. The designers decided to hang it there, unbeknownst to Frishkopf. He was pleasantly surprised, and there it remains.
Special events and corporate meetings are held upstairs. Its salon features hand-carved walnut tables by local artisan Gary Keegan and a central bar that combines detailing from an antique Dutch breakfront with Deco fluted and polished burlwood. Throughout the whole building are references to the art of brandy-making, such as copper cladding and faux bois patterns playing on the materials used in distillation.
By way of background, Frishkopf is a seasoned executive and entrepreneur in diverse industries. (He graduated with a bachelor's degree from MIT and a master's in management science from MIT Sloan.) He is an advisory partner of QLS Advisors and an operating partner of Relay Investments, both in the Boston area, and serves on the board of directors of several companies and nonprofit organizations.
There has been a good amount of media attention since his project became public, and especially since Klocke Estate opened in July 2024. The big draw has been the restaurant, and understandably so, because the food is exquisite and the distillery was still gaining traction. The restaurant serves an à la carte menu of seasonal fare in the dining room and bar. Watching the sunset and having a cocktail at the bar before dinner is almost like a taste of heaven. The full bar also boasts a carefully curated selection of wines and other fine spirits.
Klocke’s aged brandy—the hallmark of the estate—will be launched in the fall. Until then, the estate sells bottles of un-oaked apple brandy, Brevis White and Sweet Red vermouths (aromatized and fortified wines), as well as bottled cocktails that are unique to the estate. The fine spirits can be purchased there, as well as a number of New York shops (and also available online as long as it’s shipped to a New York address). Soon, it will also be sold in Massachusetts.
There’s a sense of excitement in the air as they begin to roll out another type of fine liquor called eau-de-vie—French for “water of life,” referring to clear, unaged fruit brandies, with the first batch (sour cherry) released on a subscription program for enthusiasts. Their eau-de-vie is created from a variety of fruits grown by Klocke’s orchard partners.
Frishkopf is intent on getting the word out about the fine spirits being produced. “Our modest goal is to be the best brandy in the country and a world-class brandy,” he says. He is also wanting to bring more people in to get the full experience of his spirit-making
through tours and tastings.
And that is what I did: tour the estate and taste the product.
Standing in the distillery room with Frishkopf, I am slightly in awe of the process as I take in all the fascinating equipment. On one side of the room is a 500-liter copper pot still from Oberkirch, Germany, where the fruit-instilled eau-de-vie is created. The still is called bain-marie (a type of heated bath) so the fruit doesn’t burn from the direct flame.
The pièce de résistence is the vessel in which the aged apple and grape brandies are distilled on a 2,500-liter Alembic Charentais pot still that was imported from Cognac, France, in 1,000 pieces. Two men also were imported for three weeks from Cognac to carefully put this functional work of art together.
To make brandy, multiple distillations are done to get the coeur, or heart. The process is roughly this:
Harvest the grapes. (That happens mostly in September.)
Crush and press the grapes. (Completed in a day.)
Ferment the grapes. (That takes longer, around three weeks.)
Distill the grapes. (That sounds deceivingly simple. Four distillations are done per batch. The brouillis from the first three distillations is collected for the final distillation and put into a tank.)
In this process, the alcohol content is taken down to 28 percent and then fortified back up to 70 percent before the 200 gallons of wine are dispensed into barrels in the barrel warehouse (a traditional French chai, pronounced “shay”), where they remain for two to 50 years for aged brandy. “It’s definitely a long-term process,” Frishkopf says.
We head to the estate’s winery, where it all begins. Tailing us most of the time was Juno, a Portuguese waterdog that stayed close to Frishkopf. First, I was given a quick lesson on the history of brandy in the region.
The Dutch were the entrepreneurs, technologists, and merchants around brandy beginning in the early 16th century. They pioneered the distillation of wine in the Cognac region to preserve it for sea transport, creating "brandewijn" (burnt wine), the origin of the term “brandy.” They imported hundreds of stills into the Cognac and then later into Calvados and other regions to produce brandy to ship around the world. The first recorded production of spirits in New York was around 1640 in Staten Island.
Kiliaen van Rensselaer owned a large tract of land in what is now New York's Capital District. He wrote back in 1632 to send over a still, so it’s believed that it could be as early as 1634 that apple brandy production began in the area.
“Even when the English took over the region, the Dutch just said, ‘Come on in, as long as you let us keep doing our commerce. We don't care who the bosses are,’” says Frishkopf. Claverick, home to the Klocke Estate, was a Dutch town and once the county seat.
The Klocke Estate’s property was used for farming, although not much else is known about its history. That included apple orchards, yielding fruit that wasn’t very tasty but was perfect for cider-making. When cider risked spoiling, they would turn it into brandy.
Klocke is trying to create a through line with the similarity of terroir of Cognac and Calvados to the Hudson region. The idea is that the spirit reflects the region of where the fruit is produced. Cognac is known for its brandy made from grapes. The Calvados region of Normandy, France, known for its apple and pear orchards, is where Calvados apple brandy is made. Klocke is similarly working to create world-class brandies made from grapes and apples that is unique to this region with similarities to the brandies created in Calvados and Cognac.
The climate in Claverack has tempering effect because of the area's proximity to Hudson. Klocke Estate is 400 feet above sea level, whereas the elevation of the Berkshires is around 1,000 feet. The grape that is being grown for brandy is the same grape that can be grow for wine, but the alcohol content produced is 8 to 10 percent. It's very hard to get enough hours of sun in this region to get to 12 or 13 percent needed for fine wine.
Caleb Gregg, director of farming and production and Klocke’s brandy distiller, says the way that grapes are grown at the estate is different than how they would be grown for table wine because the vine is asked to produce a lot more fruit. If you visit a famous winery in France such as Romanée-Conti, they have only two clusters of fruit per vine, whereas Klocke Estate has 16, he says. That's because they don't need as much sugar; what they want is more acidity. Volume also is needed because 90 percent of the overall volume is lost during the distilling process, says Gregg. “We need a large quantity of wine to make a medium quantity of brandy.”
The estate’s vineyards haven’t matured enough to supply even a small fraction of what is needed for production. Some 100 to 150 tons of grapes are brought in by the tractor-trailor load from the Finger Lakes of New York State. They also use apples and other fruits grown by local farms. As the vineyards and orchards mature, the production will shift to using a majority estate-grown fruit.
The truckloads of grapes are loaded into a big hopper feeder and go into a machine that removes the berries from the stems, crushes them, then transfers into a bladder press that presses and extracts the juice of both grapes and apples. The juice is moved from the press into tanks.
Large quantities of liquid to make brandy require large containers. Klocke’s winery has five 5,000-gallon fermenters, two 2,500-gallon fermenters, and a few smaller ones that they use for eau-de-vie. There are three other temperature-controlled tanks outside that are used for storage.
As we walk through the winery, a passionate discussion between Frishkopf and Gregg resumes about whether cherry pits were removed before fermentation. Gregg tells Frishkopf that none of the pits were taken out. He tried a batch where they were destoned, and then 20 percent of the pits were added back in, but the fermentation and distillation didn’t come out as well.
Gregg turns to me. “Last year, we were trying to learn what works for certain fruits around here,” he explains.
Taking care of the trees and the vines is the biggest challenge for Gregg. They’re organically grown, which is a big challenge because of the amount of insects and potential for disease.
For optimal production, they want to plant 25 to 30 more acres and have another building to expand a winery and for bottling. The crop is 60 percent apples and 40 percent grapes in acreage, but as far as plant count goes, three-quarters of the plants are grapes because there are many more grapes per acre. The property boasts nine grape varieties growing on 1,600 vines.
As we continue the tour, I learn that there are some 8,000 varieties of apples that have ever been recorded, and they are broken down into four classifications of apples: bittersweet, bittersharp, sharp, and sweet. They range from those that have more sugar, to sugar and acid, to tannins and acid, and to tannins and sugar.
There are 11,000 trees being grown on the estate with 43 apple varieties, most of them bittersweet or bittersharp. The apple trees were purchased from Cummins Nursery in Ithaca, New York. Cummins grafted a rootstock selected by Frishkopf, and the saplings were grown in the nursery for a few years. Then the trees were planted at Klocke Estate. They grew there for a season, went dormant, and are now yielding fruit.
This particular root stock will grow to about 80 percent size of a full-sized apple tree and live 100 years. Most area farms that have orchards have the dwarf sized apple trees that are 30 percent of the normal size tree and die after 20 years, says Frishkopf. “We plant 300 per acre, compared to 1,000 to 2,000 per acre. They're more robust, so they're more resistant to bugs and to climate change.”
The discussion continues, largely between Frishkopf and Gregg, as we head to the chai, or barrel warehouse. They're back on the subject of cherry pits. As we walk up to the structure, my mind wanders back to several years earlier and a wine tour that I took to Sicily, led by Berkshire legend Gene Dellea. I return to the present as Frishkopf opens a set of large wooden doors and we step into the chai; the coolness is a welcome relief to the midday sun.
The chai is nestled six feet below ground. The temperature stays constant and cool, with about 90 percent humidity. “The idea of a chai is that it's living organism,” says Frishkopf. “It’s breathing. It’s taking on its own little environment. There's mold and other beneficial things happening here that all are part of the aging process. So, each individual barrel will have its own unique flavor profile.
“We’re building inventory, producing a lot of wine, cider distilling, and we're just starting to put together blends to really see what types of flavor profiles we can produce,”ays Frishkopf. "We’re also working with the barrels and moving them around.”
He points to a large blending vat, or cuvée, that contains their first apple blend that will be bottled and become their first aged expression. It's no longer clear, with tannins extracted from the barrels. “When it's first produced, when you go in the distillery, you’ll see that it is very hot and wild,” says Frishkopf. “The oxidation, the wood, the cooling—it’s relaxing and developing, and its complexity and depth can become something very, very nice.”
There’s a blackboard at one side of the chai that keeps track of what blend is in which barrels. All the barrels are imported Limousin oak, which has a looser or wider grain compared to other French oaks. This porosity allows for quicker extraction of oak compounds and faster micro-oxygenation, which is beneficial for the maturation of certain spirits that require a bolder oak influence. It has a higher tannin content, which contributes to a slightly bitter note. Limousin oak also imparts flavors such as cinnamon, clove, hazelnut, nutmeg, pepper, and toasted bread.
We were standing next to a barrel whose contents had gone into a blend, and it had just been filled with more cider. “That's the thing that's really interesting about the barrels, because for apple, you don't really want a lot of tannin influence,” says Frishkopf. “You want the fruit to be much more expressive. Whereas grapes, you might use a new barrel to get a darker, heavier tannin influence.”
We proceed to pull a sample from one of the barrels for a tasting. “Wow, that's really, really strong,” I said. It turns out that we tapped a barrel whose contents had just come off the still and had 70 percent alcohol content. They will most likely add a little bit of water to get it down to 60 to 63 percent, which is the optimal alcohol percentage where the sugars and the tannins of the wood can integrate with the alcohol.
We try another barrel with 63 percent alcohol content—still intense on the palate “but the nose is absolutely beautiful,” says Frishkopf. I could taste the tannins and am told that over time, the tannin influence will be lower and the apple more expressive. This barrel is marked a 2022 cider that went into the barrel in 2023.
“That’s where the creativity and artistry is in deciding on the timing and all these other factors come into play,” says Gregg. Although blending is the norm, they might do a single barrel and release it solo.
“Generally speaking,” says Frishkopf, “most brandies are blended. Certain barrels have different characteristics—one might have a lot of fruit, one might have some more wood, one might be more floral. You put them all together to make a very balanced spirit using different percentages from each barrel.”
Meanwhile, the eau-de-vie rests—not ages—in stainless steel or glass containers that are smaller in size and volume. “Once you put it in the wood, you're going to extract the tannin, and it becomes a brandy,” says Gregg. The plan is to fill up the warehouse and stack up the barrels, going up three or four rows. They can fit around 500 barrels.
We step back into the sun and drive a short distance to the main building for the last leg of the tour that includes a tasting.
“This is eight botanicals. This is 15 botanicals,” Gregg explains to me at the bar with an assortment of six drinks made with vermouth, uncorked brandy, and botanicals. Some contain maple syrup from Gregg’s family farm in Chatham, New York, as well as house-made bitters. “This is sweeter; it has a lot more baking spices,” Gregg says. His latest drink of choice is half white and half red on the rocks. The Appletini, however, is by far the most popular cocktail on the restaurant’s menu, made from a combination of Klocke Estate Apple Brandy, Brevis White Vermouth, and Honeycrisp apple juice.
Frishkopf sits back and enjoys the exchange during our tasting. He's come a long way from his days at MIT.
After taking a course in wine-making while in college, Frishkopf spent a summer in California to learn more and started making his own wines at home. When he had a business career opportunity in Europe, he lived in Vienna, then London, and then Prague, where his interest turned to making fine spirits, brandy in particular.
There are so many wine makers in the U.S. (more than 11,000), Frishkopf says. When he started exploring making spirits, there was about 1,000 distilleries. Now there are about 2,200, but very few do brandy because it’s not trendy, it’s more complicated, and it’s expensive to make. And as far as fine spirits go, whiskey, vodka, and gin have been the trend.
“I love brandy, that was my main reason,” he says. “I could say, ‘Okay, we're gonna make the best brandy.’ I couldn't say that with wine. I mean, I could, but it would be crazy. It's a little less crazy with brandy because there aren’t that many distilleries, and we are using the absolute best practices.”
Frishkopf says the best brandy producer is Osocalis in California which is owned and operated by Dan Farber, who was also the original master distiller of Klocke Estate.
I discovered that the Klocke Estate experience is more than tastings and dinner. We step outside again and take a walk through the “learning garden,” which is part of the tours and a way to explain the ingredients grown and used in their products. A lot of the plants are botanicals that are used in the vermouth and in the kitchen, as well as wormwood, a bittering agent that serves as the base for all vermouth.
Nearby is a wildflower meadow, and then a vineyard of riesling grapes. They’re developing trails for visitors that will go to the vineyard and over to the orchard, and then further to an area that they wouldn’t be able to farm, so they utilized it to attract beneficial insects, native plants, educate people, and learn about biodiversity. There are bird houses in there and plenty of room for wild animals to find a home.
Frishkopf lives at the bottom of a hill in a cottage with his partner, Brett Mattingly, and their dog, Juno.
It's clear that Klocke Estate is not only unique, it’s a passion that was born at a young age, developed, and matured into something unique, like the brandy that is being created there.
Klocke Estate is open noon to 9 p.m. for tours and tastings, five days a week. (They’re closed Mondays and Tuesdays.) Sign up online for a tasting, or make a dinner reservation, at klocke-estate.com.