By Caroline Roosevelt
Contributing Writer 

I’m imagining a weekend afternoon for myself.

I imagine a text I will soon send to my sister.

“On the first warm breeze of the spring,” I tap, “we’re going to Casa Carmen in West Grove with a picnic blanket. No phones.”

A Spanish guitar version of Erik Satie’s “Gnossiennes” tinkles in my mind, as I imagine soaking in the sun and swirling an exotic vermouth cocktail on the rocks. For an entire afternoon I will pretend AI doesn’t exist and the 24-hour news cycle was just an invention from a fever dream.

It would be easy to mistake the bucolic farm of Casa Carmen for the gentle set of a slow summer foreign film. Nestled into a hill just outside of West Grove, the Farm at Casa Carmen opened its doors to the public in April of 2024. Enrique Pallaras and wife Laura, along with his brother Felipe and his wife Jane and all of the children own and live on the property, along with the brothers’ parents.

Here, three generations of families work together to bring the vision of the vineyard and the tasting room to life and cultivate the legacy of Casa Carmen, seasoning the pan with their inspirations, memories, and hope for the future.

“We started the winery in 2017 in Chestertown, Maryland, (The Bodega),” Felipe said. “In 2019, we opened a tasting room downtown which we still have and in 2022, we built this property and we’ve been redoing the barns to be able to open here. We finally opened back in April of last year. This has been an expansion project for the winery.”

The Pallares family hails from Ecuador originally and arrived at West Grove via Florida, California, Argentina, and Spain, picking up a few inspirations along the way, and these influences are all rolled into Casa Carmen, who produces their wines and vermouths using low intervention practices that work alongside the natural strengths and charms of the area.

“Our biggest seller is Rose - regardless of the time of year,” Jane said. “It’s the first wine that we made. It’s a family favorite and a customer favorite. It’s very fruit forward but 100 percent dry, which means there’s no residual sugar. It really satisfies every palate.”

In addition to Rose, Casa Carmen also produces some whites: Verde, Viognierre, Espumante, and reds: Duende and Tinto.

In particular, there are a few eccentricities that stand out on their menu, like their house made vermouth. A staple of the cocktail menu in the vermuterias of central Spain, vermouth is 95 percent wine and is mixed with grape-based liquor. Closer to liquor than wine as far as “bite” goes, it is generally on the same level as sipping a cocktail or tasting a gin.

“We make two vermouths,” Jane said. “One is white and one is black, and they are made to complement each other. The white is very sunshiny, bright, lemon, green botanicals (The Sun Also Rise). The black is very winter spices - rosemary, anise, cloves, and vanilla so it gets very dark and mysterious (Tender is the Night). They are wonderful. We serve them the way they serve them in Spain, vermuteria-style, on ice with a splash of soda water. It adds a little bubble texture and waters down the alcohol so you can drink for longer.”

“We always love cocktails,” Felipe said. “We work with a lot of botanicals and housemade amaros as well. The Spanish Martini is a family favorite, and one of our best sellers is the

Manhattan. We change it around seasonally. You can always get Negronis and Manhattans with the amaros we make in house.”

Casa Carmen sources their liquor from local distilleries: Thistle Finch in Lancaster, Philadelphia Distilling and Hidden Still in Hershey.

In addition to their full menu of wine and cocktails, Casa Carmen has become well known for their tapas that include Spanish meats and Spanish, French and Italian cheeses, tinned fish including sardines, mussels, cod fillet, calamari in ragout, Angry Chips with salsa brava, torched Spanish octopus, and of course, a nod to the local agriculture with some garlic marinated mushrooms.

I inquired about the variety of available tinned fish on the menu.

“Vermuteria Bars very typically serve tin fish,” Enrique said. “It’s part of the fisherman culture of the Basque Country. The tradition was to cure fish in salt or vinegar or put it in the can, and the best catch of the day would go in the tin, so in Spain and Portugal, there’s a big tradition of the best catch of the day going in the tin.”

As I chat with the owners, I’m already wandering around the farm in my mind - popping into the intimate indoor tasting room, and then out onto the tiled and covered gallery, the more open-air pergola, and the sprawling lawn where I have already set up camp with my sunhat and my second drink and enjoying the warm spring breeze that tickles a bare shoulder, all reminding me that I was put on this earth to eat berries in the grass and not to think about Microsoft Excel.

“Our main tasting room is in the old barn,” Jane said. “We renovated the space and maintained as much of the original structure as possible in order to embrace the history of the property. Next to that barn, we have a two-story barn and we have plans for that as we are already feeling the limits of our space.”

While I conjure in my mind dreams that will soon become a reality, I invite you to Casa Carmen for some live jazz on Friday Nights or their salsa class series, that runs for three months in the spring and autumn seasons). Have children? Dogs? They’re welcome at Casa Carmen. The farm also boasts a few horses, chickens and sheep that cull the weeds and provide natural fertilization at the beginning and end of the seasons.

The heritage, the experience and the story of Casa Carmen tells a unique tale that is just beginning to be told.

“Our love for food and wine is really a lifestyle - the communal life that centers around the table,” Jane said. “Casa Carmen is about culture building, uniting and elevating the human experience.”

In the meantime, I will be sitting on my porch waiting for that perfect spring day, when I can pass the time from simmering afternoon sunshine to lavender rising moon, with good friends and a glass of something sparkly, amidst the most charming setting Chester County has to offer.

Casa Carmen Farm and Winery is located at 49 Camino Way, West Grove, Pa. 19390. To learn more, visit www.casacarmenwines.com.