Disrupting Cider From The Ground Up
Disrupting Cider from the Ground Up
It's been a great week for media attention, from the e-mails from reporters following up on the United States association of Cider Maker's recently released "Cider Styles Guidelines" which now includes a category called "Heritage Cider" to two nice, meaty pieces in heavy hitting publications, it's good to see cider in the news.
Of course readers of this blog will not be unfamiliar with the idea that "good cider starts in the orchard" or that "the way you grow your apples affects the quality of your cider" but these are not mainstream ideas in the world of apples and cider so it's good to see them being shared to a wider audience.
The Washington Post says the identity of cider may be in question.
Food writer Jason Wilson spent the week in Baltimore at the US cider industry's biggest gathering only to find that the "big tent of cider" may actually be radically different products which share only a name.
"...Contrast that with a session I attended on Thursday called “Champagne Method Cider,” where I experienced several mind-blowing sparkling ciders made by Eden Specialty Ciders in Vermont, Snowdrift Cider in Washington state and two cidermakers from New York’s Finger Lakes, Eve’s Cidery and Redbyrd Orchard Cider. What we tasted was every bit as complex as fine wine, with the same attention paid to the apples as a winemaker would to the grapes.....Questions from the audience about aging on the lees, the use of barrels and malolactic fermentation made it feel more like a wine event. Tim Larsen, from Snowdrift, even co-opted an old winemaking cliche: “Cidermaking, as everyone here agrees, begins in the orchard.”
Read the full article here
And a review of our Albee Hill here
Edible Manhattan says changes may be coming to the way cider apples are grown.
There seems to be such a wide gap between the romantic ideas consumers have about farming and the nitty, gritty reality of chemical agriculture. So it was really refreshing to see the foodie magazine Edible run a piece about the nuts and bolts of biointensive orcharding. The article, featuring our friend and consultant Mike Biltonen of Know Your Roots Consulting goes in depth on some of the concepts we incorporate into our farming practices.
"The biochemicals left untouched in the soil are also the components of vitamins, minerals and enzymes—things that give the fruit its nutrition content, flavor and aroma. Stoscheck saw this as an opportunity to create cider with more texture, perhaps even with a character complexity akin to that of wine. She now produces her cider entirely from apples she grows using biointensive methods and is one of the handful of organic cidermakers in the state. The results have been spectacular, winning her awards and popularity among cider aficionados and makers alike. “With dead soil, the fruit tends to be water, sugar and acid. When you ferment the sugar away, it reveals what’s left,” Stoscheck says. “I believe the way you grow the apple matters for the quality of the cider.”
Read the Full article here
Winter on the farm
The orchard sleeps it's deep winter slumber and everything looks like it's covered in a blanket of snow. But like the soil underneath the orchard we've got lot's incubating. Actually, some of it quite disrupting in it's own right! Looking forward to sharing more with you over the next couple of weeks, including: a radical sabbatical, scion wood, 2018 blending and more. But for now,
Get your cider!
Jason Wilson of the Washington Post says our 2016 Albee Hill "with its deep, dark fruit, minerality and austere tannins is a classic. "
We only have about 50 cases left, so if you haven't tried it yet. Now's the time.