Our Cider
Here’s the thing: you have to have excellent fruit to make excellent cider. This is good news for us since we have been growing excellent fruit for fresh sales for 25 years. We have cultivated interesting varieties that transition well to cider. While single variety anything gets a lot of buzz, think single malt scotch, we know that the blends have more complexity, more depth and more character. Again, good news for us since we have so many varieties of apples and pears, including cider and perry specific varieties. To stand out from the crowd in this fruit growing region, we have learned how to grow the sweetest, tartest, best tasting fruit possible. Our site has historically grown high flavor fruit, and we maximize it further though our soil health, and attention to maturity dates. It has taken us lots of years to figure that this variety needs to be picked at this time, and that variety at that time.
We know that every year is different. The flavor of apples and pears changes a little each year as a result of the 1000’s of environmental variables out there. The proportions of each variety changes as well, as volumes fluctuate every year. Like a wine, our cider has vintages, every years slightly different. Once the fruit is juiced, we use simple white wine methods to let the character of the orchard and the year shine. Our ciders are fermented until all the sugar is gone, creating a dry, interesting, layered, cider or perry. Our goal is to capture all the delicious diversity of the orchard in each bottle. We think; mission accomplished.
Our cider is available at Methow Valley grocery stores.
37 Apples
Our cider is made from all 37 varieties of apples in our orchard, although the real number is a moving target and closer to 50. The blend of so many apples gives the cider depth of flavors that move and linger on the palate. Our site grows high acid apples, so the cider is tart, and we ferment all the sugar out so its bone dry. We grow cider specific varieties that add richness and mouth feel.
We treat each year as a vintage, knowing that the strength of each apple is different every season, and the proportions of apples varies too. The magic of yeast happens fairly quickly, but the mystery of malo-lactic processes happen over time. Our cider is aged at least 10 months for a nice smoothness.
Bubbles result from secondary fermentation, either in the bottle, or in the tank. Natural effervescence creates smaller, tastier bubble, and a perception of sweetness.
37 APPLES compares well to a nice sparkling wine, and goes beautifully with food and snacks.
Bottoms Up Pear Cider
Pears have a more delicate taste than apples, and our pear cider, known as “perry”, is delicate too. And still full of rich pear flavors! The secret is lots of varieties of pears, we use at least 12, including tiny hard bitter pears from an old homestead tree on the mountain behind the orchard.
We use a white wine process with pears, honoring their subtle nature. The result is a fresh, slightly sweet, sparkling wine. For secondary fermentation we freeze juice from our earliest harvest to add at the end to create bubbles.
Some of the natural sugars in pears are not fermented by wine yeasts, so a little residual sweetness lingers in the final bottle. It goes well with summer salads, light dishes, and rich desserts.
