Ciders and fruit wines
We make our ciders and fruit wines on a harvest cycle: pressing, fermenting, maturing, blending and bottling a given year’s fruit. No concentrates. No aseptic fruit purees. Each year depends on the fruit available.
We press fruit at Bent Apple farm and ferment at the cidery in Lansing, NC. The ciders are then matured in oak barrels or neutral vessels and blended and bottled at the cidery. Some undergo months to years of further maturation in bottle. No two ciders are alike—each is a celebration of that year’s fruit and growing season. Some examples …
Mountain Maelstrom. Originally made with foraged fruit, this cider has become a celebration of mountain grown apples. In any year, it will contain over thirty varieties of apples sourced from small farms in Ashe, Watauga and Avery counties. We blend the cider to maintain familiarity, but each release is a unique expression of the year’s fruit.
To make Barrel 19, we grind and macerate old fashioned Winesap apples, grown at Bent Apple Farm. The pomace is left outside and allowed to spontaneously ferment with the fruit’s natural microflora. After two-weeks of maceration, the self-pressed juice is racked to barrel where it is fermented dry and matured for several months. The cider is then bottle conditioned. Dry, with a little funk balanced by deep red-apple aromas and good acidity.
Old Orchard Creek is a bubbly fruit wine that features the blueberries of Old Orchard Creek farm, in Lansing, NC. Each July we ferment a must of ripe blueberries and punch the cap daily like a red-wine. The fermented blueberries are pressed and the wine left to mature until November, when it is blended with long-matured apple cider. A beautiful red color, fresh blueberry aromas and an herbaceous finish.
Illustrated by the old Lansing School facility, School House is a blend of traditional early-season cider apples grown at our farm. Varieties include Hewe’s Crab, Nehou, Graniwinkle and Medailles d’Or. Dry, with tropical fruit aromas, good acidity finished with soft tannins.
Carpenter Hill is made with organic purple raspberries, grown in Ashe County, NC. The Carpenter Heirloom raspberry variety is a spontaneous hybrid of red and black varieties, developed by the Carpenter family in the 1960s and now grown on their farm along Helton Creek, in Ashe County, NC. We add whole raspberries to apple cider for secondary fermentation, creating a ruby-colored, semi-dry cider with fruity raspberry and citrus aromas.
The Little Orchard is made entirely from apples grown from our first planting of trees at Bent Apple Farm. Late-season Limbertwig varieties predominate the blend, but the variety of fruit changes from year-to-year. Some years aged in wood and others in neutral vessels. The cider is always full-dry and bottle conditioned.
We press fresh ginger roots from Against the Grain farm in Zionville, NC and blend the ginger juice with apple cider for fermentation. The cider is fermented in barrel, matured on its lees, and naturally sparkling from bottle conditioning. Fully dry with a beautiful balance of apple fruit, acid and ginger warmth.