2012 Vintage: Northeast Apples

Briefly: 2012 was defined by an early thaw, early blossom, and subsequent frost which decimated what little crop was anticipated for an off year for apples. (Naturally apples go biennial and fruit every other year or sometimes even three or four year.  Commercial farms manipulate the tree to fruit yearly but I'm referring to old-school apple production and wild apples.)  After a wet Spring and cool dry Summer the season turned out pretty good, the brix were high and fruit was clean.  The problem for cider, apart from shortages and all-around price spikes, was the early harvest.  With an early harvest traditional-style cider makers are left to ferment in warmer then usual temperatures and for longer (starting in September rather then Oct./ Nov.)
   I can't speak for cider makers who temperature regulate the fermentation or add champagne yeast but I can speak for traditional cider making which requires a cellar and a long winter for aging. Usually the fermentation begins in late October and the cold temperatures of late November stop the fermentation just short of dry.  It is then aged and in the Spring it picks up again and goes into MLF.  This year the early apples were bone dry in storage and had even started the MLF pre-winter, but the late apples kept their pattern.  In fact a long cold Spring in 2013 really help age the cider and the initial fruit quality was deeply infused.  If the harvest were three weeks later the 2012 season might have been the banner year we compare all others with because the Winter and 2013 Spring were perfect.
 

Making Wine -vs- Making Cider

   If you can make good cider you can make good wine, but not the other way around.  For one thing, cider is more difficult to "stabilize", it has less alcohol, the acids are different and lower (higher PH), and it has less tannin.  But more notably, the flavors of cider are more subtle and aloof.  By the time you master blending cider the variations in wine seem easily identifiable and ready to pair.   
   Yet when I hear what my colleagues in the wine industry do to make, say a chardonnay, I'm disappointed by the by-the-book approach they all seem to take.  It's as though academia has given them a "how to" on wine:  You add sugar if the brix aren't right, you add acid if the T.A. is off.  You sulfite the must so that lab yeasts have a sterile start, you sulfite at each rack and you sulfite at bottle for ML bacteria and oxidation.  And is it necessary to use a sterile filter?  Forgettaboutit! Who doesn't?
   This is the cider-makers advantage.  We don't have decades of formula to draw upon and we are given the opportunity to figure it out on our own.  Individually reinventing the wheel trains us to trust our instincts and we learn to self-critique without bias or expectation.  We are more more likely to ignore teachers, advise from "professionals", and even the feedback from the market.  If we can maintain our innocence our products will preserve a spontaneity, creativity and uniqueness lacking in most wine.  Quickly, professionals and academia are jocking for authority in today's revamped cider market, some want to establish a standard, but I elect we maintain a healthy skepticism as cider develops down the path blazed by wine.  Truth is, we need both, explanation and exploration, but we are blessed with fewer hang-ups in our "new" market.  We are free to be kids, and I feel sorry for those self-imprisoned by the tag authority. 

Spring reflections on the cycle of cider and apples:

First week of April 2013, silver tip. 

  Our ciders are still in oak barrels or they are in large glass containers in the cave.  But as the cellar temperatures inch above 50 degrees I expect the cider to awaken, mirroring the activity seen on the tips of the trees.  The two are not unrelated, in fact, cider blending and the apple blossom usually correspond because they are both the result of ground temperatures warming in early Spring.  The warmth causes renewed activity in the cider (sometimes referred to as the malolactic fermentation, although that only partly explains it) and for us it’s only after this change that we know the true character of each batch. 

   We agree with the Colonial practice of cider making which expects cider to reach it’s full potential only after a full winter in cold temperatures.   Just as the trees go dormant, and the energy falls beneath the ground over winter, so too, that happens in the barrel.  Cider clears as the air clears, and the flavors come together, for better or for worse.  If you have trapped SO2, it is now infused.  If you have tannin, it too is infused with other flavors.  (On a related note: This is why we age half our ciders in large glass containers, because we like to infuse fruit character which is usually the first quality to dissipate when aging, especially in oak.)    

   And Winter slumbering in the open air, wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring (Phil Connors.)  We like to think of Spring as a new beginning, and it is, but it’s really the awakening of the same earth, the same linear time line, the same living being.  We are cranky but we are rejuvenated by winter.  We have more energy.  And like the birds, the bees and all the flowering trees, we are ready to procreate.  I’d like to think that that’s what is happening in the cider too- that it is opening up to the world, it is ready to be consumed and it is ready to overtake our sober minds.  Intoxication has two meanings. 

   We give flowers to one another as a show of affection, that’s not far from what nature intends.  As I look at the tree buds swelling and showing green they are still weeks from blossom, but after the tree is fully awake it will be ready for procreation.  That’s when we blend our cider, when it is fully emerged from the cocoon.  It’s now at it’s adult stage, and ready to find the right mate.