Apfel Wein
What it is and how we make it.
"Taste an Iowa Summer in Every Glass"™
Landwein: Country Wine from the orchard.
Making wine from grapes begins in the vineyard. Making wine from fruit begins in the orchard. Our orchard is fashioned after an old world style Streuobstwiese or Meadow orchard. The Streuobstwiese has widely spaced trees so there is room for plenty of of sunlight and breezes to create the best fruit. The trees are large sized to gather adequate sugars and nutrients rather than being stunted by dwarfing roots. We don't rely on chemicals, allowing pollenators and beneficial insects to thrive. Our fruit is tree ripened and picked at maximum flavor and sweetness. Good fruit makes good wine. This is the best starting point for apple wine. Our orchard is where we begin to make wine with a taste of Iowa summer in every glass!™ All apples are washed, sanitized and sorted by hand. Our apples may not be perfect. Perfect apples are produced by applying lots of chemicals in the orchard. Our rule is that if you would not eat the apple we do not press the apple.
Milling Apples
One major difference between apple wine and grape wine is that apples are milled before pressing. Apples are ground to a pulp called pommace. The apples may be stored for a time before milling to evaporate excess moisture and concentrate flavors. The pommace may be pressed immediately, or may rest a time to let the juices seep from the cells of the apples. Depending on the desired outcome the pommace may stand 3 to 24 hours before pressing to develop color and flavor. This period is called maceration. Our apples are pressed with a hydro press. This press is operated by water pressure. A flexible center core is expanded by water pressure gently pushing the juice out through a perforated stainless steel cylinder. The juice is collected and pumped to stainless steel holding tanks. This is usually the only time the wine goes through a mechanical pump. Once the juice is fermented our winery is designed to allow for gravity flow to move the wine within the facility. Less pumping saves energy. Excessive pumping of wine can change subtle flavor profiles.
Natural Fermentation
The next step is fermentation. Fermentation is a natural process. We view the natural process as a partner to work with rather than against. There is less sugar to ferment in apples than in grapes. Apple juice directly fermented creates hard cider. To achieve an alcohol content similar to grape wine we use a process called chaptalization. This adds natural nutrients to the juice to provide more food for the yeast which produces the alcohol. We increase the alcohol content for a number of reasons, it adds to the flavor profile of the wine and it also provides for longer life in the bottle. Our apple wine averages around 12% alcohol. We create our wine from blends of juice from several different varieties of apples. We make wine from juice from just a single apple variety too. We make wine with juice from other fruit such as cranberry, raspberry and rhubarb. Hand crafting wine is about working with nature to bring out the best the wine can be. There are many things that change, improve or degrade the final outcome of a wine. We are most concerned with three natural processes which influence the fermentation process.
Happy Yeast
Yeast is the living organism responsible for fermentation. Some winemakers rely on the yeast already on the skin of the fruit for fermentation. This yeast can produce great wine. It can also produce not so great wine depending on the kind of yeast present. We choose specially selected strains of yeast to bring out the best characteristics of the fruit. We continually evaluate different yeast strains, choosing those which enhance the flavor profiles.
Proper fermentation temperature contributes to the quality of our wine. Warmer temperatures create a faster fermentation, but it can stress the yeast. Stressed yeast creates off flavors. Our main concern is quality, not speed. Cooler fermentation slows the process and makes a more refined, better tasting apple wine. Our wine is fermented at optimum temperature. A better wine is worth the wait.
To make the best wine we also control the batch size. Large tanks and large batches increase production. We make our wine in small batches, allowing us to hand craft our wines. Small batches enable us to work with natural processes, monitoring and fine tuning each wine for the best possible outcome. The Swiss have a saying, klein aber fein, “Small is good”. We don't make the most wine, we want to make the best wine.
Fruit wine is a different kind of wine enjoyment.
Swiss culture is built around local values with a healthy suspicion of those who make rules that others must follow. Too often, fear of transgressing complex wine etiquette that the “knowledgeable” use to impress the “uninformed” prevents the enjoyment of wine. Often we hear people say, "Oh, I am not a wine person, I don't know enough about wine". Fruit wines are often called "Country Wine" (Landwein) and they begin from a different place. We begin with what is local, in our orchard and in our cellar. We simply craft wines that we like. Our wines are made for you to enjoy. Our goal is to express the nature of the apples and fruit we grow on the land we love. Our wines are not produced to conform to the opinions of purists. They are not the people for whom we craft our products. You are!
