ISLAND APPLE Sparkling 2023

In 2020, when we were still making wine in our garage on Gull Cove Lane, we made over twenty different apple wines to commemorate the season. Different orchards, different islands, different varieties, different macerations: it was a new place and we needed to discover it all. In coming years, we shed some of these variables, honing in on the style we knew we loved: always sparkling, always fresh and fruit forward. We also started shedding orchards, focusing on a handful of farmers we loved working with and whose trees we felt grew in exceptional terroir, producing flavors we have never tasted in orchard fruits elsewhere. In the 2023 season, we made just one single apple wine, from our three favorite orchards (two on Waldron Island, Blue Moon and Sandy Point, and one on San Juan Island, Oak Knoll), from mostly very old apple trees of mixed variety predating 1920 (with some dating back to the 1860s!); one fermentation vessel, the stainless steel tank, to capture freshness; and one long rolling fermentation, beginning in August with the end of the summer pollinators, and ending in January with the addition of heartier varieties. Old apple trees growing in ancient sandstone have so much to offer. Each month ripens different varieties of apples, and each contributes a layer to the final wine. The result is a delicious sparkling that conveys the salt, sun and fruit of this island terroir.