NATIVE
Native is light-bodied and rustic, with all the quirks of natural wine. Slow down, take a sip
Native
Rouge
Spontaneous Red Wine
We pressed whole Finger Lakes-grown Chambourcin grapes until the skins were dry. The flesh of these deep purple grapes still had some flavor to give, so we tossed them in with their juice to age. Aging on the skin can be an overlooked step; however, we love the tannic qualities expressed throughout this process. Allowing the grapes and skins to fully ferment out enabled all the flavors to party together until dry. Now we can call the juice, red wine.
The red wine was transferred into oak barrels and left to age again. The expression “aging like fine wine” applies here. Tapping into our foeder, which housed seven years of solera cider, we blended this funky, yeasty, sidra-inspired cider with the red wine. The final step in the grape’s journey from farm to cidery was to condition in the can, aka can conditioning. Can conditioning leaves the liquid inside delicate, frizzante, and complex.
Native
Oranje
Spontaneous Orange Wine
We spontaneously fermented Finger Lake Riesling grape skins with Hudson Valley Apples, creating a hyper-local blend. The spent Riesling skins aged for three weeks, co-fermenting with the juice. This process imparts color and wine-like flavor into the blend, thanks to the native yeast & bacteria.
Next, we blended the result with barrel-aged cider and Oranje wine, then canned it, allowing the cider to condition within the can.
The result? Native Oranje. It's light-bodied, joyfully effervescent, with notes of rose petals and lychee, and its texture is akin to white wine. This natural wine cider is bright, crisp, and refreshing, with touches of funk and hay.
Native Spontaneous
Spontaneous Natural Cider
NEW YEAR ROUND NATIVE! Native is our homage to natural cider making, fermented exclusively with Hudson Valley fruit and fermented with native yeast and bacteria living on the apple skins. We then aged the juice in barrels and blended with our foeder using traditional blending methods. Native is light-bodied and rustic, with all the quirks of natural wine. Slow down, take a sip.
Native Applejack
We teamed up with our friends at The Vale Fox to distill our cider base into Brandy. Vale Fox distilled the cider until the liquid reached 140-proof. From there, we soaked four of our barrels in Brandy. Fresh pressed juice was blended into the spirit-soaked barrels, which were left to ferment spontaneously.
Made from: HV cider apples, Aged in HV distilled apple brandy barrels, French oak, staves, HV native yeast & bacteria
Native-
Cassis
We sourced the Cassis from a farm in the Hudson Valley. To achieve a multi-dimensional flavor, we not only fermented the Cassis with the cider, but we also back-sweetened post-fermentation for a hint of sweetness.
As always, Native incorporated liquid from our foeder as well as an extended aging process in oak barrels.
Native Cassis is delicate, zingy, and reminiscent of Lambrusco.
Native-
Kriek
Pouring a beautiful deep cherry red, this blend came from three different places in our cidery - oak neutral barrels, the fouder, and pressed Balaton cherry. We back sweetened with a bit of the Balaton cherry juice, which gives it a nice balance to the higher acidity in this cider.
What makes this Kriek special is not only the native Hudson Valley yeast and bacteria used for fermentation; it's the type of cherry we co-fermented with, Balaton cherries.
Balaton cherries are special because these are the type of cherries that traditional kriek and lambics use. So if you turned a lambic into a cider, that's this concept.
Even though working with barrels can be a paid in the butt, we love what complex and interesting ciders they can make.
Native -
Chardonnay
Our Hudson Valley cider apples yeast, and bacteria take a day trip to the oldest winery in the United States, @brotherhoodwinery .
Late fall during harvest season, we picked up freshly spent wine grape skins and co-fermented said Chardonnay skins with our house cider. The yeast that naturally lives on the grapes' skins helped kick
start secondary fermentation.
Once fermentation was complete, we blended barrel-aged cider to pump up the layers of complexity, tannins, and acid. This co-fermented melange of wild fermented cider represents a unique pairing of Hudson Valley terroir.
Delightful to drink at any temperature, best at 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
Native -
French
Vacation
Made with Hudson Valley Apples, Normandy Cider Apples, HV Native Yeast, and Bacteria, this Normandy and Hudson Valley Spontaneous Cider clocks in at 6.9% abv.
PROCESS
Hudson Valley native cider apples, yeast, and bacteria take a spontaneous vacation to Normandy, France's high tannin cider apple region. Aged in oak for 10 months, this co-fermented melange of wild fermented cider represents a unique pairing of Hudson Valley terroir on holiday for a classic French tradition.
Native -
Peche
Native Peche is a Hudson Valley spontaneous peach cider. Made with Hudson Vally Heirloom Apples, HV Peaches from Fix Farm, HV native yeast, and bacteria.
A few months ago, we day tripped up to @Fixfarm located an hour North in the town of Hudson, where they loaded us up with 300 lbs of freshly picked peaches. Again, the beauties made a trip down south, to Graft, where they were de-pitted by hand, then crushed and pressed. Fresh peach juice was blended into the juice aging in the barrels to encourage a second fermentation. The blend was left untouched for a few weeks, then bottled, and now sit deep in the cidery to bottle condition.
Hudson
Valley
Spontaneous
Cider
The trip from Vosburgh Farm to Graft takes roughly an hour. The old-growth apples are immediately crushed upon our return to Graft, then left to rest on the pomace for a week in stainless steel tanks to encourage the native yeast and bacteria growth from the apples' skins. The following week, the pomace is pressed into juice and transferred to barrels to age for nine months.
Bottled, then left to condition for three months.