NV Hiyu Wine Farm "Germinal Cider I Mt. Hood" Hood River Cider 

By Nate Ready, Winemaker, on this Cider “We started to plant a new orchard devoted to cider varieties in 2013, surrounded by forest and the hoofprints of elk. It’s taken a long time to bear, but we’re starting to harvest enough fruit to begin to release cider from these trees – this is the first one. Our goal was to create a cider with a completely different flavor profile than Floréal’s – while Germinal is made from bitter-sharp apples with high tannin + high acid, Floreal is made mostly from aromatic dessert apples (high sugar + high acid). ” Fruit: Bittersharp Apples (Redfield, Bulmer’s Norman, Summerset Redstreak and Brown Snout), and rare heirloom dessert apples like Karmijn de Sonneville. Making of: the apples are aged for a month after picking in order to ripen and concentrate, then milled and macerated for a week, and pressed in a basket press traditionally lined with biodynamic straw (used as a kind of sieve, but it also adds spiciness to the final flavor). The juice is then