Birichino - Santa Cruz County Cider
Price: $16.99
| Producer | Birichino |
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| Country | USA |
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| Region | Sonoma County |
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| Type | Cider |
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| Vintage | 2022 |
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| Sku | 38724 |
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Birichino Description
In George Washington’s very first political campaign in Virginia in 1758, his campaign manager procured 144 gallons of cider, and distributed it free to the voters ensuring a landslide victory, and establishing cider’s vital role in colonial election fraud schemes.
Thomas Jefferson, no less a devoted cider adherent, had a soft spot for an apple first picked in Newtown, Queens County, New York on the farm of Gershon Moore. At Monticello, he planted some 50 Newtown Pippins alongside another favorite Heirloom variety, Esopus Spitzenburg, and remarked in a letter from Paris to James Madison that the Europeans “have no apple to compare with our Newtown Pippin.”
Santa Cruz County has its own long tradition of licit and illicit cider making, and we’re keen to preserve our bounty of heirloom orchards that frequently lay derelict, or worse yet, are uprooted in favor of more profitable or fashionable crops. For our inaugural Birichino cider, we turned to 4th generation apple-grower Jake Mann of Five Mile Orchard in Watsonville. He farms organically two of Jefferson’s favorites: Newtown Pippins from 19th Century trees, and Spitzenburgs. To complement their lovely aromatics, and provide additional grip, cut and depth to our farmhouse style cider, we sourced a few bushels of other heirloom varieties from friends' backyards including King David and Crabby Lady; a Lady Williams-Wickson Crabapple cross, and even a few Hauer Pippins from one of the last trees in the 1890s orchard where Peter Hauer first discovered this late-season apple in Aptos, thought to be a cross of Cox's Orange Pippin and Yellow Bellflower.
A wild fermentation, 10 months barrel aging in stainless and old French barrels, and bottling conditioning in August of 2023 preceded its unleashing under hazy circumstances, without clarification. Swill the planters with bumbo!
