So, here’s a piece of good news

By Jeff Zeitler on Thursday, January 14th, 2021

I mean, I could use some good news this week. How about you?

News is- we have a new Vin de Pomme batch ready. And here’s the really good part. This batch is pink! Yes, it’s a rose’.

If you haven’t heard the story of Vin de Pomme before- it’s this: In France, some long time ago, the vineyard field hands and cellar workers would take the pulp left after grapes were pressed, mix it with apple juice or even the pulp left after apple pressing and water, and allow it all to ferment to create a sort of poor man’s wine.

But the result isn’t poor at all. To be honest, it’s in some ways better than cider or red wine by itself. It’s wonderfully zingy and fresh and worthy of a sampling. This is no cheap imitation of something else, it’s a beautiful and delicious thing in it’s own right.

In this case, we saved all of our white grape pulp and red grape pulp from the 2020 pressing and poured some of our best hard cider over it, then let it steep for a while. With the blend of reds and whites, the result was a wonderful deep pink. Which caused us to rename it Vin de Pomme rose’

I know rose’ should have an accent mark over the e instead of a quotation mark, but I don’t know how to do fancy stuff with my keyboard. If you do, tell me how and I will next time. In the meantime, this is a perfect blend of cider and wine that you really ought to try.

To make that happen, we have a sale on Vin de Pomme rose’ this week- $10 a bottle- only until the end of day Saturday and that also applies to deliveries and pickup orders.

What could be the reason for this outpouring of generosity?

Well, it could be the mid-January funk that I think most of us are in- I can only speak for myself, but I think I see it in the faces of the few others that I’m able to cross paths with when out for a walk or a drive. Is it the weather? Maybe it has to do with all the fun stuff in the news? Who knows. In any case, we have a lovely, bubbly antidote to the January blues here waiting for you in 750 ml. bottles, and it’s ten bucks.

But only until Saturday. We also have all the other stuff that we had before, but sadly we’re going to charge you full price for that.

Oh- and can you order it in the taproom?

Sorry, no. I know, I know, the governor is allowing taprooms to open this week. We’d sort of like to open- but it doesn’t feel right. With a mutated strain of the bug now in Minnesota, and our own health at risk, as well as our employees’ and customers’ health, we just don’t feel it’s worth it. Not yet.

With the fantastic holiday bottle sales that you all helped with (woohoo!) and some new grant money supposedly coming our way, we can afford to hunker down for a while longer and stay healthy. If you’re looking forward to chilling out here and having a glass of cider- don’t worry- it will happen. Just not quite yet. We’ll revisit the idea of reopening in late January when more data is available. Til then we have our bottle shop.

Hope to see you soon. Thursday 4-6, Friday 4-6, Saturday 1-6. Bottle sales only.