Piquenique ‘Blackberry’ Cider

Location: United States, Washington, San Juan Islands

Winemakers: Tess Bryant, Niccolo Coturri

Fruit: Blackberries, Apples

Soil: sandstone, limestone

Cidermaking: hand-harvested apples pressed in small basked press; the juice goes into glass demijohn to ferment with indigenous yeasts. Wild-foraged blackberries are then added to the apple juice. Racked off the lees and bottled with a tiny amount of residual sugar to finish in bottle.

From us at M&L: Stunningly pure-fruited and ethereal to drink, this is a singular vision of what San Juan is capable of. Only 11 cases produced.

From the Producers: In 2019, we moved to the San Juan Islands in Washington along the Canadian border to explore what the world of farming and viticulture had to offer outside our familiar world of Sonoma and Northern California. We settled here with the intention of (eventually) buying land on which to plant orchards, vines, and gardens, and in the meantime we have set up a small winery in which last year we produced 700 cases of sparkling wines from purchased, local, organic/non-sprayed apples, grapes, pears, plums, quince, blackberries and medlar. The fruit has been picked and processed by us. Everything was processed and produced without additions, and bottled as a pet nat: no added sugars, yeasts, oak or sulfites at any time ever. Everything was fermented and aged in glass or stainless steel, and nothing was or will be disgorged.