Agave DISCOVER THE WORLD OF , MEZCAL, AND BEYOND

Plus: DESTINATION BUENOS AIRES Q&A: DAVID LEBOVITZ WHERE TO DRINK IN PALM SPRINGS PINEAPPLE the" N ge o# To ! l

A Krista Scruggs of ZAFA .

62 imbibemagazine.com ~ march/april 2020 odd Cavallo pushes some snow o! the top of a drab, moss-green tarp and lifts a section to reveal one of the 55-gallon plastic barrels sitting outside the wooden barn that houses his Wild Arc Farm winery in Pine Bush, New York. It’s the kind of gray-light December day in the Hudson Valley where, as the sun wanes, color seems to slowly drain from everything. That is, until Cavallo plunges his thief into a barrel and draws the liquid from inside. Bright, beautiful, cherry-red juice with “I have my tasting room in Burlington darker bits of !otsam rushes into the cyl- [Vermont], and I purposely put the de#nition inder, and Cavallo squirts some into a glass of wine on the wall there: Wine is made from etched with the word “raw”—a souvenir from grapes or apples, but also various other fruits his recent turn at the popular natural-wine and !owers,” says Krista Scruggs of ZAFA festival of the same name. It’s from the skins Wines. Scruggs has been co-fermenting of New York–grown Merlot, revived not with Vermont-sourced fruit since she launched her grape juice or with water, but with juice from own label in 2017, as well as previously, when local Northern Spy apples. It smells of fresh she worked as assistant winemaker for Deirdre raspberries and cherries, and something a Heekin and Caleb Barber’s La Garagista in little less predictable—a hint of Froot Loops, nearby Bethel. Almost the entire #rst vintage maybe? It’s fresh and juicy and lively, and of ZAFA was co-fermented grapes and apples, even in this early state of its co-mingled, fer- Scruggs says, in part because she couldn’t get menting life, I want more. her hands on enough grapes for a solo uva "is is the nature of liquid made from act, and in part because of the inspiration co-fermenting wine grapes—be they Vitis vi- from her fellow Vermont producers. "at nifera or hybrids—and other fruits, whether experience helped her see a di$erent direction wild or cultivated: apples, pears, plums, to in the form of co-fermenting quince. "e #nished result is low in alcohol myriad types of fruit, a process that doesn’t (hovering typically between 7 to 10 percent exactly have a strict methodical path. ABV), brightly bubbly (via the traditional Some, like Cavallo, use what’s called a method or ancestral, aka pét-nat, technique), piquette-style method, taking the spent skins and dry on the palate, but with rich, fresh, from wine fermentation, rehydrating them fruity aromatics. with the juice from crushed apples, and al- Cavallo’s Wild Arc Farm and producers lowing the natural yeast in the mix to kick like ZAFA Wines, Fable Farm Fermentory, o$ a fermentation between the two. Others, La Garagista, William Heritage, Art+Science, like Art+Science, & Wine Company Casa Dumetz, and Small Talk Vineyards in Sheridan, Oregon, combine the juices are among a growing number of producers of crushed grapes and apples (or plums or whose e$orts are seeping outside the tradi- pears) and let them co-ferment that way. tional lines of grape-based winemaking. And Some, like Heekin, dabble in both. Whichever while co-fermentation isn’t remotely a new method is employed, what’s most exciting is technique, it’s making a splash among curi- how the grapes and other fruits complement ous small-scale producers who—through each other, teasing out aromas and !avors some combination of creative urge, historical that might have gone unnoticed before. “It curiosity, and out and out necessity—skew came from necessity,” says Scruggs. “I saw, toward working with what’s available. But is of course, Fable Farm [Fermentory] and La this #nished product wine? Is it cider? Is it Garagista macerating grape skins on cider. I both, or something else entirely? It is, say its wanted to explore doing a must to get more creators, all of the above. extraction from the juice and then the skins. Before that, I had no impulse to work with apples and grapes. It was a necessity of vin- tage, and it’s why it’s so personal to me. It’s Greta Rybus

march/april 2020 ~ imbibemagazine.com 63 how I started working with those two products pecially with our #rst co-ferment, Symbiosis, of together—I had to.” having a terroir wine or cider—or whatever you "at is, of course, the crux of the use-it-or- want to call it!” lose-it methodology that likely brought the tech- Rinke’s day job is as the vineyard manager nique to fruition in the #rst place. It’s interesting at Johan Vineyards, where he primarily sources to try something new and experiment, sure— grapes for his own wines with Art+Science. "eir but considering the historical role of wine as a Symbiosis is a #fty-#fty co-ferment between the source of calories and as, well, food, co-ferment- juice of Grüner Veltliner on the skins and foraged ing makes a lot of sense. It makes the most of apples. "ey have three more co-ferments waiting what you’ve got and where you’ve got it, as well for release: a skin-fermented Sauvignon Blanc and as limits waste. pear combo, a foraged plum-pear co-ferment, and a fermented mix of Mondeuse Noir, Pinot Noir, plums, apples, and pears named FruitNat. “"ere’s a lot of history. Most cultures have a “It’s about utilitarian product like this,” says Sean Comninos, winemaker for William Heritage Winery, a generations-old fruit farm in Mullica Hill, New grabbing Jersey, part of the Outer Coastal Plain AVA. In addition to traditional reds and whites, Comninos whatever you is making a duo of co-ferments, including a piquette-style product made with apple juice, have from from the estate’s farm-sourced fruit. Of piquette’s origins, rehydrating leftover grapeskins from wine fermentation with water, Comninos says, your property “It’s something #eldworkers and commoners in the ancient world used—the skins were a product that will given to people who were the poorest.” ferment, and "e piquette style was something Cavallo throwing it was turned onto by a friend who’d read about France’s version of the technique in an old wine all together.” book. My own grandfather from Calabria used the same technique to stretch the homemade %DAN RINKE wine he and my dad made in their basement, rehydrating and refermenting the spent skins of his to make something they referred “In Vermont, we’re uniquely situated to de- to as acquata. A version also existed in Tuscany velop this as a long-term tradition because we called l’acqua pazza—crazy water. have this history of apple orchards and cider- During the initial trials, Cavallo learned that making,” says Heekin, who counts 29 wild and in addition to color, tannin, and a bit of initial cultivated apple varieties on her farm, and the !avor, hydrating the skins changed the existing surrounding land, that go into her cider proj- pH and gave life to the same kind of lactic acid ects and co-ferments. “With [grape] hybrids, bacteria that makes sour and we’re able to make cold-climate wines here, so delicious. "e #rst one he bottled sold out too, so it’s a good marriage between the fruits immediately: a co-ferment called Sweetheart, a we have.” subtle, bone-dry, charmingly copper-pink spar- "at same practical notion fuels others, too. kler with a heady tropical Life Savers–like nose, “It’s about grabbing whatever you have from that gets its color from the skins of Teroldego your property that will ferment, and throwing it grapes that were rehydrated with the juice of all together. I’m sure that’s what people did for Northern Spy apples. “"ose bacteria are there fermentation originally,” says Dan Rinke, wine- and active on the , and that’s the pom- maker at Art+Science, Cider & Wine Company. ace we use for our co-ferments,” says Cavallo. But for Rinke and his co-owner and wife, Kim “So we’re using it both as a way to extract col- Hamblin (who also serves as Art+Science’s as- or and tannin from the skins for a thing like a sistant winemaker), that utilitarian appeal is cider with red grape skins, and to inoculate it also a way of celebrating and expressing the land with interesting yeast and bacteria to do the where they work. “I’ve always liked the idea, es- fermentation.” All photos: Greta Rybus Greta photos: All

64 imbibemagazine.com ~ march/april 2020 Clockwise from this photo: ZAFA Wines; Deirdre Heekin on her farm in Vermont; the ZAFA Wines tasting room in Burlington, Vermont; winemakers at work at ZAFA Wines. Kim Hamblin and Dan Rinke, co-owners and winemakers at Art+Science, Cider & Wine Company. Below: A bottle and glasses of their co-ferment, Symbiosis, made with foraged apples and Grüner Veltliner grapes.

66 imbibemagazine.com ~ march/april 2020 Heekin made her #rst co-ferment in 2010, a than the unique wines that only you and your small batch as an experiment. “I can’t remember region grow, you are in risky territory.” how I ended up on this website and down the Scruggs had a taste of early wine-darling rabbit hole, but somehow I came across a refer- fame, too, making headlines in pretty much ence to a style of wine called vin ëd pom—cider every major beverage publication. Instead of fermented on red wine skins—and I was like, seeing stars, it gave her pause—concerned ‘Oh, my god! "at’s really fascinating, and why about what could come from making high- didn’t I think of that?’ ” demand wines that can eclipse everything else She took the pressed-o$ skins from some red and crush her creativity. What she found was grapes in her winery and combined them to fer- that the beauty of co-fermentations was indeed ment with cider; she liked the results so much, the exhilaration, terror, and enlightenment of she’s been doing it ever since in her annual re- seasonality, and how two things can go together. lease, Stolen Roses, a ferment of cider on the “Unless you look at the tech sheet, nowhere on skins of Marquette or Frontenac Noir red grapes. the label would you know that I used di$erent Heekin also makes "e Flesh and "e Bone: a fruits for 95 percent of my last vintage. I never #fty-#fty ferment between Brianna, an aromatic use the word ‘co-fermentation,’ mostly because white hybrid grape variety, and both wild and of that same deep concern,” says Scruggs. cultivated apples growing on Heekin and Barber’s “It would take away from my intentions. I’m biodynamic farm. It clocks in at a little over 10 doing this out of genuine curiosity. As a small percent ABV and is labeled as a sparkling cider. producer, I can’t a$ord to do something just as She’s currently working on a cider fermented a trend.” on Frontenac Gris skins. “For me, it started as inspiration from historical references from areas like Italy’s Val d’Aosta, Trentino, Alto Adige, and France’s Savoy,” she says of the Alpine regions “I’m doing this where orchards sit in the valleys, and vines grow up the sides of mountainous foothills. “Obviously, it was a way of fermenting and storing things, but out of genuine it’s a tradition that fell out of favor after World War I, when the DOC felt it was too competitive curiosity. As a with the patrimony of the wines.” small producer,

As co-fermenting fruit once again gains in I can’t a$ord to popularity, that same leeriness of competition, and of the unwanted side e$ects of making the do something next cool thing, lingers. When you consider the way trends like orange wine and pétillant natural–style wines went from being interesting just as a trend.” indie darlings to fashionable wines, producers like Regan Meador of Southold Farm + Cellar %KRISTA SCRUGGS in Fredericksburg, Texas, and Scruggs see a caveat. “I wrestled with the same deal. We did But the fact that no one (including the a piquette and it certainly had the momentum federal o&ce of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax to turn into a monster,” Meador says. “I had this and Trade Bureau, who has the last say on legal moment where I could see us being only known label language) really knows what box to put for projects that aren’t as important as the hard these products in could, perhaps, be the savior work we are putting into growing grapes and of co-fermentation’s sanctity. "ey are, in e$ect, making wine here in the Texas Hill Country.” a blank slate—not only is there no agreed-upon Meador launched his career making low- product de#nition, but no one’s around to tell intervention wines on the North Fork of Long you what you should smell or taste or even think Island, and he understands the challenges of about them. “Honestly, I believe no one thing small wine regions. His concern isn’t that the can be any less better than two parts together,” product is poor, but that the potential trendiness Scruggs says. “What happens when you fall in of co-ferments will attract industry giants and love? It’s magic! "at person brings something All photos: Aubrie LeGault Aubrie photos: All overshadow the important and irreplaceable out in you that you didn’t know existed. "at’s work small producers are doing. “I think being the inspiration behind this—a natural path to known for an easily replicated product rather bring two things together.”

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