CIDERY Woodside Orchards
CIDER/WINEMAKER Kelly Koch
CIDER NV Worlds Collide Sparkling, 8.2% abv, 75 cases made
APPLES & GRAPES 30% sauvignon blanc, 70% cider (Ida Red, Golden Russet, Golden Delicious, Northern Spy, McIntosh, Granny Smith)
PRICE $20
FAVE FOOD PAIRING Cornell Cooperative oysters from the stand right outside the Woodside Orchards tasting room
Around the same time about a decade and change ago that everyone started going gaga over pét nats (that is, the old-school lightly sparkling wines, pétillant natural), there was another what’s-old-is-new trend bubbling near the surface: co-ferments.
No, it’s not a new term for a living situation (that your parents would disapprove of) or the name of a summer DJ residency in Montauk — it’s the way country farmers skating beneath the strict rules of wine and cider making combine the two fruit sources into one, and at the same time.
But for wine and cider maker Kelly Koch, it was all about the end product in her sauvignon blanc and apple co-ferment, Worlds Collide.
“I have combined apples and grapes before, but the first Worlds Collide was fresh cider fermented on red grape skins post-fermentation, which gave more tannin and structure,” says Koch. “This was the first time working with [a] white and it was co-fermented with freshly pressed grape juice.”
It is, in a word, irresistible. Fresh and sprightly, you wouldn’t be alone if you didn’t know it was an apple and grape combo. It smells a little bit like a young riesling with its floral notes. When you taste it, it starts out apple-forward, at once tart and mildly sweet on your tastebuds, but morphs into full-on sauvignon blanc gooseberry and citrus. You kinda can’t put it down and, well, at 8.2% abv you don’t have to (it is, Koch says, meant to be consumed within a year or so). It’s easy to drink and easy to love with a plate of local oysters, as recommended by Koch. And the label? It adds a fun Easter egg to the mix: It’s a painting by Kip Bedell, pioneering North Fork winemaker and the man who brought Koch from Healdsburg, Calif., to the East End.
To make Worlds Collide, Koch pressed the sauvignon blanc grapes on their own, blending a small portion of the juice with fresh cider, and then co-fermented at a cool temperature in stainless steel. It’s aged for about eight months on the lees before being filtered to a clear, pale lemony-bright hue.
“I was looking for the acidity and aromatics of the sauv blanc to help lift the cider and give it a fun, fresh feel,” she says. World-colliding mission accomplished
