今年秋天，野生苹果酒应该在您的雷达上
"Who wants to climb a tree?" askedShacksbury Cider联合创始人戴维·多尔金洛（David Dolginow），正如最后一早雾割成蓝色十月的天空一样。在他身后，一个150岁的谷仓靠在草地上，在那里成熟的水果悬挂在一排apple trees. That day, the staff of the Vermont hardcidery在历史悠久的山庄农场上，放弃了他们的发酵罐和罐头线，以觅食野生和野生苹果。
It's part of Shacksbury's丢失的苹果项目在佛蒙特州的景观中，成千上万的苹果树中发现了多年的苹果树中的果实。有些是真正的野性，是一种堕落的种子，幸存下来，在苛刻的冬天和饥饿的鹿中幸存下来，变得不可能成为一棵成年的树。其他人是很久以前由农民种植的野性树，然后随着时间的流逝而变得粗糙而陌生。沙克斯伯里（Shacksbury）与少量的奶油和酿酒厂一起，试图将那些野生和野性的水果变成复杂的饮料。
Shacksbury总统科林·戴维斯（Colin Davis）解释说：“您正在寻找风味密度，然后是酸度，糖和单宁。”他于2013年与Dolginow建立了奶油店。首先，多尔金诺（Dolginow）和戴维斯（Davis品尝水果。当他们对他们的觅食苹果酒的消息传出时，附近的土地所有者开始打电话报道时髦的老树，他们在树林中发现了深处。现在，提示通过苹果酒的Lost Apple Registry.
On the mountain farm where the Shacksbury crew gleaned apples in October, Davis clambered into a tree covered with knobby, yellow-green fruit. He shook the limbs hard, showering apples onto a tarp spread across the grass. Davis picked one up to taste. "It's got kind of a vanilla flavor, and it's chalky — those soft, chalky flavors are good for cider," he said.
Just 20 or 30 cideries in the United States are working with wild and foraged fruit, estimated New York cidermaker Andy Brennan, founder ofAaron Burr Cider和the author of the 2020 book未经耕种的：野苹果，真正的苹果酒和谋生的复杂艺术. Purchasing a few tons of apples at a commercial orchard is a simple transaction compared with gathering fruit from hillsides, abandoned farms, and forest clearings. Cultivated apples are sweeter and juicier, sometimes yielding twice as much cider for every pound of pressed fruit. But there's more to great cider than lots of apple juice.
Apples don't grow "true to type," so if you plant a seed from your lunchtime Honey Crisp, the resulting tree will bear a mystery fruit that may taste nothing like the original. Biting into a wild apple is a surprise every time. The fruit could be sweet, or it could be bitter, tannic and dry. And even a cultivated apple variety will begin re-wilding after a few years of neglect, Brennan said, reverting to hardy traits that are rare in well-tended orchards.
布伦南说：“我从荒漠的果园中觅食，我见过金色美味的野性。”与耕种的苹果不同，一棵废弃的树通常每隔一年就会产生水果。根部更深地向土壤摇摆，在水果的肉中增加了泥土细微的差别和矿物质。苹果生长较小，皮肤增厚。
"As skin gets tougher it starts producing more tannin, and tannin is great for aging cider," Brennan said, explaining that cider made from feral apples can result in more nuanced taste. "The density of flavor is two or three times that of cultivated cider."
After gathering apples into totes and crates, the Shacksbury crew hiked to a high meadow with views across the White River Valley, where autumn weather was kindling explosive color in the surrounding forest. A cooler held iced cans of鹿小吃, the annual cider Shacksbury makes with each season's blend of foraged and orchard fruit.
发酵受到野生酵母的紧贴刺激。苹果酒明亮而干燥，带有浓郁的踢脚机，像甜糖果一样降落在味蕾上。“那是我最喜欢的树之一，”多尔金诺说，指着蜘蛛苹果树饰有水果，春天的绿色瓦拉奥拉（Crayola）的色调。“这是一种痛苦的单宁，后来又渴望了。”
Every so often, the Shacksbury co-founders find a wild or feral fruit they love enough to make their own, working with their orchardist partners at意外果园和日出果园to graft tree cuttings onto rootstock, a process called propagation that brings once-wild varieties back into the cultivated fold. Dolginow and Davis have propagated 11 varieties so far, giving them names like Gill's Peach and Bandito.
大多数野生和野生苹果啊ugh, will remain quietly anonymous—even the nearby tree whose tannins Dolginow praised. After lunch, the crew shook a few more of its apples into their now-overflowing crates. Stray fruit crunched underfoot, turning the air sweet and faintly rotten. "Let's call it a day," Dolginow said. "We'll leave plenty of snacks for the deer."