2020 brought us our best crop ever! At The Cider Farm orchard, near Mineral Point, Wisconsin, the young trees started to bear fruit and the older trees gave us more apples than we could have imagined. Our 2014 Dabinett trees took the prize this year, they really pumped out the apples! Of course, we always want more. Hopefully next year will be just as good, if not better.
The weather early on presented a few springtime challenges in terms of disease, but we put up our best defense and were able to fend off most of the issues.
Mother Nature set the stage for the stellar production year in terms of rain. It got drier as the year went on but we do have an irrigation system to fall back on. The drier weather was welcomed this fall. It allows us to easily harvest the apples and also keeps the flavor strong and undiluted.
Every apple has been picked and pressed and every tote of juice labeled with contents within. We yielded 5600 gallons of juice, about 1/3 of that will be used to make our apple brandy and the rest to ferment cider.
Yahara Bay is a partner of ours, the distiller of our barrel-aged Apple Brandy. We managed to obtain a distiller’s permit this year but still plan to collaborate with them for production.
The orchard tours were wonderful! We appreciate all those that ventured to Mineral Point to see the heart and soul of The Cider Farm. The plan is to resume the tours in the spring, the apple blossoms are beautiful in May! We also hope to resume the Cidery tours at the Tasting Room in 2021. Keep an eye out for dates and times.
