All posts by Charles McGonegal

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Update 3/11/12

Added the rest of the basic pages for the Song Bird Ciders: Oriole Perry, Kinglet Bitter, Red Poll, Bunting and Sparrow Spiced.

Note to self: Add key for the sweetness and tartness scales somewhere, and add a post telling the story of ‘Why Songbirds’.

Draft, Products

Orchard Oriole Perry

English traditional perry pears. Complex and tannic. Fermented to highlight cultivars and terroir. Subtle pear, different from Bartlett and not-so-subtle tannins, tart, slightly bubbly.

  • Body: Tannic
  • Sweetness: 1
  • Tartness: 7
  • Alcohol: 5
  • Pears: Taynton Squash, Brandy, Thorn, Winnals Longdon, Normanschein Cidrebirne, Gin, Butt, Hendre Huffcap, and other bitter perry pears of English and Austrian heritage.
  • Pairings:
  • Available: 750mL, 5.16 gallon keg

Oriole Perry is our proud ‘estate’ perry.  It’s grown at Brightonwoods, within sight of the Winery.   It’s more subtle and complex than the Sparkling Perry- being fermented from 100% bitter perry pears.  We ferment it with a Sangiovese yeast that we think really brings out the tannin characters of the perry-specific cultivars.  These pears are exceedingly rare in the US, and not easy to grow.  When we get the question ‘Then why use them?’, we pour a glass of Oriole.  These are not mellow, easy-going French ‘butter pears’.  Perry pears think they are Cabernet – and have the tannins to back it up.

 

Draft, Products

Kinglet Bitter Cider

English and French traditional cider apples. Complex and tannic.
Fermented to highlight cultivars and terroir.
Subtle apple and tannins, tart, slightly bubbly.

  • Body: Medium
  • Sweetness: 1
  • Tartness: 4
  • Alcohol: 6
  • Apples: Dabinette, Domaine, Frequin Rouge, White Jersey, Muscadet Deippe and other bittersweet cider apples of English and French heritage.
  • Pairings:
  • Available: 750mL, 5.16 gallon keg

Kinglet Bitter is one of our proud ‘estate’ ciders.  It’s all grown at Brightonwoods, within sight of the Winery.   It’s more subtle and complex than Barn Swallow – being fermented from 100% bitter English and French cider apples.  It differs from an authentic European cider by being ‘immature’.  Kinglet has very little post-ferment changes made by wild Lactic Acid Bacteria.  Instead, we ferment it with a Sangiovese yeast that we think really brings out the tannin characters of the cider-specific cultivars.  These apples are rare, and not easy to grow.  When we get the question ‘Then why use them?’, we pour a glass of Kinglet.

 

Admin

Website fixes

Milissa’s mother, Marianne, noticed that clicking on the product coverflow images didn’t work properly. Turns out I broke them when I moved the website from a development directory to the main gig. They work again. AND I made it so that they open in the same window, not a new one. Thought I had fixed that one before.

Caveat: clicking the pictures only works if I’ve written posts about those products. The products I’ve made it to are the ones listed in the dropdowns in the by-the-style sub-menu on the Product page.