KIEFFER COUNTRY WINE 2024

 Fruit
62% Kieffer Pear, 16% Dolgo Crab, 12% Rhode Island Greening, 10% Limbertwig

Site
Varying foraging sites located with the Warm Springs Valley and its adjacent foothills of Bath County, Virginia. Elevation ranging from 1700-2400’. Sandy loam top soil over top of Lincolnshire limestone. 

Vinification
Kieffer Pears are harvested in mid to late October and sweated at cellar temperatures for upward of a month. Once sorted, pears are ground and pressed directly to a neutral French oak barrel. Additional apples are subsequently pressed to top up the barrel. Towards the end of an uninoculated, native primary fermentation the barrel is topped up with reserve Dolgo crab apple cider. The barrel sits undisturbed for five months until it is racked off its gross/fine lees and bottled still with some perlant dissolved CO2. No additions of SO2 were made at any stage of this wine.

Notes
It is no secret we love Perry. Maybe part of that is attributed to its seeming rarity in our world. There are very few pear trees in our mountains and almost no nearby orchards grow any varietals worth fermenting. The few pear trees that we do forage are almost exclusively Kieffer. This old homestead pear is colloquially referred to as “keeper” or “winter” pear, birthed by an extremely hardy and resilient tree that is often the last indication of a homesite after the structure and its owners are long gone. Their early bloom is a challenge these days and we don’t get to rely on consistent crops due to early April frost. In 2024 pears were limited and we relied on the addition of two late season foraged apples to fill the barrel. The result tames some of the Kieffer’s profuse floral qualities but offers more acidic structure and a overall balanced but still juicy sense of fruit. Drink this wine in its youth and plant more Perry pears. 

274 Bottles Produced, Alc. 6.27% by Volume, 750ml