Cold Hand Winery - a Passion for Fruit and Wine

Check out this video with Jens. It was shoot at the Danish Cider Forum meeting in October. Jens from Cold Hand Winery is talking about his passion for fruit wine and Danish cider. Read more about Jens at www.coldhandwinery.dk.

Good job Jens!

A Different Approach to Cider

I’m not the first to work with cider in Denmark. Great and experienced brewers as Kai Winter from Kernegaarden, Jeppe Gents from Fejø Cider and Per Kølster were there before me. What these guys do is French cider in Denmark. They have planted orchards of French and English apple varieties on their farms. To be honest – and I’m sorry – this does not make sense in a country with such a diverse and rich supply of apples. Denmark is full of apples native to this country.

I believe in a different approach: Danish cider on Danish apple varieties. So is this new? Yes and no. No because Kim Johansen from Pomona Cider and Jens Skovgaard from Cold Hand Winery already do cider on Danish varieties. Yes because no one has ever launched a single variety cider on Danish apples. Maybe it taste like something not to be sold? I don’t know. But think about it for a while: a single variety cider on known varieties as Dronning Louise, Ildrød Pigoen, Ingrid Marie and so on. I think there is a huge and untapped potential here.

So I have set out to investigate the potential in single variety Danish cider. Therefore I have designed an experiment investigating different production methods and techniques as well as apple varieties.

Stay tuned for descriptions and results.

Cider?

Danes don’t know what cider is. And be aware if they do. What they might think of is often the undrinkable sweet and nasty stuff misleading sold as cider. Don’t buy it. Don’t drink it. It’s a chemical cocktail of artificial additives. This is not cider and will never be. Cider is 100 % apple!

My aim is to develop a Danish cider on Danish apple varieties. That is it. So how to do this?

Let us combine modern brewing knowledge and facilities with the past respect and understanding of local grown produce and from this produce a high quality cider from Danish apples.

Year’s back in England, France and Spain every single farm produced their own cider. It was a part of their annual routine. Apples was collected, crushed, fermented and bottles. My guess is that the quality may have varied a lot. Now it’s 2012 and the world has changed. Food is produced in huge production plants from raw materials from all over the world. Artificial additives are a must more than a choice. Food is something we sporadically relate to between 5-6 PM on our daily run through the supermarket. So let us combine the best from now and then.