Brutes ‘Northern Tropics’ Cider Pét-Nat 2020
Location: Sweden, Stockholm
Cidermaker: Brad Sawicki, Tobias Eriksson, Nicklas Ivarsson, Joakim Kviberg, Fredrik Winberg
Fruit: Swedish apples (Ribston, Husmor, Holsteiner)
Soil: old seabed
Cidermaking: 50 day whole-pulp maceration, followed by spontaneous fermentation and one round of racking.
From the Importer Super Glou: Think of ‘Northern Tropics’ as the "orange wine" equivalent of dry cider, It's much more structured than the others, and strangely reminds us of riesling! This is a true cider made from 100% heirloom varieties of apples from 100 year old trees that sit on an ancient seabed within Stockholm city limits. The salty Stockholm terroir is reminiscent of Basque country, which has us dreaming about all the mouth-watering foods we’d want to pair with this cider.
Bonded over a mutual love of natural wine, this small group of friends has set out to create their own expression of terroir in the predominantly grape-less—but fruit-rich—land of Sweden. With seemingly more apple trees than people and a cultural history of foraging wild fruit, Sweden is ripe for the picking. Brutes has fused the bounty surrounding them with their admiration of winemaking to produce a range of ciders and fruit pet’nats that will excite and delight, leading you to re-evaluate your own idea of “wine.” As they are fond of saying: “apples are our grapes.”
Just outside of Stockholm, on the islands of Lake Mälaren, apples and pears are handpicked from old orchards that have been largely forgotten, but luckily not abandoned. The fruit is crushed and then left to macerate for varying lengths before pressing. The maceration gives structure and body to cider in similar ways it does to wine, in particular "orange" wines. This approach can produce something thoughtful on its own or provide a solid base to be seasoned with wild fruits (sloe, blueberry, crabapple) and other garden fruits (pear, cherries, quince, aronia). Each vintage brings refinement and new exploration with this vast palette of fruit with the hopes of creating something true to the terroir, but also fun and unique.
Everything is wild fermented, nothing in, nothing out. It's alive, maturing over time, phasing in and out of various stages, eventually settling into a delicious balance.