THE CIDERY
Cider’s roots are deep. While new American cider traditions are measured in years or decades, Europeans have cider traditions that stretch back uninterrupted for centuries. It’s only in the last few years that American ciders have surfaced with a new sense of purpose and style all their own.
Borrowing from European cider traditions, Westwind Orchard is fully immersed in making some of the most distinctive ciders in the US. While our oldest trees are standard varieties like McIntosh and Stayman, we’ve been planting new orchards of hard cider varieties and grafting our heirloom dessert apple trees with bittersweet and bittersharp varieties. Our ‘old vine’ trees have only gotten better with age and allow us to make some pretty incredible ciders. But it is our traditional cider varieties that add the richness and, along with our wild cider apples, have us sailing into unexplored waters.
After a few years of figuring out our cider direction, where we’ve landed is pretty impressive and something we’re very proud of here in Accord. Westwind Orchard ciders are produced in the traditional method using true cider apples from our orchard in the Hudson River Valley. All of our ciders are unfiltered and bottle conditioned (all those bubbles are au naturale), and made with no added sulfites (though natural sulfites are present) or sugar.