Oh, the
perfume of ripening apples! In an Orion
magazine article*, writer Gary Paul Naban describes a trip to the Eden-like
birthplace of Malus sieversii in
Kazakhstan, where researchers catalogued more than fifty-six wild forms of
apples. Fortunately, fifty-one varieties of these fragrant beauties can be
found in Sonora, California, considerably closer to home, and in forms just
about anyone can appreciate year-round: hard cider, brandy and vodka.
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| The bottling plant (photo: Bonnie Kamin Morrissey) |
The Watson family purchased the original 80-acre orchard in 2005 to keep the land from development, and expanded since then to 160 acres. Some of the trees date back to the early 1900s; it's the oldest stand of apple trees in Tuolumne County. After going through a three-year process for organic certification, they determined that nearly half the apples were not suitable for eating--hence the hard cider and other products (though there are plenty of sweet and juicy Honeycrisps during harvest time in early autumn).
The orchards, renamed the Indigeny
Reserve in 2007, now offer a beautiful park-like setting for picnickers and a
tasting room that’s open every day after 10AM. The reserve couldn’t be more attractive,
from the entry road winding through a shady forest under a covered bridge to
the tasting rooms, and a cidery and distilling plant built from locally harvested and re-purposed oak
and cedar.
Speaking of distilleries, that isn't a giant flute on the left--it's the distilling unit, chugging away.
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| The grounds are gorgeous even in the rain |
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| The view from the bridge |
I can’t fail
to mention the “extra-crisp” cider, which is my new favorite thing—made from
Granny Smith apples, fermented with champagne yeast and served in aluminum
bottles, this stuff is killer! There’s also a blackberry-flavored extra-crisp,
and a cider made from all varieties of apples in the orchards. And brandy. And
vodka. And a two-and-a-half-mile hiking trail to work it off. Even Adam
couldn’t ask for anything more.
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| Lifting a cool one...(Photo: Bonnie Kamin Morrissey) |
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| (Photo: Bonnie Kamin Morrissey) |
Indigeny
Reserve, 14679 Summers Lane, Sonora, CA
All photos by Joanne Orion Miller unless otherwise noted. www.joanneorionmiller.com
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