Jon and Chris Piana started farming vegetables in central Vermont in 2008. What started as a CSA with weekly pick-up parties slowly evolved into what they now call a “fermentory,” a flexible neologism that reflects the open-ended and protean experimentation that defines their farming and cellar work. Intrigued by the rich lore of regional cider production, Jon and Chris began foraging wild apples, scouring the rolling hills of the Green Mountains for ancient, gnarled trees bearing unidentifiable apple species. For guidance, they read history books, consulted with neighbors, and followed their spiritual and agricultural intuitions, never considering the addition of lab yeasts or chemical preservatives, or the use of filtration or fining.

I visited the farm with my family a couple weeks ago. We met Jonny on a hilltop, surrounded by a vegetable patch, a hedge of ancient sugar maples, and 3 acres of freshly planted grape vines, a new endeavor for them. He was barefoot (everyone, it turns out, works the vines barefoot), with a big grin and piercing eyes—a trait he shares with his brother Christopher. One has the sense they are looking into the future, or, more likely, into an alternate universe existing just behind or beside what most of us assume is our shared world—both brothers are unabashed mystics, and speak about their work in cosmological terms.

We walked around the property, while Jonny described the medicinal properties of various bushes, berries, barks and leaves. We enter a cramped room off the side of the barn where he’s created a vinegar-production facility. When they first started to produce cider, the juice kept going to vinegar naturally, so he figured out ways to capture that process, aging the vinegar in barrels, infusing it with local herbs and weeds. He pointed out, without irony, that as they have refined their cider production he has sadly had less vinegar to work with. Unlike most other winemakers, who are terrified of vinegar, Jonny seemed philosophically at peace with it, noting how his role as winemaker was to manage volatile acidity as an important aspect of the finished wine. This was illuminating to me—I find their ciders to be uniquely lifted and energetic because of the dance between fruit and volatile acidity.

There is an organic logic to their production, built out of myriad experimentations, rather than through an allegiance to a particular tradition of cider production. Their main apple wines all start with a solera-style base wine which they bottle as Stillpoint. This is a mix of foraged apples from all around Vermont, picked and pressed over multiple weeks, aged in separate barrels and then slowly blended over time as they see fit. This is their base for a number of sparkling apple and grape wines. In addition to this core production, they have 10 or 15 other projects abiding by their own logics (maceration, co-fermenation, herbal infusions, etc.), each which might one day become integrated into a more systematic program. Needless to say, very, very few winemakers work in this fashion, and we are lucky to be able to experience this evolution vintage by vintage.

Bradford

If you’d like to order any bottles, give us a call at (773.360.8365) or email us with your request. Here’s what is available:

Stillpoint 2106/2016 ($26). A still wine made from foraged apples, aged in barrels in the solera style.

Fluxion 2017/2018 ($17). An ancestral method sparkling wine made from the Stillpoint "base" wine.

Leela 2015/2016 ($26). An apple-grape wine, made from macerated white grapes purchased from a neighbor's farm, which are blended with the multi-vintage Stillpoint "base" wine.

Walden 2018 ($17). An ancestral method apple wine made from cultivated apples.

Emanation 2019 ($20). A mix of foraged and cultivated apples. Fermented in stainless and steel and bottled before fermentation is complete for that natty fizz.
Emanation 2018 ($20). Same as above, just aged for a year in our cave (we are obsessed with this bottling and try to stock it year round).

Petite Pearl 2018 ($45). A sparkling rose made from Petite Pearl and Frontenac Noir grapes. Aged in oak barrels and then blended with a small amount of fresh 2019 juice for a natural refermentation in bottle.

Roza Mira 2018 ($44). Frontenac Noir macerated for 2 weeks, bottled before fermentation was complete to capture some natural bubbles in the bottle.

Betula Mead 2017 ($18). Raw honey dissolved into raw birch water and left to ferment with whole clusters of foraged sumac berries. Free your mind.

Lil' Ruby 2018 ($20). Dandelion flowers and rhubarb steeped in apple juice from foraged apples.

Apple Cider Vinegar 5-years-aged ($24) Jonny's prized vinegar, in dwindling supply.

Fable Farm Fermentory