Small Acres Appscato

You know what’s not cool? Champagne. Do you know what is cool? Moscato, at least according to Drake. But we all know cider is cooler than any wine. So that when Small Acres had the brilliant idea of making a cider inspired by Moscato. Introducing the Appscato.

Small Acres’ Appscato is made from eating apple varieties. Whatever apples have the highest brix in any season go into the blend. Brix being the measurement of sugar content in the apple juice. Coupled with high acid varieties for balance.

The climate in Orange, Central New South Wales, has cold but dry winters. This allows Small Acre’s to harvest as late as possible, again chasing as high a brix as possible. The later harvest ensures the highest conversion starches to natural sweetness.

In order to keep the sweetness from being devoured during fermentation, the cider makers at Small Acres arrested the ferment at just the right moment by crash cooling. The rapid drop in temperature kills off the yeast cells. Then the cider is filtered through an extremely fine filter which removes all these yeast cells, stabilising the cider.

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The Nose

The Appscato has lots of apple blossom and freshly peeled apple skin. Being a 2014 vintage it is just starting to trade the fresh apple scent for a baked apple aroma. It’s got a load of sweetness inviting you in.

The Taste

Upfront is an intense juice flavour. An invisible sparkle breaks up the intense sweetness. I think I was expecting something slightly heavier but it remains light and fresh. Just the right amount of back of the palate acidity cuts through like biting into a fresh apple. It’s easy to draw comparisons with the Moscato wine but they can be one-dimensional, I think this Appscato has a little bit more complexity.

Final Thoughts on the Appscato

The back of the bottle suggests that this cider should be served with breakfast, brunch or dessert. While the comparisons with the desert wines are easy to make I’d be more inclined to try the Appscato at breakfast. Particularly a rich scrambled egg and smoked salmon on a nice piece of sourdough toast.

Now I hear you, you’re worried about what people will think of you if you’re drinking in the AM. If you’re carrying your shoes home sipping a cheap, now flat champagne at 7:30 in the morning, you should be worried. You should not worry about drinking Small Acres Appscato on a crisp morning because they will only have one thought. Jealousy.

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