FOOD/DRINK
In Search of Lost Orchards Small-crop cidery spins palate-pleasing gold from forgotten trees
words & photos :: Kristin Schnelten Mark Skinner rattles off old-timer advice and patiently answers questions as he disappears into one tree after another, harvesting the crab apples that need to be harvested, like, now. Courtney is elsewhere in the orchard, helping a child or searching for a dog, while Mark briefly breaks the two-hand picking rule to entertain his daughter—who may or may not have lost all interest in this whole working thing about ten minutes before it began. Before the bin is full, they pack up (the dog found himself, it seems) and head home, where there’s a short thirty minutes to set up and open the doors at their cidery: a simple, crisp quonset hut just steps from their house. Mark and Courtney will take turns pouring flights this afternoon, answering tourists’ questions, pointing out the
floral hints and honey undertones that make each bottle unique. Harvest season is busy for any producer. But at Windswept Orchard Cider, autumn months are a non-stop marathon. Other than a few seasonal hired hands and some generous friends, it’s Mark and Courtney who pull apples, haul bins to press and back, formulate recipes and ferment juice into cider—then, over the next 12-18 months, bottle, label, deliver and serve. It’s their micro-scale that makes the hands-on approach possible. While other cideries can process 20,000 litres of juice a month, Windswept’s annual volume is little more than half that amount. And nearly all that cider begins in abandoned orchards. After relocating from the Guelph area to a 100-acre Meaford farm five years ago, Courtney and Mark quickly discovered it wasn’t feasible to access the plot of land slated for their large orchard. “It worked out, 59
