Tony Coturri Pet Nat Apple Cider 2019

This is 100% Gravenstein apple cider made by Tony Coturri from organically grown fruit sourced west of Sebastopol, Sonoma County. The Gravenstein is one of the earliest-ripening apple varieties in Sonoma, harvested in mid-to-late August from trees Coturri has noted are around 60 years old. Coturri has been making still cider since 2008, and began producing by the méthode ancestrale in 2016, bottling the fermenting juice before it finishes to capture natural carbonation in the bottle.

The cider is fermented and aged in neutral 60-gallon French oak barrels using only the apples' native yeast. It is bottled under crimp top in clear champagne bottles, then left to finish fermentation in bottle. No sulfites are added (total sulfites under 10 mg/L), and the cider is unfined and unfiltered. Residual sugar at bottling is under 1 g/L, making this a fully dry cider.

The result sits somewhere between a pét-nat, a natural cider, and a Basque-style cidre — dry and lightly effervescent with bright acidity, fresh Gravenstein apple character, a faint funkiness from native yeast fermentation, and just enough effervescence to keep it lively without excess pressure. At 7.2% ABV, it is light and easy to drink cold.