After scoring a free ticket to the Cider & Charcuterie pairing, I decided to skip my workshop on making the perfect cheeseboard and attend this instead. As my friend and I waited patiently outside, I kept myself occupied with daydreams of fresh apple ciders and savory meats. Luckily I was not disappointed when the doors finally opened and we sat down in our seats. We were each given a plate with four different types of Prosciutto and over the course of the tasting, we were poured four various kinds of cider.
Eden Cider is based out of Vermont, they use unique apple varieties that are all grown in Vermont as well in a holistically grown orchard (think compost and comfrey spray). Some examples of the apples they use include a french variety called Calville Blanc d’Hiver and a baking apple called Northern Spy. The apple with the top acid and sugar content is a British variety called Ashmead’s Kernel. All of their ciders are unfiltered and unpasteurized, in order to let the flavor of the apple varieties really shine through. La Quercia is a company based in Iowa that focuses on making cured/aged meats out of heritage breed pigs. They believe that an animal who leads a better and healthier life, will in return have a better taste; so there is an incentive for treating animals with respect and dignity.
Our first pairing was honestly my favorite; prosciutto made from wild foraging pigs with a diet of acorns, paired with a sparkling dry cider (produced via the champagne method). I’m struggling to find words to describe how good it was, because nothing will really do it justice. Umami, savory, earthy, sweet, dry…I can try, but these words can’t portray the flavor correctly.
For our second pairing we sipped on a semi-dry cider (made by disgorging the yeast and adding in some ice cider) and nibbled on a Tamworth breed pig prosciutto. The cider was full of interesting tropical notes, but the prosciutto didn’t impress me much (though the two did pair well together). Interestingly enough, our next beverage was not a cider, but an Apertif. Made with basil and anise, this Apertif was paired with pasture raised Ridgetop prosciutto. Both of which were delicious.
Finally, the long awaited Berkshire prosciutto was paired with Eden’s heritage Ice Cider. Made with fifteen varieties of apples and left with 15% residual sugar in the bottle, it was the perfect way to end the tasting. So good in fact, I obtained my own bottle for my birthday and drank it with my partner as the sun was setting the other night; it paired deliciously with my Beni Wild Harvest 66% chocolate.