Decideret Cider, Pét Nat Hva Drikker Molr 2020

Producer: Decideret
Region: Denmark
Grape Varieties: Rød Topaz, Rød Aroma
Viticulture: Organic
Category: Sparkling, Pet-Nat, Skin-Contact, Cider
Size: 750ml

Decideret is the project of three sunny young people in Copenhagen—old high school friends—who don’t come from a winemaking background. Since 2017, Cornelius Simonsen, Jakob Paludan, and Martin Pedersen have been producing deeply refreshing, joyful wines and co-fermentations that startle with their acidity and linear shape. In simple terms, these are organically farmed fruit pét-nats: Nordic sparkling wines made from apple, grape, plum, cherry, pear and blackcurrant. However, they are beverages the likes of which are rarely seen in all of the winemaking world, let alone Scandinavia; they’re not imprecise, funky, nor only experimental.

The trio of winemakers began this project in 2015, initially just as a hobby, after reading an article on cidermaking in the Danish paper Politiken. It was mostly curiosity that provoked their experiments, along with an interesting question: “Why, in Denmark, do we have some of the best apples and fruit—but no tradition for fermenting them into an alcoholic beverage?” This question has evolved into a clear practice over the last five years for Decideret. Fruit for the wines comes from two general sources: orchards for roughly two-thirds, all of which is organic certified or organically farmed. The latter third or so comes from ‘backyard’ surplus apples. (Cornelius adds: “Authorities estimate that in Denmark around 5 million kilos of apples yearly end up rotting in peoples’ backyards. And that’s only apples. For us, this is a huge waste of a perfect resource.”) The vast majority of the orchard and backyard fruit comes from Fyn, a tiny island in the middle of Denmark—90-120 minutes by car from Copenhagen—known as the ‘Danish fruit garden;’ it has a particular, special climate for raising fruit. The rest hails from either Zealand/Copenhagen or very small islands Fejø and Lilleø south of Zealand. (The latter happens to be where Claus Meyer, Noma founder, has his proprietary orchard from which Decideret gets fruit for their cuvées ‘Who the F*ck Pears?,’ ‘Lees is More,’ and a few others.)

At their winery in the neighborhood of Nordhavn, Copenhagen, the trio ferments all of these various fruits with indigenous yeasts and low-intervention winemaking, so the wine stays true to the sources, alive and vibrant. Decideret says of their work that they’re “working to push the boundaries for what fruit in a bottle can be.” We’ve seen many signs in recent years that Americans are becoming more and more aware of the beauty of wine produced from fruit that isn’t vitis vinifera: we’re happy to add this orchard-savvy band of Danes to our corral of domestic and international producers working with under-valued, misunderstood fruit. Think of it a re-evaluation of the fruit we deem less ‘noble’ and the value systems by which we judge what nobility is. Or just understand it as friends with moxy making fine examples of the exact beverage you reach for at the end of a long night, when you’re exhausted by ‘normal’ wine or beer and want something to refresh and vivify while you dance on your buddy’s living room carpet. Decideret’s precise and vibrant fruit pét-nats are just the thing we need.