life's grape!
Funksters, rejoice! funk cider’s rosé cider is back again and better than ever. With all of its juiciness, those sexy tannins & a crisp dry finish to keep you coming back for more.
Recently, funk’s embarked on an almost esoteric mission in the pursuit of funk with our hybrids or, how we call those funky, experimental and very “out-there” releases: funk project.
Rosé cider was the first of all hybrids before the funk project even existed. When thinking of combining great flavours, as a Swan Valley cidery, it makes total sense to add wine grapes into the recipe. And, boy oh boy, what a beautiful combination that has come to be!
The trick here (and with all hybrids) is getting that balance between flavours, textures & compounds just right. In Kevin’s (brewer & cider maker) words: “the most challenging aspect of making the rosé cider is getting the balance right, making sure that one of the flavours doesn’t overpower the other”.
We mean, picture combining 1400 litres of shiraz grape juice with an apple cider, whilst not using any preservatives or pasteurisation, getting the fermentation right for both and looking for the right amount of tannins/colour. It is really a work of art that gets better year after year.
Although we would’ve loved to use grapes from the Shiraz vines at our newly purchased winery in Henley Brook, those vines needed a bit of tough love this year and didn’t generate great yield - fingers crossed for 2022! For now, funk cider sourced 10 tons of Shiraz grapes from lot 7 at OakOver Wines in the Swan Valley - which should get us 6000L of grape juice (yes! that means more rosé cider is coming to keep us satisfied).
Letting the juice get in contact with the skins for only about three hours results in the vibrant, deep pink colour of the hybrid. The 2021 rosé cider had less contact with the skins than the two previous releases, staying more true to the rosé wine style - fresher in taste with more delicate berry characters.
Get your hands on some rosé cider at one of our two venues in the Swan Valley - funk cider house & funk 2.0 or at one of our stockists all across Western Australia.