Ancestral – Apple and Quince

Ancestral Apple and Quince from the von Wiesen cidery, full-bodied and dry

Ancestral Apple and Quince by von Wiesen is a sparkling fruit wine containing equal parts apple and quince, with 6.6 percent alcohol and 6.9 grams of acidity per liter. Any sweetness detected in the glass comes from the fruit itself, not from added sugar.

Ancestral – Apple and Quince is the sparkling fruit wine from von Wiesen in Bensheim in which the quince is not merely a hint, but makes up half of the content. Quince wine from the previous year and freshly pressed quince juice are what actually go into the bottle.

The fruit nobody wants to eat raw

A ripe quince is hard and heavy in the hand, covered in a gray fuzz on its yellow skin, and is laborious to cut with a knife. The core is also stubborn and takes up a good portion of the fruit. Raw, it is woody and astringent, and no one would think to bite into it like an apple.

Its scent, however, fills an entire kitchen, which is why quinces were once placed in linen closets. Only heat or fermentation makes the fruit accessible. It is one of the oldest cultivated fruits and for a long time stood in almost every farmhouse garden before disappearing from large orchards. Its high pectin content allows quince jelly to set without any gelling agents, and in sparkling wine, this same substance provides a round mouthfeel.

Why no one adds sugar here

With classic bottle fermentation, a dosage is added after disgorging—a measured amount of sugar used to fine-tune the finished sparkling wine. The sugar determines whether the label ends up reading "Brut" or "Extra Brut." The méthode ancestrale skips this step entirely, as it relies on a single fermentation and the bottle is never opened again.

The still-fermenting must is bottled and continues to work there until the fruit sugar is almost entirely consumed. What remains is 0.5 grams of residual sugar per liter—a value well below the threshold for even the strictest definitions of dry sparkling wines.

Looking at the label, one expects more sweetness from such soft fruit than the glass actually provides. This is not asceticism, but simply the result of a process involving only a single step.

Yellow apple, quince jelly, and warm bark

The scent starts with green and yellow apple, but after a short time, the quince pushes to the front, bringing those full, ripe tones reminiscent of cooked jelly. Beneath this lies a yeasty quality, like that of freshly sliced bread.

The 6.9 grams of acidity per liter hold the whole together, ensuring the richness never becomes heavy. "Dry" here does not mean lean, as the quince brings its own breadth. Baked Camembert, pork rillettes, and braised Hokkaido pumpkin pair well with it because it meets them with fruit rather than sweetness.

The quinces grow at the Quittenprojekt Bergstraße near Weinheim, where heirloom varieties are maintained that hardly anyone else picks anymore. Related products include the Ancestral with hops and the acidity-driven red currant sibling, and more bottle-fermented wines can be found among our sparkling wines.