Scan Magazine | Special Theme | Swedish Christmas Gift Special
Jens Skovgaard Pedersen and Flemming Villebro Jørgensen. Photo: Rais Foto.
Danish fruit wines ripe for the picking Danish fruit wine is making waves as far away as the US, bringing new and unexpected flavours to the table. “Fruit wines had gone completely out of fashion. In the countries where there has even been a tradition for fruit wine, they’ve had quite a poor reputation for being sickly sweet and ‘granny’s favourite’, and that’s been quite well-deserved,” says Jens Skovgaard Pedersen, founder and CEO of the prizewinning Cold Hand Winery. “No one has ever really made fruit wine with the same care, attention and quality as grape wine. Things are changing rapidly, though, as people across the globe realise how amazing they can be.” By Louise Older Steffensen | Photos: Cold Hand Winery
Jens Skovgaard Pedersen bought a little private orchard in 2006, just for personal enjoyment. His passion for apples soon grew out of control, however, and his orchard kept pace. What started out as a few litres of apple cider soon turned into giant crates of apple juice that Skovgaard and his wife had to frantically freeze to preserve. “By 2010, we didn’t really know what to do with it all,” Skovgaard recalls. And one day, he noticed a thick, sugary liquid dripping out of one of the crates. “I had a taste, and it was just delicious. Just like that, BAM, I knew what to do.” 40 | Issue 118 | November 2018
Skovgaard explains: “Fructose doesn’t freeze. So, while the water in the apple freezes, all the good bits of the fruit do not – instead, they turn into a highly concentrated and ridiculously delicious, thick liquid. We get freezing hands in the concentration process, but the results are worth it!” Skovgaard got together with a local apple farmer, Flemming Villebro Jørgensen, and began the process of apple wine production. Today, their aptly-named company, Cold Hand Winery, produces some of the world’s best fruit wines: many of their wines have won awards in and outside of
Denmark, including the Pomme d’Or for Malus Danica and Dansk Vinshow’s highest-ever score for Best Product in 2014, for their dessert wine Malus Feminam. Their apple wines have been joined by wines, dessert wines and sparkling wines based on pears, rhubarb, cherries and many other traditional Danish fruits.
The simple recipe for success “We aren’t trying to be a stand-in for grape wine; our fruit wines are lovely in their own right and make for a high-quality alternative for those who want a bit of an adventure,” Skovgaard explains. “However much we’d like it to be, Scandinavia’s weather just isn’t ideal for grape production: they do much better in warmer climes. The Danish climate, however, does wonderful things for many other fruits and berries.” The milder environment means fruit ripens over a longer period, allowing fruits and berries like apples and cherries to build up more complex, nuanced flavours. The