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Maple Lawn Farms opens winery

Maple Lawn Winery & Cider House - Bottling

Maple Lawn Winery featured in the York Daily Record

By Brett Sholtis
March 8, 2016

The farm has opened a wine and cider tasting room.

Maple Lawn Farms has grown apples and peaches for about 160 years. Now, the fifth-generation family business has started a fruit wine and cider-making operation at its 1,200-acre farm.

Fruit wine and cider

Most wine is made from grapes. This wine, however, is made from the farm’s apples and peaches, said Hugh McPherson, who owns the farm.

Fruit wine takes about 10 days to ferment, McPherson said, making it a slightly quicker process than fermenting grapes. Hard cider takes a little longer to make than wine because it has to be carbonated, McPherson said.

With the help of area winemakers such as Carl Helrich at Allegro Vineyards and Ted Potter at Naylor Wine Cellars, he learned to make wine and cider with no added ingredients, he said.

​”Instead of a sweet wine, we wanted to make sure you get that full fruit flavor,” McPherson said.

From leftovers to wine

The project cost about $200,000, McPherson said. He was able to get a United States Department of Agriculture matching grant for $44,000 because the wine and cider operations use leftover fruit that would otherwise get shipped away or discarded — especially peaches, which go bad quickly.

“Because peaches are so perishable, the value of them once they get soft very quickly goes to zero,” McPherson said. “Repurposing the fruit from the packer to the winery for fermenting and bottling recaptures and enhances the total value of the farm’s production.”

The operation will add 12 to 15 seasonal jobs, he said, and hiring will start within the next couple months.

Read more at ydr.com