Tuscany Ciders, written by Loreto Socorro
Valleseco and its ciders continue to fill us with glory. Sidras Tuscany is a family winery with an endearing history. Vicente Óliver Marrero Arencibia, in pineapple with his brothers Laure and Jose, walk from fair to fair, sometimes accompanied by Saray - Vicente's daughter - with a barrel to taste their natural and carbonated ciders and whoever tries it is always left wanting. further.
We spoke with Vicente and throughout the report the joy in his eyes transports us to that world that he has created and of which he is the main driving force. How do you go from being a technical worker in food industries to leading a cider winery?
Currently I am still a technician at Ron Arehucas. I combine this with being a cider maker. The idea came to me to give an outlet to the large production of the family apple trees.
Laureano Marrero, the father of these three men who make up Tuscany, one day he had an accident leaving the farm in Lanzarote (Valleseco). Children they took care then to carry out the harvest that year.
Our father planted apple trees in 2010, through the campaign of the Cabildo and the City Council to promote this crop. And he reaped in what is known as “heroic form.” It involves making some terraces on the slopes and planting rows of apple trees there. The plantation produced so many apples that, even giving them away to the neighbors, there was a moment when he said to myself, “What do I do with so many apples?”
Was that when you started making cider?
That's where the spark, the restlessness, jumped out of me. It was after two or three years that I began to think that with my training and experience I could do something. I had that in mind and as a result of the pandemic I explained it to my brothers, while we were having wine on my terrace. We talked and we encouraged ourselves to set it up.
What variety of apples do you harvest?
The reineta apple, which in itself is not a cider apple, what it does have is that with our climate and our volcanic soil, the apple acquires different and unique characteristics: more acidity, sweetness...
Vicente Marrero tells us that, for example, the Canarian Tuscany ciders - unlike those from the Basque Country - have this year achieved ciders of up to 8,3 degrees, when the normal thing is for them to be above 4,5 or 5,5 degrees. So, does our natural environment improve cider?
Improves flavor. It has more alcohol levels and it is due to the hours of sunshine we have. On the other hand, Canarian ciders stand out because they are single varietal ciders, made from a single variety of apple. In Asturias, up to twenty varieties of apples are mixed.
Vicente, After the brothers agreed, how it was that start making cider?
I contacted Luis Molina, an ethnologist friend, and we got to work. He spent a year with me, teaching me how to make cider step by step, explaining each process to me. He gave me a “master's degree in cider.” After that first year he told me “With what you know and what you want to ask me you will move forward.”
Y He was not wrong because very good ciders have come out.
Like everything, at first this was anguish – Vicente laugh and I guess what I tastea the success of those who build from an idea and turn that spark into something tangible and successful-
Tell us about the winery
It is in an old house that had been closed for almost twenty years because the owners - now elderly - lived practically all year round in Las Palmas de GC. I asked a contact of mine, who is family, if they would let me use it for this project and they were fine with it. It is a house adapted to a winery. The furniture was emptied and the wine cellar was set up, but it seems that it has been a winepress all its life. It is tremendously cozy.
Cwith his fluent word e smart, Vincent, who He confesses to being restless by nature, He reveals to us a secret from his winepress.
I improved the house before putting it into operation as a winery. It was a house with old stone walls, with a gable roof, but it had a false flat cardboard ceiling hiding the original. When removing the false ceiling I discovered the one from the time the house was built, made of recycled wood. Something wonderful. It generates a charm, I would say a magic that has been formed in the winepress.
Where can we get Tuscany bottles?
We sell in almost all the businesses in Valleseco, in the Vegueta Market and, also, the owner of Buen Gusto, in the Las Arenas CC, has them in his premises.
What memories does the first bottle of Tuscany bring back to you? What happened to her?
It happened in the year 2023, with the 2022 harvest. Luis, my ethnologist friend, was the one who had the detail of saving it, because one is involved in so many things that I did not fall. Luis told me: “This is the first bottle that was bottled in this winery.” One of my daughters labeled it and we all said “This is the first bottle,” and it is placed in the upper part of the winery. The first of the natural and the first of the gasified, are both placed at the top of the winery.
Did they release both types of cider the same year?
We are just as capable of doing things as we are of doing nothing. -Vicente travels and makes us travel in his reflection. Today you think about it and say: what a mess! I had to have the courage to release three references in the same year: natural, carbonated and sparkling cider. Well yes, we released not two but three different cider profiles the same year.
While he tells us what it was like to go from here to there, he raises his eyebrows and moves his hands, taking us fully into that adventure that marked the beginnings of Tuscany.
Some winery lent us the natural filler. Then, to gasify, I investigated and I made some tanks myself. I asked others, I adapted them, I solved problems such as filling, which generates a lot of foam when gasifying.
This cider maker is a canary species of McGiver, who, faced with the enormous expense of a counter-pressure machine, made his own machine, to the astonishment of everyone, including his two brothers.
It went quite well because I was clear about what I wanted and I made myself a three-spout machine, to fill three bottles at a time. It is one of those things that you do with that magic that is carrying you, with desire.
Undoubtedly, the passion that Vicente puts into it es the motor from Tuscany, a jiribilla that my grandmother would say. After the natural and sparkling, did you still have the strength to learn how to make sparkling wines?
Like I told you, we didn't think about it. We produced an experience of 250 bottles of sparkling wine, which is cider made using the cava or champagne method.-Vicente explains to me what “Position in Rhyme” is and I joke about whether it would be a “poet” cider- It means that the bottle is lying down, after a previous process and after packaging it remains lying down, although from time to time it must be turned so that the yeasts inside mix. All subtle and very artisanal.
Tuscany seems not to be a name that one associates with either cider or Valleseco, but you will be surprised because Vicente reveals to us something that is tender and that is part of the historical memory of a generation, in that beautiful place in Gran Canaria. .
Every Sunday on the terrace with my brothers we pose the challenge of finding a name and my brother Jose suggested “Tuscany”. He threw it like that... and a week later we decided yes, because that name was the most accurate that our cider could have.
Vicente reminds those of us who are older that Tuscany is a name of a fictitious valley - perhaps it comes from Italian Tuscany - where the famous 80s series “Falcon Crest” was recorded. What connection is there between that American series and you?
The youth of Valleseco who studied during the time of the series, when they went to Teror to high school, were affectionately called those from Tuscany: “You are from Valleseco, you are Tuscany.” That Valle-Seco/Valle-Tuscany game was played.
The impact of “Falcon Crest” at a time when the television offering was not what it is today was important. The whole family watched the same series, in Valleseco and throughout Spain. Even the G Men dedicated a verse to Angela Chaning in one of her songs (“That's why not…”)
The name is a tribute to the “Tuscany generation”; that rural youth of the 80s of Valleseco, to whom the word Tuscany identifies and reminds them of those years they lived. To those of us who received the nickname and to those from Teror who called us that. And the best of all is that that sign, which was something totally unknown to younger people like my daughter, has been rescued and the identity of so many people in the town has been valued.
Tell me about the awards Tuscany has received.
At the request of the city council we registered for the SISGA contest in Asturias and brought our three references. It turned out that they gave us a silver medal for the natural cider and another for the sparkling cider. It was a very pleasant surprise. And this year, in the official Canary Islands cider competition -at a regional level-, our carbonated cider was awarded a gold medal and, in addition, a special distinction for best image and presentation.
The colors of the Tuscany brand are bright and bold, like any scandalous tracksuit from the 80s.
Precisely from those eighties we got the image of the brand, that color palette for the labeling, with bright colors and phosphors.
Who was commissioned to design it?
To IRÜBI, (Irene and Rubén), who are young designers from Tenerife. After a lot of searching, it was the way they spoke to me that made me decide to go with them.
Why? What does IRÜBI contribute to Tuscany?
They have a profile rooted in the land, but dynamic, modern, avant-garde and fresh. They understood the concept of Tuscany and its strength from the beginning.
Vicente is already thinking about how to decorate, innovate and better present your ciders when you go from fair to fair.
We travel outside the island to soak up the cider culture in places with designation of origin… That barrel -the one they take to fairs to taste- I saw it in the Basque Country and it is ideal because it has the same effect that is achieved by pouring -the Asturian ritual. We observe howThe bubble breaks on the edge of the glass and the cider is activated.
If it is poured as is - say the Asturians - it is a dead cider. Carbonated cider is a product that is active and needs to be shaken to remove the carbon dioxide inside. That is excellence.
When pairing Tuscany ciders, what do you recommend Vicente?
It is best paired with Canarian cheese. Because our cheeses also have a fermentation of lactic and malic acids.
Vicente explained to usa with detail about the cider fermentation process. There is a world to talk about this. If you try the ciders when they are in the malolactic fermentation process, it tastes like butter, and it is because the acids are unfolding. It is an important part of the cider process to achieve a good product.
Why?
Because it is not recommended to package the product until this fermentation is completed. It has an evolution. The better it behaves in the cellar, the better it behaves later in the bottle. Once bottled it already acts differently, it can get better or worse. It depends on how you have treated and maintained it in the preparation. That shows later.
At Km 0 fairs, like this one from Arucas, and at Agrocanarias fairs organized by the ICA we will be able to meet again with Tuscany ciders and taste a very high quality product. Today Saray was there, and although she is fully involved in her studies, she always takes free moments to help with labeling and accompany presentations. We also greet Laure, Vicente's brother, who told us that two years ago he did not think for a moment that they would be where they are today. “When Vicente told us we thought yes, that we would make about 200 liters, for ourselves, for those close to us, but I didn't think we would go that far. And when you see that everything is going so well, that our cider is liked, that it receives awards... well, you already have a different mentality and a range of possibilities opens up for you.” Laure highlights how important moments shared with family are, thanks to this project. "Like when we charged this Thursday, with my daughter, my niece around... everyone involved, we talk more and we are more united, the whole day together."
Is now José -another of the three brothers - who speaks to us: “The engine is Vicente, he takes us at 500 per hour. Each one of us has his own profession and when he asked us about it we were like... “Are you sure?” Vicente began to train and then he taught us… “Come on, let's do this, and that.”
Jose, does the entire apple come from the family farm?
The apple is all from Valleseco. We use all of our production and, around forty percent, we buy from longtime neighbors, who are very happy to sell the product. They are happy and so are we. That is the greatest joy you can give to your neighbors, that you buy the year's harvest.
From Sal del Atlántico we recommend that you search and delight in Tuscany, just as visitors to the fair have done: people who already know it and come for some bottles and other people who discover it, in front of the barrel for tastings. They agree that Tuscany ciders are very good. People from the area and arrivals from all parts of the island, we even greeted a charming Mexican visitor, with her Canarian family, who savored it and gave us, along with her smile, an intelligent conversation between sips .
