Palm wine
The one ferment where the vessel is the plant itself: the sap ferments inside the trunk.
In every other ferment we make, the material is taken out and fermented apart. Not here. The palm is the fermenter: the sap ferments on its own, spontaneously, inside the trunk itself, and is drawn off for as long as it lasts.
How it is opened. There are several ways. One is from the crown. The other is to cut the bark and open the chamber where the heart of the palm is. It is left to ferment right there.
How it is tended. From the same palm it is drawn twice a day, morning and afternoon, sometimes for thirty days. It is not a matter of opening it and leaving it: you go daily to draw, to clean, and to let the sap keep coming and keep fermenting.
Where. In Santa Fe, with the palms of Pirri's family, which is what is told in Palm wine, with Pirri. And at El Cedro, by the Santa María river, just before Vueltas Largas on the way into the town. Same area, other people working it just as daily.
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Where it comes from, who works it, and what you can take home.
Story · 21 February 2024The wine that ferments inside the palm
Some ferments are taken out and fermented elsewhere. Not this one: the palm is the vessel, and it is milked twice a day for weeks.
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