Berkeley company using neighborhood fruit trees to create wine
By Itay Hod
In the land of high tech, Daniel Goldberg is going for the low-hanging fruit.
“There are these feral fruit trees I like to call them that grow pretty much everywhere,” said Daniel Goldberg, owner of Feral Ecology, a company that turns overlooked produce into natural wines and hard ciders.
A few years ago, after noticing all the bounty on trees in side streets and backyards, Goldberg started picking fruit, first to make jam, but then he decided to branch out, launching Feral Ecology to give the fruit a second life.
Today, he’s at a storage lot in Richmond, picking apples that would otherwise go to waste.
“There’s nothing quite like the fruit of your labor when it’s picked right off the tree. There’s that snap and the sound and the dust,” said volunteer Taylor Elnicki.
Eli Utne, who lives on the property, said it’s a win-win: Daniel gets the apples for free, and the property owners are grateful to have them taken off their hands.
“They love it,” he said. “We messaged them earlier and they said, ‘Please take these apples.'”
Those apples are cleaned, crushed, and bottled, becoming part of a growing movement taking root across the country.
From small-batch ciders to wines made with minimal additives, makers are returning to the basics. In 2024, the global natural and organic wine market hit $12 billion, according to a Grand View Research report.
“People are returning back to those roots of how wine really started,” said John Keller, owner of Neu Cellars, a natural wine label.
He added that younger drinkers are driving the trend as they look for flavor and sustainability, but natural wines can sometimes be as quirky as they are unpredictable.
“Flaws can be some volatile acidity; it can be some mousiness that’s common in it,” Keller said.
As for Goldberg, his apple cider won’t be ready for a couple of months, but when it is, it’ll cost about $30 a pop. Those who donated the fruit or helped out, get it for free.
“We’re intercepting the apple as this one little moment before it goes from the tree back to the happy earthworms, but we’re just trading a little bit of extra joy in between,” he said.
