Revel started in 2014 as a solo passion project. Imagine our excitement when it turned out that, hey, lots of folks are fermentation enthusiasts!
By 2022, our team was seven people strong — with over 1000 cases of Revel bottles and cans shipped to discerning drinkers every month.
Our characterful native yeast fermentations explore the endless flavours Ontario has to offer. Combining farm-grown and foraged fruits, discovering what the fermentation process yields, and aiming to bring out the best of each ingredient is what makes us excited to come to work every day. (Well, that, and all the incredible smells.)
A NOTE FROM THE FOUNDER
Hey friends, Tariq here.
Revel started as an obsession of mine, living on an organic vegetable farm and falling in love with food and drink fermentation. In the farm's outdoor kitchen, I made naturally fermented pickles, mulberry wine — and when the fall came, cider.
I was naive, enthusiastic and a total nerd for fermentation. So when my time on the farm came to an end... I took what I'd learned and let it grow.
Every Revel project is spontaneously fermented with the organisms indigenous to the fruit (and our fermentory). That means each vintage is unique — a fleeting yet memorable marker of time and place.
Our fermentations have always been oxidative, more out of necessity than anything else. We couldn't afford stainless steel at the beginning, so we started with plastic and oak vessels. Learning to guide native yeast and bacteria with exclusively oxidative equipment has been an absorbing journey.
Currently we age our ciders and wines on tannic apple pomace and grape marc, protecting them from oxygen while infusing texture and salinity.
Letting our microorganisms breathe in their youth, and continually digest plant material as they age, gives us a vibrant expression of both fruit and animal life. All of us are truly proud of the bottles that leave our winery. We hope you enjoy drinking them as much as we enjoy making them.