(Winemag) - Todd Cavallo’s memory was jogged when a friend showed him a passage from a book about the history of wine in 19th-century Europe. It related to a drink called piquette, a low-alcohol wine made from the second pressings of grape pomace, known to have been enjoyed by French farmhands and vineyard workers.

Cavallo had heard of piquette, but he never gave it much thought. The reminder proved timely. Cavallo, owner/winemaker at the small, sustainably focused Wild Arc Farm in New York’s Hudson Valley, was looking for a way to reuse his pomace, the dense clumps of grape skins, seeds, stems and pulp that remain after juice has been pressed for wine. He’d experimented with distillation, but piquette seemed like the perfect solution.