Cider’s promise? Look west

ROWS of gnarled Pinot Noir vines slumber under a gray winter sky beside acres of apple trees. The vines belong to Bethel Heights Vineyard, one of the top Pinot producers in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The apple orchard -- owned by Mimi Casteel (whose parents own Bethel Heights) and her husband, Nick Gunn -- produces hard cider.

It’s quite unusual for apple trees and grapevines to grow side by side. Where both can be grown, the higher profitability of wine generally means that the apples get taken out. But here, says Gunn, “The area lacked a good cider maker. We saw the need as we talked with friends and family.”

In 2004, Gunn and Casteel took over the Traditional Co., a pioneering cider operation near Salem, renamed it Wandering Aengus Ciderworks and since then have been making it even more traditional than it was, by planting English and French cider apples.

Cider was a favorite American drink from Colonial times until it was knocked off its perch by the 20th century craze for lager beer. As a result, the only cider most of us know is sweet cider, which is about as complex as unfermented grape juice.

But in the last 15 years there has been a revival of serious cider in this country. Eight years ago, only two West Coast brands were commercially available: pioneer Ace and E.&J.; Gallo Winery’s mass-produced Hornsby’s. Since then at least 10 new cideries have appeared (two have not survived), more than half of them aging their product six to 12 months for more cider-savvy palates. They may still be few and far between, but West Coast cider makers are finally beginning to make a product to rival the benchmark ciders of Normandy and England.

Wine and hard cider have a lot in common -- they both explore the sensuous possibilities of a fruit. Wine, of course, is the ultimate expression of the grape, while cider brings out the apple’s range: fragrant ripe or even baked apple flavors, always supported by apple’s refreshing crispness. Cider is less alcoholic than most wines, usually about 5% to 6%.

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West Coast movement

CRAFT cider making is at about the same stage as craft brewing was 25 years ago, and it’s thriving in roughly the same territory: Despite New England’s cider-making heritage, the new cider wave is largely a West Coast phenomenon. At the moment, there are about nine commercial craft cideries on the West Coast -- depending on how you define “commercial” -- and about a dozen in the remaining 47 states.

Like many commercial cider makers, Wandering Aengus’ Gunn and Casteel began as home cider makers. Others, such as Chris Murray of Murray’s Cyder in Sonoma County, got the bug when they bought a home that came with orchards and realized the heady possibilities of cider.

Like wine, craft cider is made from fresh fruit juice, which will start to ferment naturally even if you don’t add yeast. It comes in many styles, fizzy or flat, aged or not. It can be bone-dry without a trace of bubbles, like the rustic English cider known as scrumpy. French cider makers often add ingredients to stop the fermentation so that the cider will stay a little sweet, and age it for a year or more. In New England, there’s a traditional style that adds raisins and/or molasses.

The commonest West Coast style is off-dry, with aromas of fresh or baked apples; Ace Cider (made in Sonoma County) is a classic of this sort. Others, like Murray’s Cyder, are quite dry, like a Champagne with a hint of apple in the nose.

In fact, cider stands in for wine in parts of Europe where grapes don’t flourish, such as southwestern England and the northwest of France and Spain. Special cider apple varieties have been developed there, with unfamiliar names such as Brown Snout, Foxwhelp, Nehou and Vilberie, and they’re as different from dessert apples as wine grapes are from table grapes.

Cider is the traditional drink of Normandy, the Calvados country, and there it’s served in restaurants exactly as wine is elsewhere in France. There’s a local cult of ultra-small-scale, farm-produced Norman ciders.

In the sidrerias of northwestern Spain, cider is served in a spectacular ritual known as “throwing”: You raise the cider bottle high over your head and pour an ounce or two into a glass you hold down around waist level. The tall splash brings up the sidra’s flavor and gives it a momentary Champagne-like sparkle.

But cider has similarities to beer, too. Like beer, cider is traditionally given a bitter flavor. All wine grapes have tannin to give them backbone, but table apples have relatively little, so certain apples have been bred for bitterness. Cider makers plant trees that bear bittersweet or bitter-sharp (bitter-tart) apples to round out the flavor of their cider.

California cideries have so far resisted using tannic European cider apples. “Not many people in this country are used to British ciders, some of which would be a little barnyard-y for their taste,” says British-born Jeffrey House, maker of Ace Cider. “We use eating apples: Gravenstein when we can get it, Granny Smith, Fuji, Rome and a few others.”

House is a pioneer. He got into cider in 1986 when he found that Irish bars in San Francisco didn’t want the English beers his import firm was handling, but they needed cider. “An Irish pub has to have a cider,” House says. He started bringing over a well-known English brand, Blackthorn.

Then a larger distributor got the contract. “So I decided to create an American cider similar to Blackthorn,” he says. “Now Ace Cider is bigger than Blackthorn.” He started making cider in 1994, and his California Cider Co. now produces 250,000 gallons a year. He recently opened the country’s first cider pub, Ace-in-the-Hole, in Sebastopol, Sonoma County.

Ace Cider is made with a residual bit of sweetness. But in Forestville, not far from Sebastopol, House has a neighbor -- also British-born -- who is making a bone-dry sparkling cider.

“In effect, it’s an apple version of Champagne,” says Murray of Murray’s Cyder. “We ferment the cider dry and then put in a dosage of sugar and yeast just before bottling, the same way they do in Champagne. We riddle the bottles as well [agitate them at intervals so the yeast lees can be removed, leaving the wine clear]. A couple of people are doing that in the U.K. too.” He sells the cider when it’s about a year old.

Murray’s operation, which dates from 1998, is a labor of love (he’s a computer programmer). He uses apples from his own organic orchard and does not expect to make more than 500 cases, or about 1,200 gallons, a year. He sells largely online, at www.cyder.com.

Wandering Aengus’ Gunn and Casteel use bittersweet cider apples such as Nehou and Yarlington Mill and bitter-sharps such as Herefordshire Redstreak, as well as dessert varieties. “The astringency plays off the sweetness,” says Gunn, “to give a richer flavor.”

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Versions, varieties abound

LIKE about half the West Coast cider makers, Gunn and Casteel age their ciders about a year. Theirs spend part of the time in white oak barrels to soften the acidity and tannin. Wandering Aengus makes about 4,400 gallons of cider yearly, in semisweet and semidry versions, with a completely dry version in the works. The semidry version is delicious and elegant, with a gentle effervescence, aromas like tarte Tatin and a flavor reminiscent of a good Calvados.

Near Portland, Rich and Kristin Ford, owners of Ford Farms Cyderworks, have thousands of trees bearing what they fondly call “ugly, bitter little apples” -- 40 varieties of cider apple. From them they make sparkling cider in the French style, using a dosage, but not riddling the bottles. As a result, the cider is a little cloudy, like some French ciders. It’s bone-dry, with an intense, sweet apple aroma and bracing acid. Ford’s initial output in 2001 was 480 gallons. It’s now up to 2,400 gallons a year.

Washington’s craft cideries are at the north end of the state, near the Canadian border. The farthest north is Westcott Bay Orchards on San Juan Island. Owners Susan and Richard Anderson grow 16 varieties of apple, most of them bittersweets. They sell their cider locally, in Seattle and by mail order.

In Mount Vernon, Skagit County, Red Barn Cider makes a semidry cider from Jonagold apples and a more ambitious version, Fire Barrel, using bittersweet and bitter-sharp apples, aged in Bourbon barrels. Owner Drew Zimmerman says he’s not yet set up to ship out of state; he only started selling cider in September.

Why does he use Bourbon barrels? “Spirit barrels are traditional for aging cider in Europe,” he says. “In England, they mostly use rum barrels. But I figured, ‘We’re not England. We’ve got apples and we’ve got Bourbon barrels, so why not?’

“They give the cider just a hint of whiskey flavor, which was unnerving to me in the beginning, but everybody said it tasted good, so I went with it. That cider just won a medal at a cider competition in Michigan.”

Something sounds familiar about that. It brings to mind all those chefs who immersed themselves in French cuisine during the ‘70s and then created California cuisine in the ‘80s. Perhaps our cider makers will pass through their apprenticeships and create something of their own -- West Coast-style cider.

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Spritzy or still, it’s a sipping showdown

WITH tiny productions, West Coast ciders can be hard to find. The Times tasting panel -- all confessed novices at tasting cider -- met last week to evaluate those available in local stores or online -- plus one from Canada.

The panel’s favorite traditional-style cider was the impressive Wandering Aengus semi-dry. The real standout, though, was the lone Canadian entry -- an “ice cider” from Quebec. Joining me on the panel were staff writer Corie Brown and food editor Leslie Brenner. The ciders are listed in order of the panel’s preference.

La Face Cachee de la Pomme Neige, Cidre de Glace. The apple equivalent of an ice wine. Amber color, with a luscious fruit nose, lots of body, and complex, Sauternes-like flavor. Available at Wally’s Wine & Spirits in Los Angeles, (310) 475-0606, about $30 (375 ml).

Wandering Aengus Semi-Dry Cider. Butter yellow; ripe apple aroma, complex tarte Tatin flavor and slight spritz. Available at www.wanderingaengus.com. $12 ( 750 ml) plus shipping.

Ford Farms Cyderworks Oregon Dry Sparkling Hard Cider 2003. Pale, cloudy, frothy lemon yellow, with a sweet apple aroma and bracing acid; a tad medicinal. Available at www.cyderworks.com, about $14 (750 ml) plus shipping.

Ace Fermented Apple Cider. Fresh apple taste, simple, and more tart than sweet, slight spritz. Widely available at wine shops. About $3 (22 ounces).

Westcott Bay Orchards Vintage Cider. Baked apple aroma, bone-dry, frothy, not much depth. Available at www.rockisland.com/baylonanderson. About $60 (12-pack of 22-ounce bottles) plus shipping; free sample bottle (12-ounce), plus shipping.

K Draft. Pretty apple nose, off-dry, slight, thin. Available at Beverage Warehouse in Mar Vista, (310) 306-2822; Beverages and More; and Hi-Time Wine Cellars, about $8 for a six-pack.

-- Charles Perry