The Cider Revival by Jason Wilson

Author:Jason Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2019-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

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After several days in Portland, I decided to drive south into the Willamette Valley, one of the country’s great wine regions, famed for its pinot noir and pinot gris. In fact, the pinot gris in the Willamette Valley may be among the finest white wines made in America. I went to visit a cidery called Art + Science, whose stunning ciders I’d encountered at Wassail and other bars back East—made with foraged apples, pears, and even quince. Dry and tannic, Art + Science struck me as having an atypical point of view for the Pacific Northwest and felt similar to the cider revivalists I’d been spending my time with.

Before meeting the cider makers, I arrived in Willamina (“Timber Town USA”) where I’d be staying. As cliché as this may sound: The Twin Peaks vibe was strong in Willamina. As I checked into the Wildwood Hotel, a group of people who identified themselves as a “team of paranormal investigators” was checking out, loading piles of equipment they had used in this investigation of the paranormal activity inside the hotel where I would be sleeping that night. “Did you find anything?” I asked one guy as he loaded his truck.

He smiled with wide eyes, and said, “Yup!” I looked at him to elaborate, and all he said was, “It was pretty cool!”

As I walked upstairs, a woman who was also part of the team pointed into one room and said, “Why don’t you go look in the closet in there, where there’s an old child’s bed.” I chose a different room.

A little while later, I met Kim Hamblin, who owns Art + Science with her husband, Dan Rinke. Hamblin, 46, likes to say that she’s the “art” and she creates the distinctive labels with futuristic, glittery owls and swallows. She wore thick-rimmed glasses, her hair in two braids that hung from underneath a trucker hat that read WWOOF (the acronym for “World Wide Opportunities for Organic Farms”).

I got into Hamblin’s Honda hatchback (with license plate reading ARTSCI) and she drove me around the Willamette Valley, through the outskirts of farming communities such as Perrydale, Ballston, and Sheridan, where she forages her fruit. Since most of the large farms grow mass-market dessert fruit, Hamblin relies on finding fruit trees that hobbyists have planted or those grown in farmhouse yards as so-called “ornamentals.” She knows most of the homes around here because she has a day job in real estate. “Though I’ve always been a reluctant real estate agent,” she said.

We passed a farmhouse with a dozen apple trees in the yard. “I asked these people if I could have their apples, but they never got back to me. I should talk to them again,” Hamblin said. “That’s how I am. I just show up and am like ‘hiiiii.’ And they must be like, who is this crazy apple lady? People are happy for you to take their fruit. But sometimes they’re a little paranoid to have you on their property.” Along the road, we passed a tall tree with some crab apples hanging at the top.

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