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The Oregonian September 17, 2002
CYDERWORKS AIMS TO BE
THE CHAMPAGNE OF HARD CIDER

Summary: A vision for a winery evolved into a cidery
and an orchard full of obscure apple varieties
To make cider, you don't want a solo voice, you want
a choir.

And that choir should be picked from the best
hard-cider apples -- bitter, sharp and sweet.
"The ones that make good cider, you don't want to
eat," says Kristin Ford, who makes hard cider with
husband Richard in a small cidery on their 25-acre
farm at the confluence of the Willamette and
Columbia rivers.

You've probably never heard of most of the 40 apple
varieties they grow. Kristin Ford bites into a
Pitmaston Pineapple, one of her favorite cider
apples, and hands over another for a sample. It's
both bittersweet and bitter-sharp. Golden Russet,
Pomme Gris, Foxwhelp and Yarlington Mill are other
favorites, with the sweet, sharp, high-acid and
high-tannin content that make a well-balanced cider.

Ford Farms Cyderworks' cider is lightly alcoholic,
amber-colored, effervescent and medium-dry. The
Fords say it resembles turn-of-the-century cider
made in France, a cider that's good served cold with
handmade farmhouse cheese, pork or hors d'oeuvres.

It's definitely dry, and is not to be confused with
sparkling ciders like Martinelli's or the
mass-produced hard cider sold in six-packs. In fact,
the Fords want to market their cider like high-end
wine or Champagne.

Cyderworks got its start about four years ago. This
year the Fords produced 300 cases, and hope to
double that next year.

Their five-acre apple orchard has about 4,000
organically grown, trellised dwarf trees -- so
densely packed that they look like grapevines from a
distance. September finds them busy picking the
apples that are at their peak.

"Rich is the producer and I'm the picker and pruner
and grafter," says Kristin Ford -- she has the
blisters to show for it -- "and we fight over the
one air-conditioned space in the 'cider room.' "

"I bite into them to see if they're ripe," she says.
She doesn't have any tools to test the acids in the
apples, just her tongue.

Then the apples go into the Correll cider press,
made by a craftsman in Elmira, Ore. Her father, Jake
Jacobsen, and farm manager Javier Alvarez help
hand-sort the apples, wash them and toss them into
the press.

They'll do four to five cider pressings each fall,
pressing each variety separately. They quick-freeze
the juice in buckets, then ferment it in big
stainless steel kegs and glass jugs in their
20-by-30-foot licensed winery kitchen. The process
takes four to six months. Then they blend and age
the cider, which takes another four to six months.
Next, they bottle and wait three months for final
fermentation. Kristin Ford will affix the labels,
something she does with her daughter Anna, 8, and
son Jake, 5.

The entire process takes one year. This year's
harvest will be ready to release in September 2003.

A lot depends on the apples. The blend is a little
different from year to year, because some of the
trees bear every other year. Last year, the Fords
had 60 gallons of Dabinet, yet another year only 3
to 4 gallons.

"In the winter," Kristin Ford adds, "we figure out
what we'll do differently next year. Then it all
starts over again. Prune. Graft. Hand-thin. There's
no way to rush it."

There are only a handful of commercial cideries in
Oregon, and their ciders start out much the same,
yet the end result is very different -- ranging from
sweet to very dry and still to effervescent.

The Fords are lucky to be getting help developing
their blend from Dick Ponzi of Ponzi Vineyards,
"which has really shortened the learning curve," she
says. "Our formal training is one community college
course, the Internet school, reading a lot, and
watching Dick."

For now, the cidery is still small.

Kristin Ford used to be an architect. Richard Ford's
day job is commercial real estate.

"We both have a recessive agrarian gene, and we
thought we wanted to do wine, but we found out the
soil was wrong," she says, "so we started
researching hard cider." They're improving the
product each year, and hope to have another cider
style to sell next year and to double their
capacity.

They also raise registered Highland beef cows to
sell as heifers and for meat.

"Making cider takes persistence and recognizing a
good blend. Not caring what your hands look like.
And a lot of research and not getting discouraged
when people think it should taste like Boones Farm
or Jolly Rancher.

"It is a lot of work, but I love doing it."

The Fords hope to have their cider available by
Halloween in some restaurants, a few stores and a
couple of wine shops. For availability, call them at
503-621-3908 or e-mail them at info@cyderworks.com.
Amy Martinez Starke: 503-221-8534;
amystarke@news.oregonian.com