Heritage apples are pressed into the service of hard cider

KAREN DAVIDSON

Alone, a Dabinett apple offers a mouth-puckering, bittersweet experience. But when deftly fermented and blended with other red-fleshed, bittersharp varieties such as Geneva Red, the end product is drinking pleasure.

This is the land of hard cider, with a vernacular all its own. For orchardists used to growing “eating” apples, it’s a hard transition to “drinking’ apples, requiring years of commitment.

That’s the story shared by Doug Balsillie and his wife, Leslie Huffman, now in their 39th season of operating The Fruit Wagon near Harrow, Ontario. Their bucolic setting near Lake Erie comprises a 35-acre, high-density apple orchard, 2,000 trees per acre. Part laboratory, but fulltime enterprise, this farm has been a beacon for veteran and young growers alike.

“We decided to be intensive growers,” recalls Doug Balsillie, “and not get too big.”

Back in 2012, the couple converted to a trellised fruiting wall system. It was a forward-thinking move, but one that didn’t imagine the unique requirements of cider apples.

Their wide-ranging travels through the International Tree Fruit Association and beyond, had opened their eyes to the pitfalls of cider apples. In northern Europe, for example, cider apples are grown as a discount product. As Leslie recounts, “These apples tend to bloom later in warmer temperatures and thus are more susceptible to fire blight. In Wales, the orchards are very pastoral, but didn’t appear very productive.”

But as Doug Balsillie explains, American consumer trends showed a rising demand for hard ciders, those that are fermented with a range of 4.5 to 7 per cent alcohol. With the American Apple Association’s prediction that as much as 10 per cent of apple production might be channelled to hard cider, the lure of a niche market was too great to ignore.

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