Stray Cider Launch Party
A chance meeting with cider maker Deron Davenport introduced me to his creative side hustle
As you can see from the headline, this post is straying from my usual focus on wine to introduce you to a most interesting cider project. On a recent visit to Day wines, owner Brianna Day introduced me to several members of her team, including Deron Davenport, who has been the head cider maker at Portland Cider Company for the past nine years.
Deron sent me home with his first three ciders for a new venture called Stray Cider. Despite my protests that I know very little about standard ciders, let alone experimental ones, he wanted me to try them and offer some impressions. He also provided the following background. I’ve added my own brief impressions.
DD: Although I’ve grown so much at Portland Cider, their focus is on sweeter, fruited ciders, and it’s time to peruse my own expression of cider.
Stray Cider’s vision of cider is through the lens of wine. We’ll focus on co-ferments of apples and grapes, as well as other locally grown fruits. Always dry with a playful complexity, our ciders are aimed at sparking conversation and blurring the lines between wine and cider. I’ve always believed there are more similarities than differences between the two, and the local market has a palate primed for this type of adventure.
Song Within a Song is a co-ferment of several apple varietals on Marionberries, as well as the skins of spent Dolcetto and Tannat. The goal was to show how jammy and deep a cider can be without being sweet. The Tannat shows through with its herbaceous, mystical qualities, and although bright and fruity, the Marions keep things grounded with earthy tannins.
PG: Lots of sweet and tangy berry fruit, lovely plum/berry hue, good length and an earthy finish.
DD: Beautiful Strangers is heavily influenced by Brianne’s Tears of Vulcan. I’ve always loved that wine and it was the first wine that started me wondering about the potential of apples and grapes together. Beautiful Strangers is mostly sharp apples, but gets a lot of body from bittersweet varietals like Porter’s Perfection and Kingston Black. It was naturally fermented on Viognier and Pinot Gris skins for 30 days. The pepper and pith from those grapes pair so well with the mood a dry, traditional cider invokes.
PG: Dry, sharp, spicy, peppery, long with an earthy finish.
DD: The Wild Kindness is the closest thing I’ll make to a traditional cider. Two varietals are showcased here, Yarlington Mill and Dolgo Crab. Yarlington is a bold, rich apple with nearly no acid. It provides a striking amount of black tea like tannin and a smoky, savory foundation. The Dolgo brings a contrasting acidity as well as some sweet molasses from aging three years. Rarely do you get this bright acid paired with such a big apple like Yarlington, but I think the two find harmony and make for a memorable experience.
PG: Good crispy/crunchy apple fruit; probably my favorite of the trio. Tight, focused and drying. Lovely color. The tannins and acids from the two different apples fight a bit.
The launch party is this Saturday at The Place PDX in SE Portland. After that the ciders will be available in a few spots around town. A website will debut soon; an Instagram account (@straycider) is up and running. The all apple blend, Wild Kindness, will retail at $16 and the co-ferments will be $18.
Best of luck to Deron and all the stray cats who make it to the opening of Stray Cider on Saturday!
– PaulG