Spanish Cider from American Soil

With the release of first-of-their-kind Spanish cider apple varieties into the U.S., American cider makers have an entirely new set of tools at their fingertips.That’s good news for small cider houses looking to make their mark with funky,tart interpretations of Spanish cider—grown here.

- Kate Bernot

GENEVA, NEW YORK, IS HOME TO the United States Department of Agriculture’s Plant Genetics Resource Unit (PGRU). It’s a compound of 80 acres of plant fields and orchards, plus buildings that house both freezer seed storage (-20 degrees Celsius) and liquid nitrogen seed storage (-198 degrees Celsius, a temperature at which, theoretically, plant material could be stored forever without degrading).

C. Thomas Chao, curator of apples, grapes and tart cherries at PGRU, says the USDA National Germoplasm System maintains, catalogues and preserves seeds from basically every vegetable crop grown in the U.S. The PGRU houses 6,000 types of tomatoes, for example. Essentially, he says, “If someone can’t find a seed in our collection, they’re not going to find it.”

PGRU is also one site where apple budwood and seeds imported from abroad are released from their initial quarantine at a USDA site in Beltsville, Maryland. One reason customs officials ask whether you’ve handled livestock, plants, soil or snails abroad is because these foreign species can carry potentially devastating pathogens capable of wiping out economically and ecologically crucial American crops, not to sound alarmist. There exists an entire quarantine process for importing international crops, and it generally takes at least five years to introduce a new plant to U.S. soil. One case in point: After longer than a decade, the USDA is in the process of releasing more than a dozen species that are incredibly tantalizing to U.S. cider makers—Spanish cider apple varieties never before available in America.