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Tilted Shed Ciderworks celebrates the traditional Basque holiday txotx. [Photo by Karen Pavone. courtesy Tilted Shed]
Sonoma County Cider Week kicks off with a cider release party and music bash at a local winery, Horse and Plow, that has also been making cider in a big way for the last several years. Festivities continue with a Basque-style cider party (a txotx in Basque), a series of tap takeovers at local bars and restaurants, new cider releases, and cider-paired dinners. The culminating event of the week is the Gravenstein Apple Fair, a celebration of Sonoma County’s rich agricultural heritage. Now in its 45th year, the fair is a tapestry of local music, crafts, food, wine, beer, and, of course, cider. It draws attendees from all over the San Francisco Bay Area, who, this year, will be able to sample ciders from 17 different companies based in Sonoma, Marin, Napa, and Mendocino counties, all of whom use at least some locally grown apples in their ciders.
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A selection of Ethic Ciders awaits at Sonoma County Cider Week. [Photo courtesy Ethic Ciders]
“We’re very excited about Sonoma County’s first cider week,” says Jason House, vice president of production and operations at California Cider Company, makers of Ace Ciders (his father, Jeffrey, founded the Sebastopol-based cidery in 1993). “We think it’s the start of something really great, a way of making Sonoma County a destination for cider the way it is for wine. We’ll be providing a way for people to experience the incredible range of ciders produced here.”
Details for all of the Sonoma County Cider Week events and the Gravenstein Apple Fair can be found at www.sonomacountyciderweek.com and www.gravensteinapplefair.com.
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