HANCOCK, MAINE — Bon Vent Cider is opening their tasting room this spring in Hancock on Route 1. The recently licensed cidery offers hard cider made from apples and pears gleaned and foraged around Hancock, Aroostook, and a few other counties.
“So many trees on roadsides, in parks, or dooryards are cider fruit,” says Anne Bryant, co-owner of Bon Vent. “If you have trees that produce fruit that the old timers would call ‘spitters,’ you probably have cider fruit on your hands.”
The tasting room has bottles for sale, as well as some draft options and non-alcoholic seltzers. Presently the company is raising money via Kickstarter to outfit their tasting room, which will also host old time music bands or lesser-known touring bands that will make their way through the region this summer. At their well attended soft opening on May 4, Gus La Casse and Mathias Kamin played traditional music along with friends who came with instruments.
Hard cider is a simple product that starts with pressing whole fruit, just as one would with sweet cider. To ferment that juice, Bon Vent doesn’t typically need to add any additional yeast or sugar, and much of the flavor comes from the naturally occuring yeast that came to be on the fruit in the place where it was. Since many of the trees they harvest from are by the ocean, and because the fruit might have varying amounts of tannins, the blended ciders are akin to wine that has complex terroir and depth of flavor. The resulting product can be anywhere between about 3–8% alcohol, and is sometimes blended with blueberry wine, which they also make.
“Our most popular cider at our soft opening was by far our Lamoine Pét Nat,” says Bryant. “We made that entirely of apples gathered in Lamoine and I overheard guests comparing it to a dry champagne they’ve enjoyed.”
Bon Vent will be announcing regular hours and a Grand Opening soon, but they encourage visitors to stop by whenever the open flag is out, which will be Thursday through Sunday in the late afternoon and early evening.
More information and a video about the owners and their cider can be found at the Kickstarter page. Bon Vent, pronounced “bon von” in French, means fair wind or safe travels.
