Photo by Gary Symons
Gabbies Cider
Tasting bar at Ravenskill Orchards.
If you travel to the remarkably beautiful Gabriola Island, just five kilometres offshore from Nanaimo, one of the top attractions is a small farm and cidery called Ravenskill Orchards.
The farm isn’t large, but locals know it as the home to one of the best lineups of ciders in the Pacific Northwest, and a place where they can go to pick a selection of hard-to-find heritage apples.
Ravenskill is owned by married couple Keith McKenzie and Marti Wright, who moved here from upper New York State with a dream of starting their own heritage apple farm.
“I just wanted to do a mom and pop apple farm like the ones we had in upstate New York, which is apple country,” says Wright.
Photo by Gary Symons
Marti Wright and Keith McKenzie
Marti Wright and Keith McKenzie are owners of the heritage apple farm.
“We kind of knew we might do cider too,” adds McKenzie. “But at the time, the focus was on planting an orchard, and we knew we wanted to heritage apples, the ones you just never really see in grocery stores, but that we knew are still popular with a lot of people in New York, where folks go to orchards in the fall and pick all these different kinds of apples.”
Typically, when people talk about innovation in farming, they focus more on the research stations producing new types of apples for the global dessert apple market.
But for Marti and Keith, innovation meant doing the exact opposite of that, and it’s worked out so well that they quickly sell out all the apples they can grow, and all the cider they can make.
“Honestly, we can barely get it off the island,” laughs Marti. “If you know Gabriola, you know it has a great sense of community and this farm has become a part of that community. It’s almost like our community owns this orchard, just as much as we do!”
Their lineup of Gabbies Ciders comes out in the fall and most of it is bought up by locals before it can even be shipped off-island, but the couple does save a portion of their production every year for a number of specialty liquor stores and restaurants on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. Their cider is even featured at the famous My Shanti restaurant run by celebrity restaurateur Vikram Vij.
It’s also a popular place for tourists, who chow down on charcuterie plates while enjoying a crisp Gabbies on the patio, while in the fall, the farm is overrun by heritage apple fanatics who travel here every year.
Ravenskill has a popular U-pick program that brings many locals and tourists to the orchard, and they’re not after Galas or Ambrosias; they’re looking for Cox Orange Pippins (developed in 1835) and Cortlands (developed in 1898).
“Yeah, it’s funny with the U-Pick, because people who know apples really have their preferences,” Keith says. “We grow Cox Orange Pippins, and we have people coming all the way from Victoria to pick them, because pretty much no one else is growing them here.”
Still, the idea of starting a heritage farm and cidery hardly seems innovative until you hear what went into it.
The couple bought the farm over 15 years ago with the idea firmly in their minds, but with rootstocks not so easy to come by. They were also growing on an island prone to droughts and with no guaranteed water supply.
There is only one small lake and a few ponds on Gabriola, so farms and homes alike get their water either from wells or from rainwater cisterns. Whatever Ravenskill was going to grow, it had to not only be high quality, but also drought tolerant.
Fortunately, a local organization called the BC Fruit Testers Association has been researching heritage fruits for many decades, and other farmers in the Pacific Northwest and even on other Gulf Islands were able to share their expertise.
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Photo by Gary Symons
Heritage apple varieties
Ravenskill is growing apples specifically for cider production, just like a winery would grow grapes for specific wines.
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Photo by Sokheang Mackenzie, courtesy of Ravenskill Orchards
Ravenskill Heritage Apples
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Photo credit: Sokheang Mackenzie, www.facebook.com/ravenskillorchards
Ravenskill Heritage Apples
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Photo credit: Sokheang Mackenzie, www.facebook.com/ravenskillorchards
Heritage Apples
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Photo credit: Sokheang Mackenzie, www.facebook.com/ravenskillorchards
Heritage Apples
But getting enough rootstock was a huge problem, until the Summerland Research Station practically gave it away, because Ravenskill was asking for apple varieties no one else wanted.
“We got some of our grafting stock from the research station in Summerland,” Keith recalls. “They have some really good heritage apples, and we said, ‘we want to take 50 of those Libertys you’ve got there,’ and they would say, ‘no, you don’t want Liberties! They’re not a commercial apple, nobody grows those anymore!’”
“And we said, ‘I know, I know, but just give ‘em to us anyway,’ and they said, ‘Alright, I mean they’re not going to do anything for you, but I’ll give them to you.’”
Another apple variety is the Crestons that were developed in Summerland in 1998, but have not been widely successful as a supermarket product.
“We practically rescued those Crestons from oblivion,” says Marti, and Keith added, “Creston was one of the apples where they said, ‘yeah, we can sell you those, they’re really delicious, but nobody wants them because they’re not very attractive, so it’s just not a commercial apple.’
“And I said, ‘that works, because we’re not commercial either!’”
Gabbies Cider of the Purple Sage.
The first rows of apples planted at Ravenskill were Northern Spys, which were very popular and great for cider, but also very hard to grow on Gabriola, and that’s where the couple had to quickly become experts in their own ecosystem.
“We’re going to have to replant yet again, but that is an ongoing thing here, because it’s just us and there’s no instruction manual because there’s nobody else doing this,” says Marti. “Over the past 15 years or so, we’ve learned what rootstocks generally work and which don’t, but the truth is we’re still learning, still working on getting the best fruit for this land and for the cider we make.”
That was the other area where Marti and Keith had to become innovators, because the number of people using heritage apples to make cider is vanishingly small. The vast majority of cider is made with the culls of dessert apples, that are then sent to cider producers for a lower price.
By contrast, Ravenskill is growing apples specifically for cider production, just like a winery would grow grapes for specific wines.
For that reason, the couple enrolled in the best courses they could find, such as the renowned Cider Academy, run by Peter Mitchell of the UK. They also picked the brains of other cider-makers, and even worked with local winemakers who brought a deep knowledge of yeasts and fermentation.
But even then, the couple had to acquire most of their knowledge on their own, because they make ciders with apples that pretty much no one else uses, and they grow them on an island with very little water for irrigation.
For that reason, the couple has frequently replanted, stubbornly trying out one variety after another until they find the ones that both grow well, and also complement their premium ciders.
Commercial nurseries don’t have those varieties, so they propagate their own trees through bench grafting, and run their own nursery where they’ve produced trees with 25 different apple varieties. They also sell other products, including fresh juice and sweet apple cider caramels, along with nine different types of cider.
While it seems like Ravenskill is the type of farm that shouldn’t even be able to exist long-term, thanks to the owners’ stubborn dedication to using cider and heritage apples, it not only survives, but thrives.