WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP
Sarah Hemly
President , Hemly Cider by Jennifer Fergesen
Most days , you can find Sarah Hemly in a former airplane hangar deep in the Sacramento River delta . The once-abandoned building houses the fermentation equipment for Hemly Cider , her 7-year-old cider business , as well as a tasting room that opened last spring . Everything inside the hangar has the sheen of novelty , from the gleaming tanks and kegs to the live-edge wood slabs that servers use to carry flights of cider and perry ( pear cider ). But the orchard that surrounds it belongs to one of the oldest family businesses in the Capital Region .
Hemly ’ s husband , Matthew Hemly , is part of the sixth generation of family operators of Greene and Hemly , a pear and apple grower in Courtland with more than 160 years of history . The business began in the Gold Rush and grew in step with the Sacramento Valley ’ s burgeoning canning industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries . Vestiges of this boom time remain in the grand Victorian homes that dot the delta , including a white-columned example on the Greene and Hemly grounds . But by the 21st century , most local canneries had folded and foreign imports were cutting into delta growers ’ share of a shrinking market .
“ Farming families like the Hemlys , like a lot of the other apple and pear people , were depending on those canning contracts ,” Hemly says . “ We ’ re seeing literally tons of fruit just getting thrown away because there was no market for it . … Now , on top of making sure that we tell the story that ’ s out there , there ’ s also this urgency and responsibility to make sure that we can find second avenues for a lot of these crops in California .”
It ’ s a relatively recent concern for Hemly , who says she never visited the delta before she met her husband at UC Berkeley — despite growing up in Sacramento . “ I was blown away by everything that ’ s going on out here … the quality of the fruit , how it ’ s harvested , when it ’ s harvested and why it ’ s different than any other fruit on the rest of the planet ,” she says . “ Naturally , because I like my wine and drinking , I figured , let ’ s see if we can do cider .”
After research trips to traditional cider-making regions in England and France , Hemly met Tasmanian cider maker Chris Thomson , who had experience with sweet , dry-climate fruit not unlike what ’ s grown in California . She and Thomson co-founded Hemly Cider and produced a first run of 5,000 gallons in 2015 . This year , they ’ ll max production at 60,000 gallons , and plans are underway to expand to a larger area on Greene and Hemly ’ s grounds . Hemly Cider can be found at supermarkets and liquor stores around the region , including Corti Brothers in East Sacramento , Taylor ’ s Market in Land Park and the Davis Food Coop , and over a dozen local bars and restaurants .
But Hemly ’ s ambitions extend beyond the region . Last year , she entered the International Cider Competition at the Sagardo Forum , an annual cider conference in Spain ’ s Basque region , and came home with a gold medal for Hemly Cider ’ s Brute Pear , a silver for Chai Pear and a bronze for Sloughhouse Jalapeño Pear . The vast variety of ciders on pour at the conference — and talks on growing methods that can withstand climate change — ignited ideas for her own business and Greene and Hemly as it moves into a new generation of leadership .
Last year , her father-in-law Doug Hemly retired and passed the role of president and CEO to his daughter , Virginia Hemly Chhabra . The president of the board and most of its directors are also female members of the family , unusual in the male-dominated agricultural industry .
“ At this point in our company , we ’ re making big changes , and this is a big growing year . How do we grow into this , and what ’ s the future look like , and what ’ s the future of cider look like ?” Hemly says . “ It ’ s an exciting point to be at .”
Jennifer Fergesen is senior editor for Comstock ’ s magazine . She writes about food for publications around the world and has received awards for her reporting on the restaurants of the global Filipino diaspora . See her work at jcfrgsn . journoportfolio . com and globalcarinderia . com .
48 comstocksmag . com | March 2022