At Manoff Market Gardens, Amy Manoff and her husband, Gary, have built a place where things are allowed to unfold in their own time, from the cider developing slowly in barrels to the visitors who come to linger over a glass.

That laid-back approach carries through the rest of the farm. Visitors can browse produce at the market, take part in workshops, or attend community events such as the recent Art in the Orchard festival. The market also creates space for the work of local artists and makers, reflecting the Manoffs’ emphasis on community. Gary says he strives to offer “a Napa experience right here in Bucks County.”

More than three decades after they took over the farm in Solebury, Amy and Gary are still the ones shaping that experience day to day, bringing the same patient, personal approach to their work in the orchard as they do to the people who visit. It’s a philosophy Amy sums up simply: “We don’t rush it.”

Putting Down Roots

The Manoffs’ connection to the land started long before cider became part of the business. Although neither Amy nor Gary grew up on a farm, farming was already part of the path they were considering. Gary studied agriculture at Delaware Valley University, and Amy’s first job after college was at Bucks County Winery, where she gave tours and tastings.

Soon after graduation, Gary was approached by Bob Pierson of what was then the Bucks County Conservancy. Pierson showed the couple a preserved former orchard in need of farmers, and Amy and Gary decided to take a chance and lease it.

The couple worked full-time jobs while building the farm and raising their two young children. While waiting for the fruit trees to mature, they grew vegetables and picked strawberries for farmers markets. With limited resources, the Manoffs improvised, even using the back of a refrigerator truck as their first cooler.

In 2020, after 36 years of farming, Gary and Amy were given the opportunity to buy the orchard from the organization that had leased it to them, now known as Heritage Conservancy. “As 60-year-olds, we got ourselves a mortgage,” Amy says.

Their long relationship with the land shaped the way the Manoffs thought about keeping the farm sustainable for the future. By the mid-2010s, the couple began looking at cider—both hard and nonalcoholic varieties—as a way to turn the apples they already grew into a product that could extend beyond the fresh-fruit season.

A Different Kind of Cider

Amy says Gary’s natural curiosity led him to study hard-cider making extensively, seeking out bottles from Europe to understand what producers there did differently. “He just kept reading, and buying cider, and drinking cider, and finding very special ciders from England or France,” Amy says. “He would ask: What are we not getting here?”

In 2017, Amy and Gary joined a Penn State-organized trip to England, spending seven days visiting 14 cideries in regions where cider making has been part of local life for generations. There, they saw firsthand that while many Americans still think of cider as either a seasonal nonalcoholic drink or a heavily sweetened hard cider, in England it’s treated much like wine, shaped by apple varieties, growing conditions, fermentation, and place. “These are people who have spent their whole lives, and the whole village’s lives, making cider,” Amy says.

The Manoffs returned home eager to bring that European-style approach to Pennsylvania. They shifted toward growing apples specifically for cider making, traveling to orchards across the country to find specialty varieties. Today, they grow about 50 types of apples, roughly half selected specifically for cider. Amy says cider apples tend to be more acidic and have tannins. “When you ferment them, there’s still character that comes through,” she adds.

Harrison is one apple variety with particularly deep ties to the region. Amy says the apple was known for cider production in Pennsylvania and New Jersey centuries ago. After waiting years for their trees to produce enough fruit, the Manoffs recently bottled a single-varietal Harrison cider, which quickly became a favorite.

Amy says Pennsylvania’s cider industry still lags behind places such as New York and Washington state, where cider makers have benefited from more developed legislation and promotion. For the Manoffs, that makes education nearly as important as production. Every tasting offers a chance to introduce someone to a different idea of cider and helps build a stronger cider culture in Pennsylvania.

From Apple to Bottle

Cider making at Manoff Market Gardens is a long, hands-on process. Apples are picked by hand, then washed, brushed, dried, and inspected for blemishes. “The only thing that’s truly important is that it doesn’t have a hole in it that could allow bacteria in,” Amy says. Any damaged spots are cut away before the apples are mashed and pressed for juice.

The cider is then transferred into fermentation vessels fitted with airlocks, allowing gases to escape while keeping oxygen out. The Manoffs’ small-batch ciders can spend nine months to a year developing as Amy and Gary taste along the way, deciding whether a batch should stand alone, be blended, or continue aging in stainless steel or wood barrels. They allow the cider to ferment completely dry, creating a drink more comparable to wine than to the sweet commercial hard ciders many people expect.

Once they are happy with a cider, it is chilled, bottled, or canned and lightly carbonated so people can “really taste the cider,” Amy says.

A dry summer may concentrate sugars in the apples, while a wetter year can produce fruit with lower sugar concentration and a different flavor profile. The same apple grown on the same farm will taste different from year to year, Amy says, which is why “you can never replicate it.”

Mother Nature threw the farm another curveball this past spring when an unseasonable warm spell was followed by a freeze, causing significant damage to many of the traditional apple varieties. Fortunately, many cider apples bloom at different stages, which helped soften the impact for the Manoffs. Even so, they and other local farms could benefit from additional support this year. “The biggest thing people can do to help is just go to the orchard,” Amy says.

A Labor of Love 

What makes Manoff Market Gardens’ cider-making process even more remarkable is how few people are behind it. Along with Amy and Gary, the operation relies largely on their son, a nephew, and a handful of helpers. The same small team may tend and harvest the fruit, press and blend the cider, then pour it for customers.

For Amy, that personal connection is part of what makes their cider distinctive. “Why is it good?” she asks. “It’s good because Amy and Gary make it, and they care.”

That care is part of what keeps customers like Jackie Holland coming back. Holland calls Manoff Market Gardens “an important contributor to our community,” praising the quality of its products and its friendly, helpful staff.

Visitors encounter that warmth throughout the farm. Seating is communal, and there are no food trucks or live music competing for attention. Instead, guests are encouraged to sit by the fire and talk to the people around them. The relaxed atmosphere gives people permission to slow down and stay awhile, reflecting the same patience that shapes so much of what the Manoffs do. For the Amy and Gary, the goal has always been to create a place where people can settle in and enjoy what’s in front of them. As Amy puts it: “Meet at Manoff. Keep it simple.”

Lela Casey is the editor of New Hope & Solebury magazine and has been writing professionally for more than 15 years. She and her family live in Doylestown.

Photograph by Juan Vidal Photography