Brandon Buza

Brandon Buza is a cidermaker, amateur orchardist, educator, and rare pomme fruit nerd. His journey into fermentation started unexpectedly when natural winemaker Tony Coturri gave him 10 gallons of zinfandel must to make wine at home. A number of years later cider making was added to his repertoire after a chance encounter with Andrew Byers at Finnriver in Washington.  The happenstance all of this alchemy drew Brandon to the U.K. and Peter Mitchell’s Cider & Perry Academy.

Although Brandon doesn’t have commercial aspirations, he has high standards for every bottle of wine and cider that pass through his hands. Brandon is invested in every aspect of the process from picking to bottling. In every season his goal is to craft bottles that cleanly reflect the characteristics of the fruit used. In recent years he’s been particularly fascinated in ciders made with quince and sorbus domestica. He’s won top awards for his ciders at Franklin County Cider Days and GLINTCAP, including a gold, best in class.

Over the years, Brandon has found the cider community to be welcoming, passionate and generous.  Accordingly, he enjoys volunteering with a wide range of organizations including the Gravenstein Apple Fair, Historic Filoli Estate, Good Food Foundation (Cider Co-Chair), GLINTCAP and NW Cider Association, to name a few.  Furthermore, as a professional photographer Brandon is always looking for opportunities to showcase cider and the cider community with his lens.

Brandon is excited to join the small, yet growing, family of Certified Pommeliers™ with the hope that he can bring better awareness of craft cider and help standardize the language in which cider is described.