Tag: cider

Categories
Culture

Drinking buddies

A great deal of mutual admiration shines through in locally produced beverage collaborations such as the Rosé Gose beer by Fine Creek Brewing and Blenheim Vineyards. Photo: Courtesy of Fine Creek Brewing

While most of us have been trying to keep our distance over the past year, there’s been lots of pairing up in the wine industry. Area winemakers have been pursuing both formal and informal collaborations as a natural expression of their intellectual curiosity and creative spirit. And as you can see from the sampling of collabs below, these projects also involve local breweries, cideries, and distilleries. 

Blenheim Vineyards and Fine Creek Brewing Company

blenheimvineyards.com
finecreekbrewing.com

In 2018, when Gabe Slagle was head brewer for Fine Creek Brewing Company in Powhatan, he visited Blenheim Vineyards and left some beer for winemaker Kirsty Harmon. This simple exchange led to the development of a professional friendship, as Harmon wrote back to say thank you and offered to provide grape skins if the brewery ever wanted to use them. When Slagle visited Blenheim again, he brought along Brian Mandeville, Fine Creek’s current head brewer, and the collaborations began in force.

Over the years, Blenheim has had the opportunity to do wine pop-ups at Fine Creek, and has served the beer at its winery during special weekend events. On the production side, Fine Creek has used several different varieties of grape pressings in its beer, including viognier and rkatsiteli. There have even been some rosé-style beers that utilized skins from red grapes. According to Harmon, Fine Creek has “really gotten creative with how they have been able to incorporate our grapes into their beers.” In addition, “they are just really great people,” and she is hopeful that the collaboration will continue.

Lightwell Survey and Troddenvale Cider

lightwellsurvey.com
troddenvale.com

Winemaker Ben Jordan is no stranger to co-fermentation, where different grape varieties are combined to ferment together into a final product. In a recently released collaboration between Lightwell Survey and Troddenvale Cider, which is run by Will and Cornelia Hodges and located in Warm Springs, the concept goes a step further when grapes and apples are fermented as a single mixture.

For the project, Lightwell contributed petit manseng and vidal blanc grapes and Troddenvale contributed Harrison and Golden Russet apples. (All the fruit was grown in the Shenandoah Valley.) The juice from this fruit was combined, with care taken to ensure that the resulting mix was exactly 50 percent wine and 50 percent cider. Then, each party took half of the mix, and the rest of the fermentation, aging, and bottling was done separately. While the producers share a low-intervention approach, and the resulting beverages have similarities, it is interesting to see how the same original juice can yield different results in the hands of a winemaker versus a cidermaker. The Lightwell version was fermented in stainless steel with a bit of sulfur dioxide added at bottling. The Troddenvale was fermented in neutral oak with no sulfur additions. Both are selling two-packs featuring the paired products.

When asked why they decided to do this, Jordan says, “These grape/apple fermentations are something we are both interested in, we are each a fan of what the other is doing, and honestly, we were looking to have fun.”

Joy Ting Wine and Spirit Lab Distilling

@joytingwine
spiritlabdistilling.com

A quick survey of the world’s wine regions reveals that winemaking is always accompanied by distillation of wine into brandy. It’s a natural partnership and, at least historically, it was always made from local grapes grown in the region. Inspired by world-famous brandies from the Cognac and Armagnac regions of France, winemaker Joy Ting (this writer’s wife) and master distiller Ivar Aass of Charlottesville’s Spirit Lab Distilling are collaborating to make a Virginia brandy that they call Esprit Joyeux.

Aass and Ting are both focused on the brandy as a true expression of Virginia. As Ting explains, “The grapes are grown in the Shenandoah Valley. They are specifically managed and picked with brandy production in mind. After fermentation into wine, distillation occurs at Spirit Lab. Finally, the brandy is aged in barrels made from wood that comes from a forest in Culpeper.”

Every one of the above-mentioned partners goes out of their way to express their love for each other’s products—and all of them speak highly of the production quality and skill level of their collaborators. More notably, there is frequent mention of the great ideas, character, and heart of the people behind the products. It’s clear that there are many rewards for these producers in pursuing these projects beyond the final product that is imbibed.

Ultimately, though, it’s area drink lovers who truly benefit from these collaborations. Creativity and curiosity are a wonderful driver of the industry, but finding partners who are simpatico can truly spur things forward. These cooperative projects, especially ones that cross the boundaries of the wine, beer, cider, and spirits categories, result in new ideas, new flavors, and even entirely new categories of beverages, making it an exciting time to drink locally.

Categories
Magazines Unbound

Bugged: Non-native insects threaten Virginia’s ash trees and fruit harvests.

Recognizing the threat to Virginia’s wine, beer, cider, and fruit yields, the VDOF and Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services undertook an aggressive lanternfly eradication program that started in May and runs until October 31.

With its metallic-green shell and wings, the emerald ash borer looks almost like a smaller version of a brooch your great-grandmother pinned to her lapel. But it’s not a decoration—it’s a killer. The beetle lays its eggs inside ash trees, producing voracious larvae that deplete their hosts of the water and nutrients they need to survive.

Initially detected in Michigan in 2002—a suspected stowaway in wooden packing crates arriving from its native Asia—the borer showed up the following year in Fairfax County, Virginia. In the ensuing decade and a half, it has spread across the northeast, destroying tens of millions of ash trees. A major infestation this summer in Richmond and Henrico County moved the state to issue a quarantine, that is, a prohibition against moving ash firewood across county lines or bringing it in from out of state.

“By not moving the firewood, we’re actually reducing possible exposure to the insect,” says Lara Johnson, a program manager with the Virginia Department of Forestry. “If there’s a valuable ash tree in your yard, you should get it treated.”

Pesticides are available online, at garden centers, or in big-box stores. But Johnson recommends hiring arborists to do the job, because, as certified applicators, they have both the expertise and access to more concentrated treatments. She adds that introducing a systemic remedy before or very shortly after exposure is much more successful than trying to save an infested tree.

A less prevalent but potentially much more destructive non-native species, the spotted lanternfly, sparked a quarantine order this summer in Frederick County and the City of Winchester, about 100 miles north of Charlottesville. Indigenous to China, India, and Vietnam, this planthopper (it has wings as an adult but moves mostly by crawling and jumping) was first discovered in the U.S. in 2014, and now also lives in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. It eats more than 70 species, including stone-fruit trees like peaches and plums, as well as apples, grapes, and hops.

Recognizing the threat to Virginia’s wine, beer, cider, and fruit yields, the VDOF and Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services undertook an aggressive eradication program that started in May and runs until October 31. Elaine Lidholm of the VDACS says crews hit the lanternfly’s favorite roost, the tree of heaven, with a chemical herbicide and insecticide, and followed up with bioinsecticide applications. “Treatments will likely be repeated,” she says.

Lidholm advises that anyone who finds one (or more) of the critters outside of Winchester or Frederick County should capture a specimen and send an email to spottedlanternfly@vdacs.virginia.gov. The sample needs to be submitted for identification and verification,” Lidholm says.

If that sounds like a hassle, just imagine your life without Virginia-made beer, wine, cider, and peaches. See? We knew you’d understand—and help out if you can.

Recognizing the threat to Virginia’s wine, beer, cider, and fruit yields, the VDOF and Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services undertook an aggressive lanternfly eradication program that started in May and runs until October 31.

Categories
Living

Cider insider: Hard apple purveyors are juicing with unique ingredients

Potter’s Craft Cider’s Tim Edmond and Dan Potter collaborated with Richmond’s Veil Brewing Co. on Dirt Napple. Photo: Kyle Petrozza

Cider is a traditionally straightforward beverage—whether it’s the soft stuff or the hard stuff, cider is made with apples and not much else.

Tell that to today’s local hard cider makers.

From spices to berries to citrus to hops, all sorts of adjuncts are showing up in cider these days. And much as craft beer drinkers can’t get enough of brews with wacky ingredients (Oreos and fried chicken f’real?), cider sippers are getting into the unusual too.

Locally, Andy Hannas, Tim Edmond, and Dan Potter are leading the charge at Potter’s Craft Cider.

“Tim, Dan and I all used to brew beer at home before we started making cider, and they were looking at starting a brewery before they wound up in the cider world,” Hannas says. “That was definitely a big source of inspiration early on. Hopped cider was the third product we made. They had a lot of beer ideas they were kicking around, and I had things in mind from my homebrewing days, so we started experimenting.”

With Virginia Cider Week set to flow November 9-18, start priming your palate with these three unique hard cider offerings.

Dirt Napple

The latest fruit of Potter’s experiments is a collaboration with cult favorite The Veil Brewing Co. Working with The Veil’s Dirt Nap Double IPA as a baseline, the team hit Dirt Napple with Citra, Mosaic, Galaxy and Nelson Sauvin hops before finishing it with lactose sugar, which doesn’t turn to alcohol in the presence of yeast. The result is a cider with some residual sugar (nearly all of Potter’s ciders are dry) and a New England IPA-like mouthfeel.

“It is obviously much different from the beer it was modeled after, but it was interesting to try one of our ciders and add some sugar,” Hannas says. “It is by no means a sweet cider like a lot of others out there, but to have something that finished not quite so dry was interesting. And it changed the way the hops expressed.”

The 6.9 percent ABV cider is still available in four packs at the Potter’s tasting room, though supply is dwindling. If you can’t grab one, be on the lookout for kegs around town as Virginia Cider Week approaches.

Big Pippin

Castle Hill Cider keeps it super traditional—except when it comes to Big Pippin. This sister line of ciders features four varieties: ginger and oaked spirits, hopped ginger, elderberry and cherry, and prickly pear and orange blossom. The beverages range from 6.9 to 11 percent alcohol and will be hitting shelves in 12-ounce cans by December, according to cider maker and orchard manager Stuart Madany.

“Adjunct ciders are generally at a lower price point and higher volume,” he says. “They’re made of what I’d call the better apples that are not cider specific—jonathans, yorks, pink ladies, and golden delicious.”

Blood Orange Cider

Bold Rock Hard Cider doesn’t hide its ambitions—namely, to make relatively sweet, drinkable cider for the masses. But that also means the cidery is willing to put just about anything into a hard beverage if it’ll attract a new fan or two.

Take Bold Rock’s Blood Orange cider, which blends blood orange juice and locally harvested Blue Ridge apples. The naturally hazy beverage, sitting at an easy drinking 4.7 percent ABV, combines the crisp tartness of cider with a zip of the trendiest citrus on the market. Blood Orange Cider is available in 12-ounce bottles at a variety of stores around Charlottesville, so cider lovers can get to sippin’ ASAP.

Categories
Real Estate

Cider Makes a Comeback

Cider with three sorts of apple, isolated on white

By Ken Wilson – 

It was a staple of the Colonial diet, the most common drink in 18th and early 19th century America. Thomas Jefferson grew two varieties of apples, Hewes’ Crab and Taliaferro, especially suited for making it, and served it with the main course. And then, on American shores, it all but disappeared.

Cider—not the sweet and simple stuff on the supermarket shelf, but the alcoholic, artisanal drink with tannins and acidity and suitably adult complexity to leaven the sweetness—is newly popular again, and it’s no wonder. We buy local now, and cook international. We drink microbrew beer, and wine matched to the food and the season. Cider is back because we’re ready for it, and now that we’re ready, we make plenty of it, especially here in Virginia, the sixth-largest apple producing state by acreage in the country. Apples are a traditional Virginia fruit. Nowadays we grow more than 30 different varieties specifically for the sake of cider.

Seventeen cideries are in operation here now, more than half of which have opened since 2006. A half a dozen more are in the works, and several wineries produce cider as well. This Old Dominion activity reflects a nationwide rise in the production of hard cider, accompanied by sales growth averaging 73 percent each year over the past five years.

Making artisanal cider starts with choosing the right varieties of apples—generally not the ones most popular for eating—then grinding, pressing and extracting them when their acidity and sugar content are just right. The resulting juice—as much as three gallons per bushel—is most commonly, though not always, blended. Fermentation is the final step. In Virginia, cider can be up to 10 percent alcohol by volume.

Albemarle CiderWorks
“There is nothing in our cider except apples,” says Charlotte Shelton of Albemarle CiderWorks in North Garden, which offers 12 different varieties of this popular drink. “No flavorings, no water. With one or two of them we add a tiny bit of sugar right at the end in order to modulate the acidity, but other than that there is nothing added.”

“Crabapples make excellent cider; they have a lot of skin contact, which is where you find tannins,” Shelton says. “The very best cider we’ve made was a Virginia Hewes Crab cider several years ago. Winesap is a classic American apple—the name tells you what is was originally used for—but it was also a culinary apple and you still see that in commercial orchards. We use those too.” Shelton praises the Albemarle Pippin, the York, a 19th century cultivar called Arkansas Black, and a late 20th century cultivar called Goldrush as well. “Harrison is probably the finest American cider apple ever grown,” she says. “It was believed to be extinct but was discovered in the late 20th century and we’re planting a lot of those. In fact we’ll have our first Harrison, a very small batch of it, this year.”

For their flagship cider, Jupiter’s Legacy, Albemarle CiderWorks chooses a blend of apples that changes in accordance with each year’s harvest. “We put into that all our best cider apples,” Shelton says. What they get is a drink with bright acidity with notes of citrus.

Bold Rock Hard Cider
One Bold Rock partner grew up in Virginia and the Carolinas, and owned farmland in Nelson County. The other grew up farming in New Zealand, bought an apple orchard, and after a devastating cyclone gathered his fallen fruit for what would become an award-winning cider. Southerner reached out to New Zealander, and the two sold their first bottle of Bold Rock cider, fermented in a timber frame barn in Nellysford, in 2012. Bold Rock is now the leading cider producer in the commonwealth, offering nine varieties year round and three more in season. The Virginia Draft is smooth. The Virginia Apple is crisp. The Blood Orange blends blood oranges and Blue Ridge Mountain apples.

Blue Toad Hard Cider
First dreamed up in 2013 “in the back of a cold garage in Scottsville, New York by three childhood friends with diverse backgrounds,” Blue Toad Hard Cider takes three to four different apple varieties grown in Nelson County and western New York and blends them at its cideries in Roseland and Rochester. Blue Ridge Blonde, a light, straw-colored cider that is “clean-tasting with a bright taste of fresh apples” and a pear note finish, is made from Golden Delicious, Red Delicious and Granny Smith apples. Harvest Blend, with notes of clove, cinnamon and spices, is made for cold weather. Each of Blue Toad’s six flagship ciders and three seasonal offerings can be tasted at its pub and tasting room in Afton, open Thursday through Sunday. The Cidery at High View Farm in Roseland is open the same days.

Potter’s Craft Cider
Two college buddies who loved brewing beer began experimenting with cider in 2009, got serious about it in 2010, and founded Potter’s Craft Cider in 2011 on a horse farm with views of the Blue Ridge mountains. Their 14 different ciders range from sober sounding creations like Oak Barrel Reserve, produced with traditional barrel-aging techniques, to more fanciful offerings like Mangose, inspired by Gose-style German beer and fermented with mangos, coriander and Vietnamese sea salt. Their Charlottesville tasting room, a collaboration with the Bridge PAI!, is open Fridays and Saturdays. 

Castle Hill Cider
Castle Hill is a privately owned, 600-acre estate in Albemarle County established in 1764 that has entertained Patrick Henry, Robert E. Lee, and seven U.S. presidents. Its cider makers take “an apple-centered approach” to its seven ciders, which include the brightly acidic Terrestrial and the full-bodied Gravity. Levity, the world’s only commercial cider made in clay amphorae, is aged and fermented according to an 8000-year-old process. Visitors to Castle Hill will find a Linden grove, an orchard, a lake, and lawns bordered by cherry trees and wisteria arbors. Its indoor and an outdoor tasting rooms are open daily, except on Tuesdays. 

Tradition
Each November a CiderWeekVA festival, at numerous locations across the state, celebrates the heartening revival of an old American tradition, and marks the swiftness with which it has found a market. “Cider is coming back,” Shelton says, and at Albemarle CiderWorks she’s determined to do even more to spur its resurgence.  “We think it’s important to look for those apples”—the rare and historic ones first ground, pressed and fermented—“many of which are going by the board. We work to encourage people who are growing orchards on a much larger scale than we can, to grow these varieties of apples that are excellent for cider.”