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Fabio Camara
Foggy Ridge Cider
Cider pairs with food, in this tasting at Foggy Ridge, just as wines are enjoyed with certain flavors.
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Kimberly Button
Albemarle Ciderworks
Albemarle Ciderworks in North Garden, Va offers four distinct ciders, from the fruit of more than 200 apple varieties.
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Courtesy of Castle Hill Cider
Castle Hill Cider
Castle Hill Cider turns out four ciders each year from its distinctive building in Keswick, Va.
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Kimberly Button
Cider Apples
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Elizabeth Pokela
Diane Flynt
Diane Flynt, owner of Foggy Ridge Cider, left the corporate world to devote her life to agricultural pursuits.
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Fabio Camara
Foggy Ridge Cider
Cider pairs with food, in this tasting at Foggy Ridge, just as wines are enjoyed with certain flavors.
An old mountain libation – with its roots in the days before grapes were widely grown in the Southern Appalachians – is making a comeback at several spots in the Blue Ridge region.
Hard cider might best be described as the shy, yet surprisingly evocative, sister to wine. She might not get much attention compared to her well-known relative, but once people get to know her, they are usually captivated.
Little known and often misunderstood, hard cider is crafted just like wine, only instead of beautiful, delicate grapes, the ingredients are often ugly, bitter apples. That is why the early settlers of America cherished cider as one of their favorite alcoholic libations.
Grapes were hard to grow in this new land, but apples were easy, especially in the cooler northern climates. Our ancestors from England, who were quite familiar with cider, were inclined to grow what they knew and loved, but then dramatic changes in the world started the rapid decline of the popularity of hard cider, from which it has never fully returned. Immigration from lands such as Germany, where beer was the popular beverage, as well as countries where wine was definitely king, soon changed the national landscape of desired drinks. Throw in Prohibition and the sudden ease of transporting wine and beer across the nation with the new railroads and cider’s moment in the spotlight was all but over.
Though cider might have had its heyday years ago, there is a new generation of connoisseurs who are passionate about delving back into history and keeping the unique flavors of the drink alive. There are currently only a handful of innovative hard cider producers in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but an increased public passion to learn more about the libation means that there are many plans in the works for future cider orchards and tasting rooms.
To explore the origins of modern-day hard cider in the southeast, you have to visit Foggy Ridge Cider in Dugspur, Va.
“I don’t particularly want to be called the grandmother of cider in the south,” owner Diane Flynt says, “but we were the first to focus exclusively on apple orchards to make cider.” Surprisingly, there is a huge difference between the apple orchards growing apples for pies, juice and eating compared to the apples that are grown for cider. Cider apples tend to be small, imperfect and, often, too full of tannins and acidity to eat with pleasure.
Foggy Ridge Cider was the first hard cider-making facility to open in Virginia. In 1997, Flynt gave up the big-city corporate life to embrace a more rural, agricultural setting. Though she makes an alcoholic beverage that most people are not familiar with, the setting and the process should be very familiar to visitors.
“I say that I own a winery, but I focus full time on making cider,” Flynt says. “I consider myself a fruit grower who takes great care with the fruit that I grow and how I harvest it. Unlike the large grocery store cider brands, the difference in flavor is the way that I treat it. When the apples are absolutely, perfectly ripe, then I’m out there picking them.”
Growing more than 30 apple varieties used for cider, with one of the country’s largest plantings of the iconic southern Virginia Hewe’s Crab apple, Flynt has a wealth of flavors to incorporate in Foggy Ridge’s three ciders each year.
Just minutes away from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello is Albermarle Ciderworks in North Garden, Va. The cidery is an offshoot of the Shelton family’s Vintage Virginia Apples Orchard and Nursery, which has more than 200 apple varieties. Chuck and Charlotte Shelton pick the best apples for cider among their burgeoning orchard of unique fruits to create four distinct ciders for all tastes and palettes.
Visitors can cozy up to the counter for generous samples of the cider blends and a passionate history about what makes cider apples and hard cider so unique. Once you have found your perfect blend, you might want to grab a table outside, order a snack of local foods from the tasting menu, and enjoy panoramic views of the orchards and the mountains. Don’t be surprised if Pippin, the family dog named after a famous cider apple, comes by for a visit. He is just on the search for someone to play with.
While Chuck offers fresh slices of cider apples to visitors in the storehouse, offering a culinary demonstration of how cider apples taste unique, Charlotte is inside talking about the wonders of being a cider maker.
“It’s a new field, it’s kind of fun,” she says. “If cider is going to gain a place as a libation, it needs to stand alone. It is not wine, it is not beer, it’s different.”
Nearby in Keswick, Va., Castle Hill Cider is located in the former home of one of Thomas Jefferson’s mentors, Colonel Thomas Walker. The 600-acre estate, originally built in 1764, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but the location isn’t the only thing historic about this cidery.
Castle Hill uses one of the most ancient methods of creating cider, known as a kvevri. Though three of their ciders are made in modern, stainless steel tanks, one cider, called Levity, is created in kvevri – terracotta vessels that have been planted deep in the earth. The beeswax-lined vessels allow the cider to ferment slowly in the constant cool temperatures deep underground. Castle Hill’s tasting room opened in August 2011. The cidery’s orchards, which contain 28 different apple varieties, are hoped to achieve organic certification.
In the famed Yadkin Valley region of North Carolina, known for its many great wineries, the McRitchie Winery and Ciderworks, owned by Sean and Patricia McRitchie, stands alone as the only cider producer in the state. Located in Thurmond, N.C., its two varieties of hard cider join the wine list for curious visitors to try.
“People who have only had the more commercial ciders like Woodchuck are pleasantly surprised to discover our hard ciders, since stylistically they are different,” Patricia says.
Sean grew up in Oregon, where he was fascinated by a friend who had a cidery. Many years later, he moved across the country to open up a winery and cidery among North Carolina’s apple orchards. The McRitchies currently get their heirloom apples from a local orchard, but have hundreds of trees growing so that they can soon use their own cider apples, too. Their sparkling ciders are made on site from little-known apple varieties such as Magnum Bonum and Limbertwig.
You will have to travel much farther south to find the latest installment in the Blue Ridge area cideries. Mercier Orchards, located in the mountains of Blue Ridge, Ga., has been the site of apple orchards for more than a century. In the Mercier family since 1943, the orchards have long been known for a myriad of products made from their 45 different apple varieties, but hard cider will be the newest addition to their menu. Tastings of the hard ciders will be separated from the large family-oriented market on the property; Mercier was scheduled to open by mid-summer.
The delights of artisanal hard ciders cannot be kept secret much longer. As everything old becomes new again, this classic American indulgence that once fortified early settlers is poised to be among the latest epicurean delights, andpoised to take our nation by storm, once again.
Going Cidering
Foggy Ridge Cider
1328 Pineview Road
Dugspur, VA 24325
276-398-2337
foggyridgecider.com
Albemarle Ciderworks
2545 Rural Ridge Lane
North Garden, VA 22959
434-297-2326
albemarleciderworks.com
Castle Hill Cider
6065 Turkey Sag Road
Keswick, VA 22947
434-296-0047
castlehillcider.com
McRitchie Winery & Ciderworks
315 Thurmond PO Road
Thurmond, NC 28683
336-874-3003
mcritchiewine.com
Mercier Orchards
8660 Blue Ridge Drive
Blue Ridge, GA 30513
800-361-7731
mercier-orchards.com