Harvest Festival

Wow, I need to get caught up! November is almost over.

This is the second part of the day we drove out to Charlottesville. We went to James Monroe's home, then to a harvest festival. I was telling my mom about how pretty it is here in the fall, it is usually sunny and beautiful. My mom said we HAD to go a cider press! So I did a little research and found this festival. It was a bit farther then I wanted to go, almost two hours from Richmond, but there is a lot to do out there. We went to Albemarle Ciderworks and Vintage Virginia Apples.

It was nice, we had fun. The festival was well organized, people were having fun. There was a really diverse crowd of white people. Some were obviously from the area, different clothes and accents. There was some farmers from nearby farms. Also more trendy students, and yuppy families from town.

Apple orchard

 The apple orchard started off as a hobby farm. But the family just keep collected more and more varieties, then selling apples and fresh pressed juice. That was not really profitable, so they started the Ciderworks.

The local Ruritans got there early, they made apple butter and Brunswick stew over an open fire 

Fires were put out by the time we got there

First time trying Brunswick stew! It was really yummy

 There were booths from local farmers and businesses, it was like a farmers market. We were trying to make good financial choices, so we didn't buy anything except stew and apple butter.

Cute little boys, totally covered in mud 

These awesome men were making baskets while we watched

 Apples! They had about seven different apples to try. They were amazing! So many different flavors. They were all such a nice texture. I hate the mealy apples that you often end up getting at the grocery store. I loved the really sweet, tart apples.

People were shopping for apples, you could get two different sized bags. There were also people getting crates of apples. Most for the season had already been picked and sold, but they still had plenty for this festival. You can tell some families come to buy apples for canning, homemade apple butter and pie filling, etc.

Classic apple press! We got a demonstration. To make the apple juice they sell they use a contemporary machine press. The kids all went up and put in apples to get pressed, it was cute. 

Fresh pressed hot apple juice! It is a mix of five different apples. It was so good. I know it is called "apple cider" but we only call real cider, you know the ones with alcohol, cider now.

Then we got to tour the ciderworks! It was a really short tour. They are a small operation. But they make amazing cider. The stuff you get at the grocery store is way too sweet. Real cider is more like wine, dry and has notes of mineral, tannin, fruits, etc. But it's not a sugar bomb.

This is the cider press, where they squeeze out the juice. Thomas was our tour guide. He was great! He gave us enough real information, plus little stories and anecdotes. 

 Just some more shots of the cider works. It is made pretty much like wine. They use a chardonnay yeast even. One thing I learned is that they don't let it ferment long enough to produce it's own CO2, they add in the CO2, like they add it into soda. They are experimenting with fermenting for CO2, but it can be tricky. Also it tends to make it much more alcoholic, in Virginia they can sell it as if it was beer, with those regulations, as long as it is below 10% alcohol. Above that and they have to sell it as wine, with a different set of regulations.

We didn't take pictures of the tasting room. We paid $5 each and tried five apple ciders. They were so good! Tanner liked the slightly sweeter, fruity ones. I liked the really dry ones. They had suggestions for pairing them with food as well. They are a bit expensive, and you can still only find them in Virginia and bits of Maryland. So we didn't buy any cider to have at home. But when we need a treat we will go buy a bottle.

After the tour we hung around to ask Thomas more questions, the tour guide and assistant cider maker. His wife is from Yakima! We told him we were from Seattle, and chatted about cider and wine from Washington. Tanner asked a few more technical questions about cider making. We asked him what else he likes to drink from Virginia. We found out the the cider master is a retired nuclear engineer. We talked about Richmond and how many hipsters there are.

Tanner has since trimmed his beard again, it gets's so long! 

It was such a nice conversation. Reminded me that we are interesting, fun people, and we can get out and make friends here. Overall it was a nice day. It is fun to explore. It cost more than we can afford, so we have to be more careful about finding cheap dates, and cheap ways to explore.