Cooperative Living March/April 2021 - 16

Cider's Appeal
(continued from page 13)
cider. Their flagship product is called
Malice, a blend of five apple varieties,
slowly fermented and aged a year. It
won the 2020 Savor Virginia Magazine
reader's choice gold medal for the
Best Traditional Cider. Winchester
Ciderworks now can be found in
six states.
" The best thing about making cider
is the look on somebody's face when
they haven't tried cider, and for the
first time they look up and look into
my eyes and say, 'Wow, I didn't know
it tasted like this,' " Schuurman says.
" That makes all the hard work, all the
cleaning that we have to do, all the
dirty work of pressing and milling
the apples and everything, worth it. "
Winchester Ciderworks presses
30,000 to 40,000 gallons of apple juice
a year, about half for its own products.
The business employs about 10, most
of whom work in the tasting room
and mill. During portions of the
growing season, another 50 work in
the orchard and cidery.
" It's been a massive learning curve, "
says Schuurman, who earned his
accreditation as a pommelier at
Washington State University in 2012.
" I would put my cider up to
any English cider. We are
very different because of
the aging. A lot of the
more mainstream ciders
in America go from
apples to bottles in three
to four weeks. Not us. "
As much as she loves
the cider mill side, Kearns
says the apple always will be her
first love. She has been on the land
since 1983, returning after college to
learn the horticulture from her father
and preserve a family tradition.
" To be able to go outside my door
50 yards away and pick an apple from
a tree I knew as a baby is an awesome
thing, " Kearns says.
SEARCH FOR PERSONAL PEACE
The need to find that kind of quiet
rural tranquility pushed Marc Chretien,
managing partner of Mt. Defiance
14 | Cooperative Living | March-April 2021
Albemarle CiderWorks
Winchester Ciderworks
Mt. Defiance Cidery
and Distillery
" It is indeed bad to eat
apples. It is better to
make them all into cider. "
- Benjamin Franklin
At right,
Mt. Defiance's new
200-gallon alembic
pot still will help step
up production.
Cidery and Distillery in Middleburg,
into the cider business in 2014.
" It was a reaction to getting shelled
" No matter what,
I now feel a
connection to Earth. "
- Marc Chretien
and mortared, a desire to have
something peaceful and serene
in my life, " says Chretien,
a former advisor to the
commanding general of
the International Security
Assistance Force for the
U.S. Department of State.
His military duties exposed
him to seven years of tours
in Afghanistan and Iraq, during
the height of the wars.
A sense of history - personal and
American - infuses his enthusiasm
for cider.
" I have always liked cider. When
I was a younger man, I tried to ferment
apple juice to make my own. I was
thrilled at the idea of an everyman's
drink, " says Chretien, who started a
cider business in Vermont with which
Marc Chretien's Mt. Defiance Cidery
and Distillery offers tasters views from
an 8,400-square-foot cider barn.
co-opliving.com
he is still involved.
Chretien believes hard cider is
poised for a boom period in Virginia
and nationally.
" Cider is an expanding niche
market. It grows at about 20 to 22%
a year, largely because of the consumer
interest in regional craft brewing
PHOTOS BY STEVEN JOHNSON
http://www.co-opliving.com
Cooperative Living March/April 2021

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