Industrial beer brewing. Photo by Kevin Haney.
In the last several years, quality products of an alcoholic nature have begun to develop beyond wine and beer. The general interest in heritage food products, animal breeds and lifestyle choices has resulted in the resurgence of hard cider as a viable beverage option. Vintage Virginia Apples, in conjunction with Albemarle Ciderworks, has promoted education about and access to heritage varieties like the Arkansas black and the Geneva crab.124 The joint work of Peter Hatch and Tom Burford, “a modern day Johnny Appleseed, part philosopher and part planter,” at Monticello has also given root to a revival of interest in hard cider production.125 But perhaps the greatest asset to the cider industry is the quality of the cider itself.
Absent from the offerings of Charlottesville-area cideries are the sickly sweet, overly processed varieties prevalent at chain restaurants and corner stores. Single-variety bottles, oak barrel aging and reserve blends are merely some of the marks of the new hard cider movement. Potter’s Craft Cider, with its dry acidity and nuanced palate, appears at the forefront of these offerings. Reasonably priced and highly accessible, customers can choose between a 750-milliliter bottle or, in many cases, a glass of the effervescent stuff on draft at many local restaurants.
Potter’s Craft Cider is a labor of love for two Princeton graduates who stumbled on a love of craft beer outside of their day jobs as a “hobby going out of control.”126 Tim Edmond, one half of the cider team along with Dan Potter, laughs when comparing his former career in finance to the work he does now at the cidery. Possessing a wealth of information about various cider-making processes, Edmond has an excitement for his new day job that’s palpable in his speech and in his product.
Edmond and Potter began drawing on research, pre-Prohibition materials that hadn’t been used for over one hundred years. Edmond relates that “really forward-thinking” local businesses in town were excited about their cider; Edmond states, “Cider by nature is a super-local thing. You can be a local brewery but still get hops and barley from other places; it’s difficult to source local ingredients as a brewery.” Edmond finds their business to be fortunately situated in this area; they picked Charlottesville for its good apples and orchardists who’ve been doing it for generations with heritage varieties. Other people than commercial growers are bringing back nurseries with apples that are early, such as Vintage Virginia Apples, which supplies Potter’s with cider-specific apple varieties like the Hugh’s crab at Monticello. Edmond characterizes these people as “forward-thinking, food-focused individuals that are very forensic about where their food comes from.”
Edmond notes that unlike wine or beer, “cider has yet to emerge as its own market—are they beer drinkers? Are they wine drinkers?” The average consumer of Potter’s Craft Cider has the expendable income to buy local and is interested in craft products. Edmond states that he and Potter are trying to “make that market” of craft cider drinkers, noting that there’s an “established macro category of what cider is. We’re trying to create that craft category.” With a grassroots marketing approach and relationships with everyone from Whole Foods to Free Union Grass Farm, Edmond and Potter are quickly uncovering the nature of the customers who have made Potter’s Craft Cider a household name in the area.
Wine, beer and cider from central Virginia appear on menus next to local dishes and family-recipe menus. Bottles of each dot the local retailers, whether big-box stores or gourmet grocers. The love and pride that Charlottesvillians have in their local food producers is well matched in their support of the burgeoning wine, beer and cider industries. The thread that connects all elements of food production and consumption in Charlottesville, from young farmers to locavore restaurants to Virginia wine, is the love and appreciation of fine craft and good taste—qualities that mark all aspects of local beverage production.
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1. Fearnside, “Digging In.”
2. Ibid.
CHAPTER 1
3. City of Charlotte, “Community Profile.”
4. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “NowData—NOAA Online Weather Data.”
5. U.S. Census Bureau; American Community Survey, 2010, generated using “American Fact Finder,” accessed October 21, 2013.
6. University of Virginia, “Human Resources.”
7. Ingles, “Immigrant Story.”
8. DeWitt, Founding Foodies.
9. Malone, “Jefferson, the Virginian,” in Jefferson and His Time, 1:3.
10. Jefferson, “Summary of Public Service,” 32:124.
11. Betts, ed., Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, 1766–1824, 462.
12. Hatch, “Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy in Gardening and Food.”
13. Ibid.
14. Hatch, “Thomas Jefferson’s Favorite Vegetables.”
15. Peter Hatch in discussion with the author, May 2013.
16. Ibid.
17. Jefferson, “William Maclure to Jefferson, Paris 1801,” in Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, 276.
18. Jefferson, “Bernard McMahon to Jefferson, Philadelphia 1806,” 328.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Morris, “Heritage Harvest Festival Transforms Monticello.”
22. Cornett, “Jefferson’s Botanical Perseverance.”
23. Hatch, “Thomas Jefferson’s Favorite Vegetables.”
24. Ibid.
25. Rogers, “Thomas Jefferson, America’s Founding Foodie.”
26. Jefferson, “To Dr. Vine Utley, March 21, 1819,” in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, XV:187.
27. Hatch, “Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy in Gardening and Food.”
28. Jefferson, “To Dr. Vine Utley, March 21, 1819.”
29. Thomas Jefferson Foundation, “Paris Residences.”
30. Wulf, Founding Gardeners, 151.
31. Thomas Jefferson Foundation, “James Hemings.”
32. Ibid.
33. Webster, ed., “Memorandum of Mr. Jefferson’s Conversations,” in Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, 364–66.
34. Rogers, “Thomas Jefferson, America’s Founding Foodie.”
35. Jefferson, “Jefferson to Stephen Cathalan, Monticello, June 6, 1817.”
36. Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, 222.
37. Peter Hatch in discussion with the author, May 2013.
38. Lily Fox-Brugière in discussion with the author, January 2013.
39. Waters, introduction to A Rich Spot of Earth, xi.
40. Moser, “All the President’s Produce.”
41. Ibid.
42. Michie Tavern, “The Tavern’s History.”
43. Cindy Conte in discussion with the author, January 2013.
44. Gabriele Rausse in discussion with the author, February 2013.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
CHAPTER 2
47. Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, “Virginia Agriculture Facts and Figures.”
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid., “Virginia Century Farm Program.”
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid., “Virginia Agriculture Facts and Figures,”
55. Schum, “The Plain People.”
56. Donnie Montgomery in discussion with the author, March 2013.
57. WSET, “Franklin Co’s Homestead Creamery Receives Grant from Governor McDonnell.”
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Donnie Montgomery in discussion with the author, March 2013.
61. Ibid.
62. Benyus, Biomimicry, introduction.
63. Zach Miller in discussion with the author, March 2013.
64. Erica Hellen in discussion with the author, March 2013.
65. United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service, “NASS Survey 2010.”
66. Stanley, “Renting Farmland.”
67
. Seymour, Self-Sufficient Life.
68. Ibid.
69. London, “Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution—An Interview with Bill Mollison.”
70. Ibid.
71. Owen, Green Metropolis, 301.
72. Pollan, “Sustaining Vision.”
73. Polyface Farms, “Our Story.”
74. Ibid.
75. Goodman, “Joel Salatin, America’s Most Influential Farmer.”
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid.
78. Gail Hobbs-Page in discussion with the author, March 2013.
CHAPTER 3
79. Talhelm, “Charlottesville Tops Forbes’ Wealthiest & Most Charitable Lists.”
80. McEvoy, “The $5 Tomato.”
81. Ibid.
82. Reddy, “Sotheby’s Puts Veggies on the Block.”
83. Kate Collier in discussion with the author, April 2013.
84. C-VILLE writers, “Local Food Hub Linking Farm and Table in Five Counties.”
85. Ibid.
86. Emily Manley in discussion with the author, May 2013.
87. Grace Communications Foundation, “Where Can You Find Sustainable Food?”
88. Zach Buckner in discussion with the author, May 2013.
89. Relay Foods, “Press Release: Relay Foods Establishes Largest Online Food Marketplace in Mid-Atlantic U.S.”
90. DiMaggio, “Local Farmers Markets.”
91. Provence, “Un-wreathed: City Market Founders’ Kin Kicked Out.”
92. Stephanie Andregg-Maloy in discussion with the author, January 2013.
CHAPTER 4
93. Satran, “Best Restaurant Cities.”
94. Kurlantzick, “36 Hours in Charlottesville, Va.”
95. McGowin, “Taste Charlottesville’s Growing Local-Food Movement.”
96. Gail Hobbs-Page in discussion with the author, March 2013.
97. Will Richey in discussion with the author, June 2013.
98. Harrison Keevil in discussion with the author, June 2013.
99. Dean Maupin in discussion with the author, June 2013.
100. Matt Rohdie in discussion with the author, June 2013.
101. Adriana Hill in discussion with the author, June 2013.
102. Donnie Montgomery in discussion with the author, June 2013.
CHAPTER 5
103. Jefferson, “Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Appleton, Monticello, 14 January 1816.”
104. Jefferson, “Thomas Jefferson to John Dortie, 1811,” in Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, 462.
105. Ibid.
106. Monticello, “Vineyard.”
107. Ibid.
108. Ibid.
109. Ibid.
110. Ireland, “Barboursville Wine Slated for Chinese Import.”
111. Apple, “Jefferson Gets His Wish.”
112. Ibid.
113. Ibid.
114. Luca Paschina in discussion with the author, July 2013.
115. Apple, “Jefferson Gets His Wish.”
116. Brashear, “Growing Good Wine in Virginia’s Unlikely Clime.”
117. Gabriele Rausse in discussion with the author, February 2013.
118. Margaux and Company, “Gabriele Rausse.”
119. Ibid.
120. Burrus, “A Vintner’s Vintner.”
121. Berninger, “Vines and Wines: Trump Winery’s 2007 SP Reserve.”
122. Kerry Woolard in discussion with the author, March 2013.
123. Mark Thompson in discussion with the author, May 2013.
124. Vintage Virginia Apples, “Apple Varieties.”
125. Morris, “Professor Apple.”
126. Tim Edmond in conversation with the author, May 2013.
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Charlottesville Food Page 11
