In case you like fermented apples, bear in mind the title Snow Capped Cider. The high-elevation, family-run operation is popping heads with plenty of releases, stacking up the awards en route. The cider home has lots going for it, from a particular rising season as a result of its mountainous setting to greater than 100 apple varieties on a sprawling property orchard.
Wine fans will recognize the label’s Previous World strategy. Clearly impressed by the cider traditions of iconic areas like France and Spain, Snow Capped works to create the sort of complexity and mouthfeel you may affiliate with a terrific Alsace or Champagne.
Proprietor and head cidermaker Kari Williams has farming in her blood, drawing on a heritage that goes again a number of generations. Eager to indicate the distinctive character supplied by her Cedaredge, Colorado, orchard, she exhibits restraint within the cellar, permitting particular person varieties, cautious blends and barrel-aged ciders to shine. And whereas there’s loads of custom concerned, there’s innovation too, from refined trellising programs within the area to intelligent methods within the cellar, like getting older cider on Malbec wine lees or co-fermenting property Riesling with English pears.
The consequence is among the most enjoyable ciders within the sport proper now and the awards are piling up. At the newest GLINTCAP competitors — the revered Nice Lakes Worldwide Cider and Perry Competitors held in Michigan, the place some 1,400 entries are judged — Snow Capped garnered a powerful 17 medals. Six of these had been platinum, awarded to releases like Porters & Perry, a cider co-fermented with two pear varieties, and Winesap, a single varietal off-dry cider aged for 3 months.
Snow Capped earned loads of prizes at this yr’s Cidercraft Awards as properly, that includes prominently in plenty of classes. Among the many decorations, a platinum for the Harrison cider within the candy and tannic class and a platinum awarded to the Wilde Woods cider, a high-tannin dry providing. The label additionally earned a platinum for Winesap within the single varietal class and was chosen a number of occasions as a judges’ decide.
“We’ve been very impressed with the standard of the ciders from Snow Capped,” says Erik Madrid, proprietor of the Seattle-based cider store Press then Press, a Licensed Pommelier ™ and one of many judges of the Cidercraft Awards. “Their single-varietal ciders are fascinating — the rising circumstances of their excessive elevation orchards appear to lend to increased ranges of acidity and pure sugar content material within the fruit, and consequently a lot of their ciders have nice acidity and profound expressions of the apple selection within the cider.”
Williams welcomes the popularity. “This yr has marked a big milestone for my cidery receiving such esteemed recognition has been a unprecedented expertise,” she says. “Each myself and your complete crew really feel deeply honored and elated to current our prize-winning Colorado orchards to cider lovers throughout the nation. I’ve all the time been an enormous supporter of the Cidercraft awards and the way it’s held and we actually confirmed up representing Colorado once more this yr.”
The momentum continues with the label. This Independence Day, Snow Capped will open its new taproom and wine bar in Cedaredge. It’s the fruits of a undertaking that formally began again within the early 1900s, when the Williams household planted their apple orchards. Since, the property, set at towering 6,130 toes in elevation, has grown to 500 acres, with laborious cider operations starting in 2014. The cider continues to be an homage to the particular environment of Colorado’s West Slope, providing one-of-a-kind terroir that rubs off on the ciders.
The brand new taproom will function all types of attracts, from academic tastings led by winemakers to menus involving a revolving forged of native cooks. The cider will showcase Colorado fruit and the meals will highlight the work of space farmers and growers. In some ways, the taproom is a celebration of the ample bounty on this particular nook of Colorado.
Snow Capped Cider has yet one more benefit going ahead: With local weather change affecting agriculture all over the place, higher-set operations in cooler areas are prone to fare a lot better. That’s excellent news for a producer we’re excited to pay shut consideration to because it settles into its new location and continues to end up mind-bending-ly good cider.
