The second stop on The Check’s roadtrip was Castle Hill Cider, where we learned from general manager Rob Campbell and cidermaker Don Whitaker about an ancient method of making cider underground and discussed which foods pair well with cider.
John Carr, Alvin Williams, Brady Viccellio, Rob Campbell and Don Whitaker at Castle Hill Cider in Keswick, Virginia
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Episode Transcript
October 5, 2020
Brady Viccellio
Welcome to The Check podcast. I'm Brady Viccellio, owner of Steinhilber’s restaurant and La Bella Italia on Laskin Road in Virginia Beach.
Alvin Williams
And I'm Alvin Williams, co host of the check and owner of Cobalt Grille restaurant in Hilltop, Virginia Beach. If you’ve listened to our podcast before, you'll know we've been talking about restaurants, people who work in restaurants, who own restaurants, and the people who like to dine in restaurants.
Brady Viccellio
We've taken the podcast on the road, to meet the people who make some of the things we enjoy drinking in restaurants. And to learn more about the places where it all happens. We're at the historic Castle Hill in Keswick ,a few miles east of Charlottesville.
Alvin Williams
Today, we're going to be joined by cidermakers, Don Whitaker and Rob Campbell, the general manager of Castle Hill. Thank you guys for joining us so much and being on the podcast and welcome to The Check.
Rob Campbell
Thank you for having us.
Don Whitaker
Ditto.
Brady Viccellio
This place is absolutely beautiful. Can you tell us more about the history and how it came to be a cidery.
Don
Alright, so let's go back to 1764 when the estate was established, 18,000 acres was originally part of the land grant from King George. And in 1764, a gentleman named Colonel Thomas Walker, who was a surgeon, a surveyor, a mentor to young Jefferson bought that. And it was when he was serving with General Washington at about the Battle of Brandywine. And was that 1777.
Rob Campbell
Yes, 1777.
Don Whitaker
And George Washington gave him some signs, which are apple tree seedling saplings, and said, Hey, you should try this. This tree is called a Newton Pippin. So Colonel Thomas Walker came back to the State Capitol Hill, he planted the first Newton Pippin. And basically the rest is literally history. This land is locked with a particular terroir that is based off of that original sign on and it became such a strong cider apple in this area in this region that replaced the name of Newton Pippin, and is now known as Albemarle Pippin. So Albemarle Pippin is the go-to Virginia cider apple. And that's kind of just the tip of the iceberg for the history here.
Alvin Williams
Well done. Clearly, if this cider making stuff doesn't work out for you, you have a voice for radio.
Don Whitaker
And a face for it.
Alvin Williams
So I'd like to know more about the origins here. Are the apples different here than what we would typically buy in a grocery store?
Don Whitaker
Yes, they are. So what I literally just got out of the field, I'm checking on the apples doing starch test. We have approximately 56 different cider apples. So our apples are made for cider. What we focus on is pH which would be acidity, we focus on tannins, we focus on sugars. These are the things that usually give us the best cider characteristics or as a table apple, or as I used to always say the Scooby Doo lunchbox apple is basically just sugar. They're sugar bombs, and although there's some that kind of crossed the line, you can actually get a pretty decent cider apple out of sometimes a honey crisp even. But really what we're doing is growing cider apples, bitter sweets, bitter sharps, traditional cider, apples, as well as some experimentation with a little bit of hybridization.
Brady Viccellio
Right when we arrived here, you're out in the out in the orchard literally working the apples doing a starch test. Can you tell us about that? What is the starch test?
Don Whitaker
Sure. So basically, what we do is we take the apple, we cut it in half, and we apply iodine solution to it. And if the apple is ripe, and ready to pick, the flesh will be kind of opaque and or white neutral. Whereas if the sugars have not developed, and there's mainly starches, which would mean it's immature, not ripe, then the flesh would be darker, almost black, even a purple Indigo almost . This year, it's been wild because we had a very late frost. And that's affected the orchard, plus the climate has been very bizarre. We've had lots of rain, followed by lots of heat followed by cool temperature, followed by more rain and lots of heat. So it's really set our ripening schedule off and everything's ripening a lot quicker. So other than just seeing it on the ground, an easy bio indicator of the ripeness of the apples are the deer. They're our friends until they eat all of our stock. But you know the second we see the deer going for the apples and we know that there's sugar there. And in lieu of waiting on the deer or not seeing any deer, we do the starch test.
Alvin Williams
This year has been atypical for growing apples. Is this generally an ideal climate for growing apples in Virginia?
Don Whitaker
You know, it's all a bit of an experimentation but yes, we're finding that it does. This particular land being where it is -- kind of like a tiny bit of a valley just off of those mountains right there -- seems to offer some protection. We have our own microclimate here, you know, every year is different. In 2018, we had 96 inches of rain. That's twice as much I think has ever been recorded or something like that. And that year had its own challenges. But we've got amazing cider out of it. This year, we had two late frosts, I think the last one hit in May, maybe even one in June. And so we're still seeing the repercussions of that. There's telltale signs that are physically indicative of a frost attack, and then some of it you don't see until later. And so right now we're seeing apples ripening quicker than they normally do.
Rob Campbell
Don, you actually talked about the rainfall. How does moisture affect the apples?
Don Whitaker
Originally, we thought that excessive rainfall would dilute the sugar in the apples, but in 2018, we found that to be quite the contrary. So the evidence of most of that particular question for an abundance of rain ended up being counterintuitive. So we end up having actually pretty high sugar content that year, this year. Last year also, we had less rainfall and we had a higher ABV. Again going back, a higher sugar content typically, the higher the sugar content, the higher the ABV.
Brady Viccellio
Now, ABV is alcohol by volume.
Don Whitaker
Most of our ciders are somewhere between just say at the very low end of the scale, like six, all the way up to 18. We just we did a single varietal a black twig ferment. And it ended up being right at 11. Of course, that was after we aged it in a bourbon barrel, you know, so it's got a little something for you.
Brady Viccellio
So what are we drinking now?
Rob Campbell
That's the been the Serendipity 18. And when we say 18, that's the year the fruit was actually picked in. So we usually pick it in one year, and then we'll actually bottle it in the next. So we let the apples basically mature in nature and sweat to bring out more sugars, and more tannins in the apples.
Don Whitaker
And what will be interesting is like when you finish those, we'll do a 2019. Because what's your drinking is the year that we thought that the sugar is going to be super diluted. And this one actually ended up being fantastic.
Alvin Williams
Rob, tell our listeners a little bit about what you do at Castle Hill cider. And what is your role here?
Rob Campbell
Well, I'm the general manager. But that doesn't really mean much here. We're a small operation so we each do a little bit of everything. You can find me on the field, sometimes you can find me helping bottle. I oversee the day to day operations. But you guys know small operations, you're not going to have one set thing you do every day. It just whatever obstacles you come up against you figure out ways to get past him.
Don Whitaker
He's definitely the ship's captain. He's just hiding his plume right now.
Alvin Williams
Gotcha. So he's generally managing. And how about you young sir?
Don Whitaker
I'm the cider maker -- orchard provocateur, I guess. So it just it's nonstop I mean production. Here, a lot of places you'll see jobs very specialized, and fragmented, if you will. Over here, it's kind of brought into a concise heading. So cider maker is pretty much anything that Rob's not doing at the time.
Brady Viccellio
You mentioned earlier, the Newton apple became the Pippin apple. And I read a little bit about the Albemarle Pippin. As you said, it was grown here first in 1777 and you still use these apples to make cider. Is there an advantage to the older variety of apple?
Don Whitaker
Yes, because it's tried and true. It's kind of like a tank you can always depend on it. So definitely yes, the Albemarle Pippin you can always go for. Since then, we found a couple of others that are tried and true like the Harrison, for example, is probably like the modern Albemarle Pippin. When Albemarle Pippin got its roots here, literally, we found this beautiful balance of acid tannins and sugar. And then this Harrison, I can't remember who brought that here first. It's got another wonderful blend of qualities that are just almost perfect. Something like one of those is a main component of a blend, and then just spice it up with other apples and other varieties from that.
Rob Campbell
It's actually the main apple in our Serendipity. We don't actually use any additional flavorings any additional sugars. It's all from the apples. What you guys are tasting right now. And that is the Alnemarle Pippin and the Gold Rush apples.
Alvin Williams
Yep. So this that we're drinking right now is Serendipity is that right. It's the first one we've tasted, but I'm, I'm already forgetting.
Don Whitaker
Mission accomplished.
Alvin Williams
So in addition to this delicious cider that we're tasting, it's my understanding that there's also some honey available. Castle Hill bees are honey making. Could you elaborate on that?
Rob Campbell
We actually have five honey hives on property right now. Elysium is who makes our honey for us. They're actually making a specialized one that's just for our property. And we use the bees in more ways than one, we use the beeswax to repair our calories, which we can talk about later, which is where we make cider in the ground. We believe in ground to glass, we believe in a holistic approach to cidery.
Don Whitaker
Yeah, that's one of the things that Diego, the beekeeper -- he's Italian and he brings a lineage of beekeeping from Italy. And one of the things that he has really helped us develop a sense of is integrated pest management, whereby we try to attract local beneficial insects to take care of the local, non beneficial insects. So if we have like something that's coming in, like say stinkbug, or oriental fruit moth or lantern fly or something like that, we would have some local little critter that could take care of it before it starts attacking the apples.
Brady Viccellio
Don a minute ago, you mentioned ground to glass. Can you tell us a little bit more about that philosophy?
Don Whitaker
Sure, absolutely. It's a wonderful opportunity for us here at Castle Hill to practice this. What we're talking about is literally from ground to glass as local as possible. Again, you know, harkening back to the Albemarle Pippin grown on this land, we're looking at local mineralogy, we're looking at the terroir of our area, which encompasses the geomorphology, the geology, soil, chemistry, weather, all of these things. And then how that of this particular area in turn manifests in the fruit, which then manifests into cider. And we've even found a place to locally source our glass bottles. The whole idea is to bring the experience from this land, into the glass for the consumer and for the connoisseur, and the enjoyer. And see where that journey takes you.
Rob Campbell
Our ultimate goal is to have 100% estate grown fruit go all into our products, right now, we're probably 80% of the way there, in terms of, you know, our goal of being 100% self sustainable,
Don Whitaker
Some years, a variety won't do as well as it did the year before. But the beautiful thing about that is the cidermaking in Virginia, and the orcharding in Virginia, you know, we're all part of one big tribe, we may fight amongst ourselves a little bit every now and then but we also will fight for each other as well. We’ll call one of our friends say hey, Can we trade? Can we buy? and we'll work these things out. And we try to stay local. That is the manifesto.
Alvin Williams
I was interested in how you guys are navigating through COVID? And are your sales different, is your production different? Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
Rob Campbell
Obviously, when you're close for two months, it impacts your sales. But you know, the nice thing that we did find is we pivoted in our business, that's something we always like to say we're constantly doing. And we went more online during that time, we had a great online boost, we were supporting the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. For every case, we sold of Serendipity 2016, we gave $10 to the local food bank. And so that took off it got picked up by a national magazine. And so our sales went from like, just a theoretical numbers $1,000 a month to all sudden we were doing 15,000 a month. It was pretty crazy because we had to figure out how to do it because we hadn't done that volume before.
Alvin Williams
I want to put people in the right direction on your cider. This is not your granddaddy’s cider. This is not the cider that I grew up drinking when I was 14 or 15 in England. This is a different cider. I like to think of it as like the champagne of ciders. It's more like a wine or like a champagne. And I want to know exactly what that is. So can you explain about the fermentation process and how you go about making this stuff.
Don Whitaker
A lot of people refer to it as apple wine, it is cider, but a lot of folks will refer to it as apple wine because we're, we use very similar techniques to the viticulture as the winemakers, we're using very similar yeast, if not the same use sometimes to bring out those qualities. Use you know, champagne yeast, we'll use a myriad to bring out various qualities. Thankfully, there's a bit of a textbook from the wine world. And you know, they're like, oh, we'll use this yeast or this vitamin, it did this, and it brought this out. So then we can take that and we can apply it to apples, but it might be a little bit different, but it's a very similar technique. So basically, the gist is this, we pick the apples from the tree, we press the apples, the juice goes into the tank, we wait a couple of days, we run a Brix analysis on it to let us know how much sugar is available in the apple to be converted into alcohol. And then we start the fermentation process. So when we start the ferment fermentation process, we will add yeast rather than use a wild fermentation in all cases, except one.
Rob Campbell
I'm gonna stop you there for a second and say one of the coolest things that we've done during this time on our Facebook Lives, right, is we've had two different wineries on: Keswick winery, which is across the street right. Steven Barnard. And we had Stone Tower on and we're comparing and contrasting styles in terms of cider, apples versus grapes. And that was fascinating to me to listen to you guys kind of talk about the similarities and how many there are,
Don Whitaker
The commonalities were a lot more than not. So it was it was very interesting. And we're still comparing notes. Right now I've got, I don't know, 45 pounds of grapes that a friend of mine procured and he's like, do something with this. And then we have the honey here that we're working on doing either a sizer, which is basically a mead, but instead of using water and honey, you use apple juice, and honey, and then or even honey back-sweetened cider. So just using the honey from the hives out here to do that. But so once the once the fermentation takes hold, we just start watching it, we ferment low and slow at about 55 degrees, it's in a stainless steel tank, we're monitoring the temperature, we're monitoring co2, we use a spider method where once the spider has fully fermented, then we can start protecting it with a layer of co2. That means just in case like some oxygen somehow got in there. And we don't want that because that in two weeks, that could be vinegar. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing goes apple cider vinegar is great. And we've done that, that you know, we want cider. So the fermentation process is really probably the most important, painstaking part. And we're checking that every single day. It involves mixing and testing. And we're also testing, so two levels, we're tests, testing pH, all of these things until basically all the sugar has been converted into alcohol. Once that has happened, then we have a dry cider, it's pretty stable at that point, because all the sugar, except for a very minute fraction. And those would be called non fermentable. sugars, they just retain they're just they're still there. So when we get the question of Okay, what do we want to leave it like that? Or do we want to filter that out? In the past, we've even not only have we racked off which in racking is letting the leaves the heavier parts that were in the juice settle down on the tank and pull the clear juice off or the clear side or off leaving the leaves, which then in turn mix with the mash and give it to the cows across the fence over there. You know, so we have kind of like that's our first kind of like filtering thing that we do. And at that point, we can even say, okay, we're good, or we may filter again, and you know, take even more out of it. And then we may decide to pasteurize and pasteurize would absolutely annihilate anything else that could possibly be in there. Every cider that we do goes through that scrutiny of where do we want it to be? And we just kind of taste it and let the taste decide once that it's fermented, then you know, we have a single varietal. So say like Albemarle Pippin, it's for a minute, it's stable, boom, we'll keep it and then when other apples Come on, and we've juiced them and we fermented them, we made cider, then the magic starts so we start blending them together. And that's when you start having a lot of fun, as awesome as single varietals are, which the art is very purist and fantastic. But you know, a lot of fun and blending as well. This year one of the blends I got crazy, and I had like 17 different apples in it only because we only had like three gallons of one and one gallon of the other and I'm like you're gonna be in that cider.
Brady Viccellio
It sounds like you're a winemaker. Why apples?
Don Whitaker
Good question. Well, for here, the emphasis was on apples. There was an opportunity to possibly do a vineyard at one point and the powers that be decided to do apples. Let's give it a go with that, because our friends at Albemarle Ciderworks, the Shelton family are the first cidery in Virginia. And so they were like mentors for us and to us and still are friends of ours, and kind of guiding us along in the process a little bit. But one of the things that I like better than grapes is the stability of the apple, it's a little more predictable. And that's good for us. Any bit of predictability we can have is good, because we get enough wildcards thrown at us, we were talking about the frost earlier, the wine business lost a lot of their grapes during the frost, whereas instead of it being less substantial vine, it's on a tree limb, it's got more power, it's sustained, it's more a little more sustainable. And then plus I just I kind of grew up liking apples better than grapes.
Alvin Williams
I have a two-part question here while I'm going into this next next cider. What is it that you just poured for us here.
Rob Campbell
So this is something we actually drink internally, it's a mixture of the Serendipity 18 you guys were drinking earlier, and then elder cherry, which is elderberry and cherry cider. So we call it our blush, is what we like to call it.
Alvin Williams
Very nice. While I still have my train of thought. So firstly, for you, Rob. And then secondly, for you, Don. Rob as cider has become more popular, the market has become more crowded and competitive. Please let me know some of the things that you're doing here to set yourself apart. And for Don, explain to us about -- I'm privy to a little information about these terracotta pots that you have, that you've imported.
Don Whitaker
Qvevris.
Alvin Williams
If you would, tell us a little bit more about those and where they're from and what their purpose is here.
Rob Campbell
The type of cider we make, which is the heritage cider, we tend to make it more dry. So a lot of the traditional ciders you may you guys may have drank are going to be on the sweeter side, I always like to say like a Jolly rancher-ish and our ciders typically finish more like a dry white wine. That segment of the market was not really established 10 years ago, there's really no, no place to put it. Now we're finding as just like the craft beer market growing up, there were probably five major beer brands that we could buy from, and now there's thousands that we can buy for them. So what I see is that there's been the surge in cider usage, from the Bold Rocks to the Angry Orchards to the larger scale. And now we're getting into more craft. So the way we're actually differentiating ourselves is, you know, competing in that new niche that's being created by the big insider people. We're actually starting to put the word out there that there's another game in town.
Don Whitaker
Yeah, exactly. And that's being a part of creating a market is super dynamic, and fantastic and exciting. You know, we started doing a cider fest here, I guess they were doing at least four years that I've been here. And the only cideries that were here were cideries that were using their state grown fruit. So there was like five or six at the time. And that number is increasing, which is fantastic. We love to see that. So everyone's apples have a different quality. And so it's awesome to see those differences and then to celebrate it. So you know, we had this whole thing called side effects, but unfortunately, we're not gonna be able to do it this year because of the dreaded COVID.
Rob Campbell
The other thing we're doing that kind of separates us is we do a lot more blends, compared to a lot of other cideries. You'll see them do a single varietal a lot of times. We do a couple single varietals like the Black Twig, we just got a barrel right, but for the most part, we're doing more blends. Once we get enough of a single varietal, then you know we'll hopefully do some or single varietals, but usually you know, that'll be fun.
Don Whitaker
A lot of the blending is by taste.
Rob Campbell
And so that's one of the hard parts of our job is we have to continuously taste ciders all day long.
Alvin Williams
Tell us about the qvevris because they're beautiful. I've seen them on property here and they’re just stunning to look at. Explain their function.
Don Whitaker
The qvevris are awesome. The qvevris are a throwback to the oldest known fermentation vessels in recorded history. Our qvevris are in a specific location. They never move. It's not transported there. terracotta hours were made in the Republic of Georgia. We have them shipped over here came over on seafaring vessels, and it's It was funny because when we opened up one of the crates, one of the qvevris cracked when it got to the sunlight, because on its voyage over there was a random nail that had just poked through the wood. And so it was scratching this one little part of the qvevri on the way over. And the second it got here, it cracked. So we had to get another one, what we do with those qvevris, and we have four that are approximately 300 gallons apiece, and then four that are approximately 100 gallons apiece, it's a wild fermentation. So this is where we go totally old school, we're not adding any yeast to it. We're not it is Mother Nature's child, we put the juice into the qvevri and let her do her thing. So it's not much work, you just throw the juice in there, and it practically makes itself. So we're constantly monitoring it, we have to watch the breaks, we have to make sure the pH -- see what it's doing. Check, it's so to make sure that nothing funky is happening, making sure it's not going to go to vinegar, if in case there was some oxidation or something. I think we're the only cidery in the United States that are using this method. And I know that some of the wineries and vineyards are working on it, it's called a spontaneous fermentation.
Rob Campbell
I was just gonna say that one of the reasons we haven't buried in the ground is so you can keep the temperature constant.
Don Whitaker
Exactly. So there's like a geothermal gradient. And once you're about 18-21 inches below the frost line, the earth appears to maintain about a 45 degree temperature. So yeah, it's in the ground. It's like 45 degrees. Again, like we like to ferment all of our ciders low and slow it about 55. So the qvevris are probably a little bit slower, contrary to what one may think, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, definitely, you wouldn't want to start making a qvevri cider in the middle of the summer when it's so hot. And it's like, actually, you can, because it's underground, it's being protected by that like a cave. In case there's like a microfracture hairline crack or anything like that, that that shows up, we have to repair it. And the traditional method is using beeswax and now we can use beeswax straight off of the hives that Diego has. The fermentation method there is a spontaneous fermentation. It's the wild yeasts that are just out in the orchard out in that area underneath the linden trees, which is amazing. And they have their own properties and their beauty. There was one gentleman I can't remember who the author was, but he called spontaneous fermentations, the punk rock of fermentation is just wild. And it's like free jazz meets punk rock or something.
Rob Campbell
And the thing that I love about the qvevris is the creativity it brings. We've actually been talking about some different people about potentially putting kombucha in there. If we knew any chefs, we would ask them if they wanted to maybe do it if we knew and if we knew any chefs, we would ask them about maybe doing fermented fermented things such as kimchi or sauerkraut.
Don Whitaker
Not in the same ones that we'll be making the cider in.
Rob Campbell
Small ones that we're going to play around with.
Alvin Williams
It is a very delicious beverage. We are partaking in that right now. And they stand alone excellently. I could drink your side all day and have done before we can do that and will again, I am hoping you can tell our listeners, what your site is parallel with, with food, being at home cooking or in restaurants, you know, what do you think they're parallel?
Don Whitaker
It's not so cut and dry at all, but this is just kind of a basic jumping off place is drier ciders tend to pair well with funkier cheeses, milder fish, flaky fish, milder taste, chicken, even some Asian dishes. As it starts getting sweeter. It gets a little bolder and so we can accent those bolder flavors the tannins and a little bit of the sweetness with bolder varieties in the food. So pork becomes a big one and different cheeses and then nuts and cider pairs well with everything.
Alvin Williams
Yeah, we did a food and wine pairing of food and cider pairing at Cobalt with cider some time ago. We did oysters, we did a shrimp and scallop course. It was heavy on the seafood but they paired really well. The guests enjoyed it and bought cider.
Brady Viccellio
Excellent. I mean, just from drinking the cider and having had it over the years. It's hard to find something at this level of refinement that's good with spicy food. I think cider kind of bridges that gap like you really don't drink wine with something spicy, right. And beer. I mean, if you're not a beer guy, cider fills that gap.
Don Whitaker 30:00
We actually were sitting down with a bunch of hot food not too long ago and we were having the same exact discussion. We came to a crossroads where Team A was like it's the dry ciders and Team B was like, no, it's the sweet ciders. Okay, well, it works. Either one of them work. Okay, well, there we go. But I was always thinking that the sweet ciders would pair a little bit better with spicy food, just because the sugar, if you're looking for something to tame the heat, if you're looking for something to tame the heat and possibly a sweeter cider, if you enjoy the heat, then go dry, be bold, all of you listening, please recommend the cider for the spicy dishes, as well as all dishes.
Alvin Williams 30:37
Your website is where to find all the different things that you do in here over Castle Hill. I mean, you're not just a cidery, you do events
and such. Also, you tell us a little bit more about that what you do throughout the year.
Rob Campbell 30:49
So you can actually find us on CastleHillcider.com. That's probably the best place to reach out to us. We actually make cider here as well as do large scale events in our 11,000 square foot event space
Don Whitaker 31:07
And smaller scale events.
Rob Campbell 31:08
We do smaller scale events as well. So we have a lofted space that we can host to about 100 up there as well.
Alvin Williams 31:14
I've seen pictures of elephants rolling through here.
Don Whitaker 31:17
Yeah, it's a traditional Indian wedding
Rob Campbell 31:18
Yes. Which are amazing and vibrant. We love big events…
Alvin Williams 31:23
…big, classy events.
Don Whitaker 31:24
Yeah, and then just ask for us. So if there's a place that you frequent, and you would like to see us there, please let them know.
Alvin Williams 31:34
Rob, Don, thank you so much for joining us on The Check podcast. Extremely informative. And yes, quite tasty.
Don Whitaker 31:46
Yes. That's the idea.
Alvin Williams 31:48
Yeah. So we're enjoying the tasting and hopefully, some of our listeners will come out to Castle Hill cider and clean tasting room and try everything and buy it and visit us online at Castle Hill calm. Yeah. We're gonna post your website on our on our website.
Rob Campbell 32:06
It's actually a great day trip from Virginia Beach to come up here and visit us.
Brady Viccellio 32:10
Exactly. And we'll have all those links on thecheckpodcast.com as well as other episodes, photos of Don and Rob, and Castle Hill Cidery. I'm Brady.
Alvin Williams
I'm Alvin. This is The Check.