370: Kari Williams of Snow Capped Cider Explores Terroir and Technique with a Generational Approach to Estate Cider Making

The Williams family has been farming apples and stone fruit on Colorado’s Western slope for over 100 years, and today their Snow Capped Cider is one of the winningest American cideries, notching big honors at GLINTCAP, the world’s premier cider competition, while cleaning up again at the annual Cidercraft awards. The secret, says owner, creative force, and cider maker Kari Williams, is the quality of their fruit.

Growing apples for cider on their own estate isn’t novel, but doing so at an elevation over 6000’ certainly is, and the extreme growing conditions produce apples with more vivid contours as well as more sugar, which provides Williams a saturated palette to paint with.

In this episode, Williams discusses:

• the multigenerational family approach to farming and now cider making
• the benefits and challenges of growing apples at high elevation
• maintaining tight farming control for perfect apples, while benefitting from the luxury of time
• an apple-driven creative process inspired by flavors in that year’s crop
• terroir and flavor expression in apples, and the impact of different farming locations
• extensive trialing with 200 fermentation tests in any given year
• building a perception of sweetness in dry ciders
• aging certain apple varieties before juicing
• balancing acidity, astringency, and sweetness in fine ciders

And more.

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