Days 19-20: Cidermaking with Woodchuck and concluding at Shelburne Farms

On our last day of class, we learned about cidermaking at Woodchuck, winemaking at Lincoln Peak, and convenient gardening at Cloud Farm. It was a relaxing, winding-down kind of day, with hard cider and wine tastings leading to a beautiful concluding dinner at Shelburne Farms, where everyone we met with along the way was invited to join us and hear our reflective thoughts on our journey.

We toured Sunrise Orchard and Woodchuck Cidery with Ben Calvi, a cidermaker at Woodchuck. He showed us Sunrise, the 600-acre apple orchard that sells 1/3 of their apples wholesale, 1/3 direct to consumer, and 1/3 to processing for things like hard cider. VT apples are great for hard cider because their high acidity allows them to grow in cold climates, and the acidity is also important for high quality cider. Woodchuck is helping Sunrise finance a new block of planting specifically for cider apples, because there simply are not enough apples in VT to supply Woodchuck's demand for 6 million gallons of cider per year. Touring an apple orchard was important for us in learning about the food system because hard cider is the fastest growing sector of the alcohol industry, as well as a huge aspect of VT's food and beverage industry. Ben also made an interesting point about consumers wanting craft ciders at the same price point as beer, because of similar flavoring and packaging. In reality though, cider is much more similar to wine because of the fruit juice pressing and fermentation process, versus fermenting grains. Yet still, consumers expect low prices for cider, which has proved challenging for the industry. More on Woodchuck - they were established in 1991 as the first commercial-size cider to bring cider to market in VT. They have a staff of 150 - 100 of whom work at the factory we toured in VT. They export to all 50 states, Europe, Canada, and Australia.

On Friday night we stayed in a cabin at Shelburne Farms, and toured the property on Saturday with Megan Camp, Vice President and Program Director of the nonprofit entity of Shelburne Farms. Shelburne is on an incredibly beautiful 1,400 acres alongside Lake Champlain. They focus on agricultural education and connecting people to the land, through children's summer camps, courses and workshops in sugaring and vegetable gardening education, pick-your-own produce, and generally opening their land for families to visit. We met with Josh Carter, Market Gardener, who showed us their vegetable farm and talked about his passion for taking care of natural and agricultural resources, and teaching people to think farming is a good way to live. They also have a solar orchard that produces 33% of their overall energy, as well as a compost operation. We walked through their creamery, where they make their own cheese and send some off to Jasper Hill for aging. Lastly, Megan talked about Shelburne's role in creating and supporting VT FEED, which partners with NOFA and Food Works to promote farm to school programming in VT.