Albemarle CiderWorks wins multiple gold medals at international competition
By Emily Hemphill | May 4, 2025 | The Daily Progress: article here
Central Virginia owes a “danke” to a local cidery for successfully representing the region at an international cider competition held in Frankfurt, Germany.
Albemarle CiderWorks returned from across the pond with a gold medal for each of the three ciders submitted in the annual CiderWorld contest.
Its Brut d’Albemarle Orchard Blush secured first place in the sparkling cider category.
“We blended our Orchard Blush base with GoldRush and Arkansas Black cider to get the right balance of color and flavor,” associate cidermaker David Timmerman said in a statement. “Then we went big — using traditional bottle fermentation to create a sparkling champagne-style rosé cider.”
“This is one of my favorite ciders to make,” added Timmerman. “I’m proud of how well it was received at CiderWorld in Frankfurt!”
The family-owned and -operated cidery in North Garden, just southwest of Charlottesville, was also awarded gold medals for its Crab Medley and Brut d’Albemarle Harrison.
Founded in 2008, CiderWorld is considered the cider industry’s leading exposition and competition. Held on April 25, more than 15 countries were represented this year.
Judges scored competing ciders on a 120-point scale. Albemarle CiderWorks’ Brut d’Albemarle Orchard Blush received 119 points. The sparkling rosé cider is made with a blend of crab apples — including Bruguiere’s Red-flesh, Dolgo Crabapple, Geneva Crabapple and Redfield — grown on the cidery’s 140-acre property supporting more than 250 apple varieties.
The three Shelton siblings — Chuck, Bill and Charlotte — have been involved in running the orchard and its cider-making operation ever since their parents decided to purchase a small farm in Albemarle County as they settled into retirement.
In the 1990s, Charlotte Shelton took an interest in growing the existing collection of apple trees — more “as a hobby” than anything else, she said in a statement announcing the CiderWorld wins.
“We were interested in collecting apples for flavor and knew that many of the older, heirloom varieties that had been disappearing over the last century were grown for cider production, which until the mid-nineteenth century was what most Americans drank,” she said. “Founding Albemarle CiderWorks grew out of our horticultural and farming background and interest in sharing something special and rare.”
By the early 2000s, the siblings began to produce and sell some small-batch ciders.
It wasn’t until many years later that they decided to build out a tasting room and, in 2009, officially launched Albemarle CiderWorks. The cidery blazed the trail for cider production, not only in Central Virginia, but across the commonwealth as Virginia’s oldest operating cidery.
