“I want people to taste our ciders and think, ‘Wow! I didn’t know cider could be like this,’” says Kari Williams, owner of Snow Capped Cider. “There is no way you could get a higher quality cider than doing it on these farms. Would I make cider and make this a company if I didn’t have the fruit? Absolutely not!”

The proof is not only in the fact that Snow Capped Cider is coming out of 2022 one of the top awarded cideries in the nation and has been awarded #1 heritage cider two years running, but it’s also in the great responsibility she feels towards representing the century-old family history in Colorado’s commercial fruit industry.

Williams Family Orchards sits in the Surface Creek Valley of Colorado’s Western Slope at 6,130 feet. This unique microclimate creates an unsurpassed terroir to grow fruit with the right knowledge and innovation. Williams says her husband Ty’s great-grandfather “froze water from the lakes on the Grand Mesa above and buried it until it was time to bring it down. He hand-wrapped the apples, placed them into wooden boxes made on-site and loaded them on rail cars to get them out of the valley.”

Nowadays, as the only estate cidery in Colorado, some has changed, but not much. They are a zero-waste facility and cultivate a healthy biodynamic system with the land. “Everything that is a negative and a positive here is heightened,” Williams adds. Increased exposure to UV light distresses the trees, resulting in high sugar content. By micronizing the water system, there is an increased nutrient delivery to the soil. The slower system reduces soil erosion and salt back to the Colorado River. The snowmelt is directly sourced without fossil fuels or electricity, and the use of trellises allows the sunlight to penetrate more to get really high-density, high-quality fruit. Williams says if Snow Capped Cider is not nurturing and caring for its fruit, over 70% of it becomes disease-ridden and dehydrated.

“We do the labor,” shares Williams. “It’s a pride thing to do things the way this family has done. I’ve watched this family lose 2 million dollars in orchards two years ago when we had a freeze. I know how harsh the conditions are. My family works seven days a week. I’m just so fortunate to be able to make cider the way I can.”

SnowCapped Cider will soon be releasing their Elevation series, a blend of cider and traditional culinary apples labeled with a topography map of where the apples came from. “I get to have the fun job experimenting with flavor profiles. I feel like a kid in a candy store,” laughs Williams. “I want to make the family legacy proud, to represent what we do through my ciders, and provide the highest quality French and English ciders that can actually be made here.” Not a single drop leaves the Snow Capped Cider doors without a flavorful blast of passion, intention and history.

Originally published in the Winter 2022-23 issue of Spoke+Blossom.

Snow Capped Cider: Taste As Rich As History