CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The Trump Organization wants to Make America Buzzed Again, this time with a new line of patriotic ciders announced Thursday at the brand new Trump Cidery in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Right now you can only throw back a Donny Appleseed or Passionate Patriot cider at HQ, but bottling and distribution to retailers will begin soon.
“Nobody thought five years ago that the Trump family would be planting ten to twelve thousand apple trees,” quipped company president Eric Trump. “Most of them wouldn’t expect us to get into politics either. But here we are.”
Trump Winery General Manager Kerry Woolard told The Post that when the Trump Org took over twelve years ago, the property was poorly maintained and decaying. Today, Trump Winery is a top producer of wine in the state, selling more than 60,000 cases last year.
“It took a ton of work and amazing people but now we have a highly producing estate with over 120 jobs on land that used to be bank-owned, and totally overlooked,” Woolard said.
“Twelve years ago this property was falling apart,” Trump said from the podium. “But we fixed it. We did the work. We can do that here in this state. And, if I can be political here for a moment, we can do that for our country as well.”
Notably, the estate is just a short trip from Thomas Jefferson’s historic Monticello home.
“History is everywhere here,” Trump told The Post. “Three presidents have had homes here including, now, Donald Trump.”
While 150 guests sipped on cider, the Trump Org CEO told The Post that he himself doesn’t imbibe the fruits of the winery’s labor — perhaps taking after his teetotaling father, who hasn’t been involved in the family business since becoming president in 2017.
“I’m not really a drinker,” the younger Trump son said. “I really just work.”
The winery’s work has been a boon for Virginia’s wine business.
“Wine Enthusiast just named us the number one wine-growing region in the entire world,” Virginia Secretary of Agriculture Matt Lohr told The Post. “That didn’t just happen. It took $80 billion of investment and years of work.”
“We probably contributed at least a billion of that,” Trump joked.
