Carter Mountain Orchard and Country Store

This place has gone downhill over the past six or so years. I don’t know if it is all the new transplants to Virginia or what, but it is sooo crowded now. Constantly bumping shoulders with people, not relaxing at all. Instead of paying by the pound you have to buy a box for an exaggerated price. You need tickets in advance if you go on the weekend, now, so if you haven’t visited in awhile you’ll be SOL. Staff is much ruder than I remember. Going to try somewhere else next year.

Great views, lovely apples, and apple cider donuts. Cute little gift shop too. Great place to hang out for afternoon. Come early though like 1030/11 to avoid crowds

Great day.

Very good experience, the views are nice and the cider was pretty good. I like beer more but the two ciders and the frozen wine I tried was very tasty. Ton of variety so you can easily go many times and try alot.

The views are great, probably the best in Charlottesville so far.

Tried a few different types of apples and it was really good tastying them side by side.

Getting there is easy ,nice winding road but short fun drive. Plenty of parking and when you get here pretty good amount of places to sit.

Very well managed orchard where one can pick available apples and peaches or purchase already picked. There is a retail store which sells a variety of items. The website is very useful. Recommend visiting it beforehand to know more about available items especially if you wish to pick fruit. No pets allowed. Beautiful views to the east and west. Recommend highly. Ample parking.

Beautiful area to relax have a cider and some awesome apple cider donuts

Good views.

Beautiful, beautiful place, definitely recommend it 100%.

Fire view, they got apple pie

Fun place to chill and pluck peaches and apples, based on the season!

The plucking requires a mild walk uphill for the peaches. Do ask someone to understand what's a good peach. Only red might not be enough for it to be great, if it has a green hue. Something which is red and orange, might be best.

In terms of food we tried the apple cider donut and peach cookies, quite decent. We also tried three peach drinks, slushie, cider and hard cider. I found the slushie and cider a bit too sweet. Although, the hard cider was amazing, I would the selection of those over the cider.

Even though we loved the hard cider, it would have been nice if they had a paid tasting option for multiple ciders. Upon asking if we can taste, the person helped us with one and said they can give only one tasting. The person attending didnt sound keen on the interaction.

Beautiful views and good selection of things to purchase (currently in season: peaches, peach cider, donuts, slushies, apple butter, etc) Our Yorkie was not allowed even by the benches so we did not stay.| Response to owner: Thank you. It is true that food safety regulations prohibit animals where food is prepared and stored. Outdoor dining usually allow pets, so we thought she would be ok by the seating area outdoors.

I had never had a bad experience in this place until today 08/17/2025 the woman who is selling the bags to pick your peaches and apples has an ugly attitude with the customers she thinks she owns the place and calling the managers for 3 peaches that were coming out of my bag they have to train their staff how to treat customers.. this is my last time going to this place with my family

We visited Carter Mountain early August 2025, on a Friday. It was one of those rare low humidity days. My husband and I just moved to Central Virginia and we found out about Carter Mountain through, “Only in Your State” email. They mentioned how good the ice cream is. It was good! The staff were very friendly and the gift shop was full of delicious items and nice gifts.
The only drawback was, that they don’t offer anything to eat for lunch! I was told by an employee they have food on the weekends for events. We honored their posting, that you can’t bring your own food and drinks. Okay, I understand that. I thought they would have some type of food for lunch. We thought it would be nice to eat lunch and enjoy the nice view. So we didn’t stay as long as we would’ve liked. But we enjoyed our brief stay and hopefully come back in the fall.

Thank you so much for such an amazing experience! We can't wait to come back and will definitely be telling our friends all about you!

We went last evening just before closing. The view was breathtaking and the store was cool. But an incredibly rude employee ruined the experience. The employee at the hard cider taproom refused to sell anything to my husband. Saying he couldn’t sell after last call which was 5:30-5:45 pm. It was exactly 5:45 pm and the sign outside said open until 6 pm. When pointed out it was still time (even under his stipulations), he still refused and said “it wasn’t his rule, it was the mountains rule”. Which I don’t know how that could be true, because I was getting a wine slushy next door at the exact same time and the nice lady was the one who directed us to the hard cider taproom. If it was already closed, she also wouldn’t have sold me any wine and wouldn’t have told us to go to the taproom.

I finished my slushy while my husband sat there with nothing to drink. Once 6 pm (closing time) came an announcement came overhead that they were closed and for everybody to make their way to the parking lot. As we left, the taproom employee quickly left and sped out of the parking lot before any of the customers had even reached their cars or before any other employee. He was very disrespectful and I do not appreciate being talked rudely to as a customer or being condescended to.