Est. 1994
About our 2024 Vintage
Summary
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2024 was the most challenging vintage for 30 years!
A cold, wet Spring affected blossom time and so our pollinators did not thrive and some perry pear varieties (e.g. Blakeney Red and Thorn) did not set any fruit.
At harvest time, relentless heavy rain and poor ground conditions made a real chore of hand-picking fruit from the ground and washing most of it.
Overall, the unsettled weather gave us a second successive year of less good quality ripe fruit and lower than average natural fruit sugar levels to work with.
Our total production was just 2,800 litres, which was 50% of our 30-year average.
Weather
March was dull and unsettled with rainfall 150% above average just as our perry pears came into flower. Unsettled weather continued throughout April with named storm Kathleen bringing more heavy rainfall (155% above average) and less sunshine than normal (79% of average). Blossom time was badly affected and there were few pollinators out and about to set fruit.
A cool, dull and wet start to Summer continued into the first two weeks of July until a brief heatwave at the end of August brought record temperatures to some other parts of England (34.8°C in Cambridge).
September was mostly unsettled with frequent showers and heavy rainfall (125% above average) continued during early October as we began to harvest perry pears. Ground conditions became soggy much earlier than usual, and we had to protect the area around our press and fermenting shed ahead of the Big Apple Harvesttime weekend.
More unsettled weather with heavy rainfall during the second half of October and November made difficult conditions for harvesting late harvest perry pears and bittersweet cider apples.
Once again, temperatures dropped below 12°C at the end of November just in time for us to start keeving our ‘Normandy method’ sparkling cider.
Harvest
We pressed no Thorn perry pears because there were none, for the first time in 30 years of making!
Our usually abundant Blakeney Red perry pear trees also failed to produce a crop, but the mid-season Aylton Red and Gregg's Pit (our eponymous perry pear variety) cropped well enough with average/good sugar levels (OG1062 and OG1065) to make 300 litres.
Barnet, a variety which failed to crop in 2022 and 2023, cropped well enough to yield a 300-litre vat of our favourite mid-season blend with Brandy and Winnals Longdon.
Late harvest Butt and Oldfield perry pears gave us a poor crop (50% of average), but fruit quality was good and so we waited until the end of the first week of November to press them at OG1055.
2024 was a ‘hit’ year for Kingston Black cider apples and we pressed 1500 litres in a 60/40 blend with Browns Apple, which means there should be plenty left to bottle condition in Autumn 2025.
In contrast, our favourite late bittersweet cider apples all had an 'off' year. There was no crop of Chisel Jersey, while Dabinett and Yarlington Mill produced just enough good quality fruit to make 450 litres all of which was keeved.
Draught cider & perry
We changed our business model as a result of the Covid-19 and successive lockdowns during 2020/21. Before the pandemic we sold most of our draught products through our wholesalers to CAMRA beer and cider festivals across England, direct to pubs and retail customers and at local food and drink festivals. Now we are bottling >70% of our output, but we continue to supply draught cider and perry at wholesale prices, as follows:
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10 or 20 litre ‘bag-in-box’ draught cider @ £3.00/litre (inclusive of packaging)
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10 or 20 litre ‘bag-in-box’ draught perry @ £3.50/litre (inclusive of packaging)
The advantage of the ‘bag-in-box’ is that it’s a double skin food grade plastic bag inside a robust biodegradable cardboard box with no risk of spoilage.
Normandy method ‘keeved’ and bottled conditioned sparkling cider & perry
The Normandy method of producing a keeved naturally sparkling cider was a new venture for us in 2005 and these products are now much in demand. We mill the fruit and then set it aside to ‘macerate’ for up to 24 hours before pressing. We add a special enzyme to the tank before filling with raw juice and then a small quantity of calcium chloride is added about 36 hours later. We then pump it top and bottom to create a continuous closed circulation for 40 minutes. The result is a brown pectin-calcium gel (known as ‘Le chapeau brun’ or ‘brown hat’), which forms on the surface of the freshly pressed juice and absorbs the nitrogen and vitamins that would otherwise provide nutrient for the wild yeast.
After 10-15 days, when ‘Le chapeau brun’ is well formed (it can be up to 10 cm thick and is ready when brown and ‘crusty’), a clear, nutrient poor and slow fermenting juice can be racked off from underneath it. This will be suitable for final racking, filtration and bottling at a specific gravity of 1012-1015 after 6-9 months to produce a bottle conditioned medium to medium-dry cider/perry with a slight yeast deposit.
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We still have good stocks of our Dabinett & Yarlington Mill 2023 Normandy method naturally sparkling cider, and we look forward to bottling the 2024 vintage later in the Summer.
We will bottle a 300-litre vat of our mid-season Barnet, Brandy & Winnals Longdon 2024 to produce a bottle conditioned perry in late May/June for release later in the Summer. This will be available in a full weight champagne style bottle with mushroom cork, in 75cl and 150cl ‘magnum’ bottle formats.
We plan to bottle at least 300-50 litres of our Browns Apple & Kingston Black to make a bottle conditioned sparkling cider when natural fruit sugar levels drop to SG1012 later in the Summer/early Autumn. This will be available in a full weight champagne style bottle with crown cap in 75cl bottle format (yellow ochre label).
Draught cider & perry
'Champagne' method
We made our first ‘Champagne Method’ bottle fermented perry in 2001.
On 19 December 2024 we laid down 354 x 75cl bottles of our favourite Thorn - single variety 2023 perry for a second in-bottle fermentation. This product had a first fermentation in barrel during autumn/winter 2023/24 and will have a second18-month in bottle fermentation during 2024-2026 prior to remuage and disgorging at Three Choirs Vineyards Ltd. The 75cl bottle format is the same as for the bottle conditioned sparkling perry.
In addition, there are good stocks of the 2021 vintage and 620 x 75cl of our stunning 2022 vintage laid down on lees in stillage. We plan to release the 2022 vintage after remuage and disgorging in mid-October at the Big Apple Harvesttime weekend 2025.
Pear Spirit
In April 2017 we took a 300 vat of our 2015 draught perry to Charles Martell & Son Ltd at Dymock for distilling into Pear Spirit, which sold out very fast! After distilling several different vintages, we have learned that draught perry produces a better quality, smoother and more characteristically fruity spirit when distilled young soon after it has finished fermentation in late summer.
We still have a few 50cl bottles of our 2023 vintage Pear Spirit, but there will be none distilled from our 2024 vintage because we could not make enough perry that year due to lack of fruit.
