Est. 1994
About our 2025 Vintage
Summary
What a difference a year makes!
In 2024 the weather was wet/borderline 'foul' throughout the harvest season and ground conditions became very difficult in November.
Whereas in 2025 the weather was benign, dry and often sunny until the end of October. Storm Claudia brought the first heavy rain of the season, but we dodged that to finish picking up late bittersweet cider apples on 11/12 November with our final pressing on 19 November.
Fruit quality in 2025 was generally very good. All our 2025 pressings achieved SG >1055 and the highest was SG1070 for the last pressing of late bittersweet Brown Snout & Chisel Jersey cider apples on 19 November.
Everything we pressed into vats showed great promise when tasted at cold racking into clean vats in early January 2026.
We look forward to sharing and bottling the fermented products from Spring through to Autumn 2026.
Our total production was 4200 litres (compared to just 2800 litres in 2024, which was <50% of our 30-year average).
First date and last date of Harvest 2025
Perry Pears
Our 2025 harvest began on 5 September with a few bags of indigenous Gregg's Pit perry pears from our home orchards. We continued picking up these fabulously ripe pears from the ground until we pressed out the first 330 lire vat with a few additional bags of Aylton Red on 10 September.
Then we hit the Thorn perry pears pressing out a 550-litre vat of this single variety on 13 September, before moving onto to press another 1000 litres of Gregg's Pit, Aylton Red & Blakeney Red.
Our favourite mid-season blend of Blakeney Red, Brandy & Winnals Longdon pressed out 650 litres on 1-2 October, and we finished pressing pears with a 330-litre vat of Blakeney Red, Butt & Oldfield on 30 October.
Total Perry made in 2025 = 2800 litres (compared with just 800 litres in 2024)
Cider Apples
We pressed 330 litres of ripe 'early droppers' of Browns Apple & Kingston Black on 11 October before blending with another 200 litres on 28 October.
Late bittersweet harvest began with Dabinett & Yarlington Mill on 1 November and we continued picking up these varieties in 70/30 ratio to press out 650 litres for 'keeving' over 12 - 14 November, waiting until the weather forecast showed likelihood of ambient temperature <12 degrees Centigrade.
We finished harvesting Chisel Jersey and Brown Snout on 11/12 November and waited to press this blend until Wednesday 19 November which was our final 2025 pressing.
Total Cider made in 2025 = 1400 litres (compared with 2350 litres in 2024)
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.
We still have good stocks of our Dabinett & Yarlington Mill 2024 Normandy method naturally sparkling cider, and we look forward to bottling the 2025 vintage later in the Summer.
We will bottle a 300-litre vat of our mid-season Barnet, Brandy & Winnals Longdon 2025 to produce a bottle conditioned perry in late April/May 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 250 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 second 18-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.
We still have good stocks available (around 500 x 75cl) of our stunning 2022 vintage ‘Champagne Method’ bottle fermented perry following its successful first release at Big Apple Harvestime weekend in October 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 made no Pear Spirit in 2025 distilled from our 2024 vintage because we could not make enough perry that year due to lack of fruit.
To end with some more good news - we plan to release 150 x 50cl bottles of our 2025 Pear Spirit in the Autumn of 2026.
