I hope I find you all well, during Betwixtmas – this in-between, dreamy, nether time, of the final week of the year. May your days have been merry and bright in the lead up to this most festive period, and with any luck your stockings were heaving under the weight of a rather lovely bottle of cider or perry on December 25th. Unless you were avidly seeking out a Beauty of Bath, Morgan Sweet, or Discovery Cider Nouveau from very early in this season’s crop of available fruit, I’m guessing most of the apples, pears, quinces and more that built the framework of your tasty drinks over Christmas were from the Harvest 2022 output? Some of you may have been fortunate enough to try an older bottling of Caledonian Cider’s Islay Cask, or perhaps one of the remaining bottles of Eden Cider’s Stormy Weather that made it over to the UK at a time of slightly simpler import tariffs? Produced in relatively small batches compared to their industrial macro cousins from the supermarket shelves, that even one or two of these bottles survived unopened into 2023 and then made its way into your household this December is a rarified snapshot of a Harvest gone by.  

As we conclude our collective summary of Harvest 2023 here on Cider Review, Hogmanay is fast approaching; the weeks of Wassail just around the corner, followed by the pruning cycle for slumbering fruit trees bathing in their Winter chill hours. It’s as beautiful a time of year in the orchard as any – if you can, do go for an explore in one mid-morning, with a strong hoar frost settled over the skeletal branches of Dabinett and Stoke Red, Porter’s Perfection and Ellis Bitter. You won’t be disappointed. Onto then, the final batch of producers who have very generously taken the time out of their harvest schedule (now mostly finished I do hope) to answer our questions here on Cider Review. A big thank you to each and every producer who has responded to our emails, WhatsApps and Instagram DMs out of the blue – I know a number of them are far happier making cider/perry/other than writing about making it – so it’s been lovely to see such a diverse range of answers coming back in from across the globe. Next year, someone from New Zealand perhaps, and maybe also Scandinavia? It’s good to set these challenges down in written form, for all to see and judge upon when the months roll around again. Here goes then, the concluding part to Cider Review’s Harvest 2023 Summary!

Oliver’s Cider & Perry

– Ocle Pychard, Herefordshire, UK

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: We started on Monday September 11th the earliest we have ever started by a few days. In reality that was really not earlier enough to get the bush orchard Foxwhelp at their best. We are aiming to finish on December 8th with the last of the Dabinett.

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: We have harvested the biggest crop both of cider apples and perry pears ever on the farm. We’ve pressed 136 tonnes of cider apples and 43 tonnes of perry pears, resulting in 105,000 litres of juice! Massive Yarlington Mill crops. Good crops of Michelin, Dabinett and Foxwhelp. Massive crop of Butt, good crops of Blakeney Red, and Gin.

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: The highlight and biggest challenge was the huge amount of Yarlington Mill and the fact that it was harvested over an 8-week period! The lowlight was the unmitigated wet that just made the mud immense and the orchard ruts will take a lot of sorting out in the spring. It made the final 4 weeks quite challenging harvest wise.

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?:

All fruit was low in sugars, some markedly, very little above 1050 and much 4-8 degrees of SG down.Interestingly we found the fruit really quite dry too (low juice yield), especially towards the end of harvest. So overall, the growing season gave us pretty decent pollination which held well. The growing season lacked sun and delivered too much moisture and that lead to low fruit sugars and disappointing juice yield. Overall fruit character was ok but I do not think we will have a “vintage” year.

Overall, we managed to keep running at our own slow but constant pace and only lost 2 days pressing through breakdowns which were nothing we could have foreseen. Fruit from ourselves and suppliers came in, picked in good condition except for a disastrous load of Browns (picked too late) and some Michelin and Dabinett picked too early. Deliveries were better coordinated and communication with suppliers really good. The pressing equipment is fit for purpose but cannot cope with huge amounts and a press upgrade would be the answer, but we are reluctant to make that sort of investment. Juice wise as indicated we saw lower SG’s and of ok character but nothing really earth-shattering. We have got a single barrel of Coppy and a 50/50 blend barrel though! We think the lower SGs will suit our keeving releases and give us a lot of potential draught product.The cold towards the last 3/4 weeks has really helped with the cider keeving but the “chilling” of the earlier season perry juice failed to help the keeving process, so once again perry keeves under threat number wise but cider should be ok. Behind all this is the creeping spread of fireblight both in fruit trees but also other hosts.

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Naughton Cider Company

– Balmerino, Fife, UK

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: We started picking some of the early eaters on the last weekend of September. I chose not to pick Discovery this year as I wasn’t happy with the quality. Picking finished on the 24th of November with Black Dabinett.

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: Total quantity levels was below that of 2022. 

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: The highlight for me were the Cox apples on the South facing, North Wall of our walled garden. Beautiful ripeness. Perfect acidity.

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?:

Harvest 2023 appears to be a year of differences. Some excellent apples, specifically in areas where moisture could be controlled. This was noticeable in the top end of our walled garden and the top of our main orchard. In other areas, maturity was lower than that of the previous vintage but above that of 2021. Apple size varied greatly especially among the sharps and bittersharps. Maturity levels of the sharps was well below 2022. Quality and taste of the sweets was excellent. Some varieties showed very slow growth pattern throughout the year with a sudden spike in growth late in the season. We had significant loss in Black Dabinett for the first time ever.

I sense, although this will only come with time, this will not be a great “vintage” for ageing cider. 

Some key specific gravities (these cider varieties come from the orchard we work with in Oxfordshire):Cox 1057 @ 8CKingston Black 1056 @ 9CStoke Red 1048 @ 11CBlack Dabinett 1052 @ 5CYarlington Mill 1055 @ 7CBramley 1050 @ 9C

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Eden Ciders

– Newport, Vermont, USA

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: We started our Harvest 2023 picking Bulmer’s Norman on 12th September. Finished up with Golden Russet and Egremont Russet on 9th November.

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: 2023 Harvest here in Vermont has been tough. A hard freeze on the night of May 18th killed off a significant amount of the crop across Northern New England and part of New York state as well. Depending on varieties and locations, some orchards were fine, others lost up to 90% of their crop. Late blooming tannic varieties survived better than sweets and sharps, the latter suffering the largest losses. 

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: On a small bright note, here at Eden we were excited to work with a Vermont property that has over 20 wild pear trees that escaped the worst of the frost damage. We’ve got 180 gallons of wild perry pet nat in the works. It’s crazy juice – tannin, but also significantly higher acidity than feels typical. pH is 3.3. Probably just something about being in such a cold climate?

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?: For large commercial orchards in NY and New England, the fruit that did survive had frost damage that resulted in lots of it being available for cider, since frost rings and other blemishes made it unacceptable for fresh market. The freeze received a federal disaster designation after the governors of 11 Northeastern states petitioned the US Secretary of Agriculture. Crop losses included strawberries, peaches, and wine grapes in addition to apples and pears.

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Crone’s Organic Cider

– Kenninghall, Norfolk, UK

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: We started production on the 10th August, and we’ll be pressing the last of our apples on 14th November.

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: Quite a lot of apple juice bottled, and around 4000 gallons of cider happily fermenting. Up on last year.

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: A highlight for me would be the abundance of really nice, sweet Discovery apples (Cox and other favourites were basically a no-show this year😔).

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?: The crop of cider apples was decent with good sugar levels, and we have some interesting single varieties showing promise. A good quantity of deserts and cookers for our Norfolk cider, though some of our favourites didn’t crop as mentioned above.

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Sandford Orchards

– Crediton, Devon, UK

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: We started harvest on 27th September and picked through till 22nd November (although I have been continuing to press very small batchers of our newly found varieties – and still am!!)

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: Biggest harvest yet for us, we needed extra fruit to make up for a short year last year.

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: Making our first ciders from the newly discovered apple varieties. Some of the newly discovered varieties are hugely exciting. Lots to learn in the next few years coming out of the new research.

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?: Moderate sugars, lower than last year, but the fruit was in great shape – juice well balanced and cider tasting great, with good aging potential. Fermentations have been steady and clean – which is a good indicator of juice quality.

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Artistraw Cider

–Clifford, Herefordshire, UK

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: We began harvest on 19th September, picking Foxwhelp on a small-holding a mile or so from our cidery.  I wish we knew when we might complete this harvest. I can just about see the finish line on the horizon, but it remains blurry and indistinct for the time being.

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: Around 4,000 litres in tank so far with another 2,000-ish litres to be pressed (and a little bit still to be picked; will this season never end?!)

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: Seeing some of the oldest trees (many as yet unidentified varieties) in our veteran orchards producing fruit again after goodness knows how long, has been a true delight to observe. We’ve been working on restoring these orchards for about 5 years now and the positive impact of this painstaking work is becoming clearer season by season.

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?: We seem to have an extraordinary amount of fruit this year although sugars are much reduced on 2022 and acidity much higher on account of the cooler summer and above average rainfall

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Welsh Mountain Cider

– Newchapel, Pembrokeshire, UK

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: Harvest 2023 started for us on the 10th September, and finished on the 15th November.

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: We made 5600 litres in total this year, less than our 2022 total.

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: Harvesting the fruit from our orchard was great this year.  We made 2,400 litres of Prospect Orchard, which was double from last year.  Our trees are coming into maturity and it is wonderful to watch them grow and get more and more fruit (and better quality) every year.

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?: There was lots of fruit this year, but of below average quality.  We had a very dry spring, followed by a wet late summer.  It would have been much better to get the rain in the spring and had some sunshine to ripen the fruit.  Everything had a lower SG than usual.  We also had a very wet Autumn which made harvest difficult.

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Elegast Cider

– Langbroek, Netherlands

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: We started harvest on 15th September and finished on 15th October – 12,800 litres of cider and 8800 litres of perry.

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: In 2022 we pressed 92,000 litres, whereas in 2023 we only pressed 21,600 litres. It was a very bad apple and pear harvest. A cold spring prevented a lot of the fruit to form. This year was also the trees’ response to the good year before (as is quite usual). That’s why we need to always press everything (of quality) we can get! We’re looking at importing some juice from Ross-on-Wye actually this year.

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: The quince blend has been lovely: it’s quince, with apples aged in Portuguese Abafado barrels and some perry to soften it. Also the vine: cider aged on local organic Muscaris grape skins. In general, these have aromas that you can keep coming back to, along with a balanced acidity (not too high in our case).

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?: 2023 no real idea yet, it’s fermenting. Though we’re happy to have some Redlove juice in foudres, which smells lovely (roses, strawberries) as a novelty for us. Average SG much lower than last year

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Toye’s Cider

– Downham Market, Norfolk, UK

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: I started Harvest 2023 gathering Tom Putt and Discovery apples on 24th August with my Mum in a couple of orchards local to us. The season finished off on 17th November with a blend of Dabinett, Dunkerton Late Sweet, Hangy Down, Stoke Red, and Sweet Coppin. From wearing t-shirts and baseball caps, to two pairs of socks and beanie hats!

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: 660 litres in total. 487.5 litres of cider and 172.5 litres of perry. Down a little on 2022’s total, but a lot of fun to make again which is the main thing.

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: Picking enough windfall perry pears in early October, as well as some from a beautifully trained espaliered tree, to fill an Arran Whisky Quarter Cask was very satisfying. I’ve loved Tom Oliver’s Out Of The Barrel Room series, which showcase barrel-aged ciders and perries, so I have been eager to try my hand at barrel-aged perry. I’m crossing my fingers it doesn’t go awry.

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?: I’d say it was an absolute “off” year in the orchards I pick in with specific gravity down on last year, though that’s no bad thing. The cider apples in my friend Ben’s orchard in West Dereham produced a crop on a number of trees: Foxwhelp, Dabinett, Cider Lady’s Fingers, for instance. But other trees like Brown’s, Harry Masters Jersey, and Ashton Brown Jersey barely made an appearance. 

In this bit of East Anglia it was also not a very good year for Bramley apples – a number of late frosts combined with a persistent North-Easterly wind for a good week or two in blossom time really affected fruit set. I had access to a new orchard this year, nearly 40 acres of Bramley, but when it came to harvest time – barely an apple on any of the trees. It leaves me with high hopes for an “on” year in 2024 and shows the importance of spreading risk in terms of different varieties and different orchards to pick from. 

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Seb’s Cider

– Kings Caple, Herefordshire, UK

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: We started harvest in the last week of September with Herefordshire Redstreak, and we finished on 12th December with Chisel Jersey. Totally different ends of the scale, starting with a Sharp and ending with a full late-season Bittersweet. 

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: I’ve made a shade off 6800 litres this harvest, it’s generally around the 6500 litres – 7000 litres mark. When I visit my friends at Broome Farm and see their belt press in action and the quantities they can make with it in a day, it’s on another scale compared to me and my hydropress, but I’m happy with that. I would have liked to have made more perry this harvest – next year I’m going to put more effort into making it as I’m aware perry is still such an unknown thing to most people. I do a farmers market every week in Stroud and people keep coming up to me and saying they’ve got a few old perry pear trees that no-one picks from, so I’ll take them up on that offer next year.  

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: A personal highlight was pressing 1000 litres of the single variety apple Dymock Red. It’s local to us, the apple originates about 10 miles from where we’re based, but we have it growing in our orchard just outside the cider barn. It’s a variety that I’ve grown to love through making a single variety of it over the last few years. I’ve got an increasing fondness for this and to fill a whole IBC is brilliant. However, I must temper that I realised in “off” years for this variety, the quality of the juice can be even higher. Smaller fruit in a bumper year however favours us with our speidel mill and hydropress. Having a lot of small and clean fruit means they process really well. 

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?: We’re going into our 10th year of production, and I can say across the board it’s been a very strange year! A lot of sunshine in June, followed by July and August being awful – very wet and cloudy. The fruit was hit quite hard by that weather. But then coming into September we had a mini-heatwave! It seemed a lot of the trees shed a lot of fruit (a late version of the typical June drop, if you will). The early fruit is almost ripe in September, they tend to have lower SGs as a rule, but this was amplified by the weather conditions this year. Chisel Jersey and Red Styre, harvested this December, produce a strong cider as they stay on the trees a lot longer and the sugars have a chance to increase. 

Perry this year was a similar case. Blakeney Red had very low SGs (high 1040s) and some Butt pears a bit later on were a similar story with reduced SGs to normal.

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Wilding Cider

– Chew Magna, Somerset, UK

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: We started harvest on the 11th September, beginning with perry pears and Foxwhelp, and finished pressing on the 29th November, last fruit to the press this year was Dabinett, Porter’s Perfection, Chisel Jersey and Ashton Brown Jersey. We started perhaps a few days earlier than usual but finished a good week or so earlier than usual, a combination of earlier ripening, a smaller crop of the late dropping varieties and generally poorer keeping of some varieties.

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: We have made roughly 15,000 litres of cider and perry this year, of which 4,000 litres will be distilled. This is less than last year (we made 19,500) due to an overall biennial pattern in our orchards. We do not buy in fruit to make up shortfall, just picking from our own/rented orchards and the pear orchard.

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: The harvest highlight is always hard to pick, while it is a tough few month of relentless work it is nonetheless a real joy. I love working with the great crew we have, the good weather days, the trees. Fruit highlight this year was getting a wild keeve in some Claret perry at the end of October. Fingers crossed for a smooth journey to the bottle.

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?: It is too early to get a real sense of what we’ve made this year, but overall I am feeling positive about the quality so far. The sugar levels have been a little below average, tannins are a little down on average, which has been a real contrast to 2022. We are noticing that not all varieties respond in the same ways to the climactic conditions, last year Ashton Bitter for example gave a fairly typical fruit while all the surrounding trees gave exceptionally sweet and concentrated fruit. This year Chisel Jersey has performed extremely well, the lower tannin levels suiting it well and it has a much lighter and fruitier character than we are used to, I am excited about the blends that feature it. 

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Monnow Valley Cider

– Penperlleni, Monmouthshire, UK

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: My first date of harvesting was 18th September with Foxwhelp,  Nehou and Thorn. Foxwhelp was additionally pressed 26th September together with Breakwells Seedling (harvested 21st September)..both these are usually my “base” sharps for some blends. The last pressing was on 4th December of Cider apples:  Black Dabinett,  Ellis Bitter, Sweet Coppin, Yarlington Mill and Vilberie which was added to already pressed Frederick (pressed  21st October).

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: In total I made 2260 litres of Cider and 370 litres of Perry. As you see a lot more Cider than Perry… Cider is always in higher demand from my clients. I have a surplus of Perry from the 2022 Harvest, having made 1065 litres of Perry then. A case for bottling more this coming spring …watch this space!

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: Managing to catch those tricky Yellow Huffcap pears from only a single 30 year old tree…before they rotted on the tree, 35 litres made. Also trialling some quince which I have available from one orchard. Various timings of maceration and ratios of Quince with both Browns and also Lord Lambourne…I’m intrigued to see how they turn out.

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?: Most apples and pears were well below their usual SGs, largely due to the “reverse ” weather pattern from April- August this year. May/June was drier than average, resulting in reduced fruit swell and July/August was wetter than usual. Resulting in reduced ripening of fruit, thus leading to smaller fruit in general and with a lower sugar content.  So probably lower ABV’s from Harvest 2023. For example: Red Pear’s 2022 SG was 1074 and then this year the SG came in at 1052.

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Son Of The Smith Hard Cider

– Omachi, Nagano, Japan

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: We started Harvest on 1st August with the Dolgo Crab Apple. Frost damage in April 2023 killed the flower buds and the lack of rain and high sunshine resulted in small apples with low acidity compared to last year. Apple harvesting continued until the beginning of this month.

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: 26,000 litres of cider was made from April 2022 to March 2023. That’s about 52 tonnes of apples. This season has been a very difficult growing environment for us. During the flowering period, intense frost damage hit the region and many fresh flowers froze to death.

We made use of the few flowers to grow apples, but this time the fruit did not grow as large as expected due to the drought and intense heat during the summer months. Now that the harvest season is over, we have only obtained 60% to 70% of what we did last year. In addition to producing cider we also sell fruit at the same time. Under normal circumstances, our total annual harvest is about 200 tons. Therefore, this reduction in yield was very disappointing.

We made a number of hopped-ciders in the Oregon style. We use our homegrown Cascade hops. We also do an authentic barrel-aged cider using a native English cider variety like Porter’s Perfection, Harry Masters’ Jersey, Yarlington Mill etc. We are just about halfway through cider-making this year and are very much looking forward to the second half.

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: A memorable moment was being able to release a special cider named “All by homies” that we harvested and prepared with over 100 of our friends from harvesting to cider-making. We used home-grown tons of Dolgo crab apple, our fresh hops, and wine grape pomace for this cider. The Japanese cider market is still small, but we felt that we are definitely expanding that frame at the cutting edge of the market. Surrounded by good friends, our family and great brewing buddies, being thankful for the abundance of agricultural products in nature is a mindset we hope to pass on to the next generation.

We also tried the Keeving technique because 2022 was a wet year with a lot of low sugar apples.

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?: Japan is still in the early stages of its cider culture, and in our case, along with cider-apples, we also use eating-apples in our cider-making process. As mentioned earlier, our harvest this year was very disappointing, but as for cider-making, we are preparing more batches than in previous years. This is the result of a little capital investment and improvements that have made our factory more efficient.

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):

Ross On Wye Cider & Perry

– Peterstow, Herefordshire, UK

First and Last date of Harvest 2023: As always with us this is a slightly complicated question. Technically the first pressing we did in 2023 was March 24th, when we pressed some Jazz Apples we bought from our dessert growing neighbours cold store, after the supermarket stiffed them on price. But that doesn’t really count, so our earliest 2023 grown fruit was Beauty of Bath on 9th August, a lovely early season dessert variety – which is already on sale! – but it’s a bit of a standalone apple. We started harvest *properly*, by which I mean *relentlessly*, with our earliest Thorn pears on the 14th September.

It’s a funny one, as I remember a lot of discussions in that opening stage of the season complaining that the fruit was all early, but it really wasn’t. In ’22 we pressed Thorn on the 9th, and in ’21 we pressed it on the 16th. Likewise our earliest Foxwhelp‘s this year were on the 21st, but in ’22 they were also the 21st, and in ’21 they were on the 17th. So all pretty much within the window.

Our final day of pressing this year was 7th December, by which point I was very much done!

Total amount of cider/perry/other made. Was it a good amount produced this year compared to others?: This was by a fair margin our biggest ever production, but that is mainly because we were able to sell a lot of juice to other cidermakers this year, which helped us make use of all the surplus fruit we have on the farm after our contracts to sell them as apples were cut short in 2017. Considering we’ve now had three years of large production in a row (by our standards), the farm is pretty ‘maxed’ out on space, and it’s getting a little intimidating to try to think where everything might go for Ross Cider Fest 2024…!

A highlight for you of Harvest 2023: There are dozens of highlights from this year, but certainly one of the earliest was when you delivered ten fresh barrels from the Isle of Arran’s Lochranza and Lagg distilleries (to join the two you had already brought!) early on. As for us our odd years are our ‘on’ years, we’ve been able to fill them with loads of different apples, which is very exciting as in 2022 with one exception, all our oak was either Dabinett, Harry Masters Jersey or Ellis Bitter, which didn’t give us so much variation to look forward to.

The other major highlight was when we shut the barn door having finished on our final day! We had pushed through to 8pm so we didn’t have to press the next day and it felt fantastic!

And speaking personally, my partner Becky joined the business full time this year, so working with her through the harvest has been a joy and a privilege to do.

How would you describe the vintage of cider/perry/other produced this year? Were SG’s higher or lower than usual? What was the quality and abundance of the fruit like?: That kinda thing… It’s always very hard for me to describe the vintage, as we’re quite low-tech producers and don’t really do a lot of juice analysis. The picture from S.G. is broadly that yes, we’re predictably lower than ’22, but we’re on quite similar compared to ’21.

Generally, the sugar levels in earlier season varieties are higher this harvest than in 2021, and the later season varieties are lower. That shows how much growing gets done for cider fruit in the Autumn, and it isn’t just about the Summer! We get asked in June how the fruit is looking and it’s always an impossible question to answer!

This year we have made single varieties of more than 50 different apples and pears (and used many more varieties in smaller quantities in blends) – which means that like we always hope every year, for at least a handful of those varieties it will turn out to be a spectacular season, with an amazing flavour. We believe that even if the conditions have been poor for some varieties, we’re fortunate that there’s usually a few that really enjoyed them. At this stage I’m hoping for a big showing from our Kingston Black – one of the varieties to have an even better SG than in 2022 (which is amazing!), and the little sneak taste I did with Marshall of the juice after one month was delicious. Fingers crossed.

A photo from Harvest 23 (with description):