A week after this year’s London Cider Salon, a much smaller tasting took place in Bruton, the small town in Somerset most famous for being the countryside outpost of acclaimed German art gallery Hauser & Wirth (its recently reopened Roth Bar featuring a great line-up of ciders on its drinks list), and the home of the Michelin starred Osip (although at the time of writing they are in the process of relocating the restaurant to just outside of the town), and it’s little sister and host of the tasting, The Old Pharmacy. 

So, as much as I love my hometown of Frome, there’s only so many ex Londonites, anthropomorphised whippets and small toddlers in Carhartt dungarees that you can have bandwidth for on a Sunday morning. And with Bruton being only 20 minutes from Frome, I took the opportunity to escape town for the day.

Let’s face it though, a cider tasting on my own back doorstep was always going to be something that I was going to make time for, but there was one particular reason I was very excited about this tasting. At the London Salon the week before, Sam Leech of Wilding Cider had been enthusiastically telling me that the Bruton event was going to be the first public tasting of newcomer Stockley Cider. Among Sam’s many talents he is a concise and thoughtful communicator. Ask him any question and he will give you a sometimes long but always completely succinct answer. Never rambling and never with any hint of hyperbole. So when you get unbridled excitement from him, it’s usually a very good indicator that you should also be excited.

Nestled in the dining room of The Old Pharmacy, which shorn of its usual table arrangement and flooded with nine cider producers plus guests actually makes the room feel very tiny in comparison to a normal. There was a mix of the very established, Julien Temperley showcasing Burrow Hill & Somerset Cider Brandy, alongside Wilding and Pilton cider, as well as relative newcomers like Ryan & Sebastian of Coddiwomple cider and of course Rob of the eponymously named Stockley, showcasing his first three releases: Soirée, Jersey & Top Dog

I have to confess, I find tastings difficult sometimes. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy them immensely, but trying to make your way round the room, taste, analyse each drink, engage with the producer, say hello to people you know, bump into somebody unexpectedly, it can all be a bit of a sensory overload. As such I’ve found that occasionally my opinion of a cider has changed between tasting a small glass and having a bottle elsewhere, so I’ve taken to writing notes at tastings, just to have something to compare to later rather than going on memory alone. I know note taking might not be that revelatory for some, but hey, we all come to things in our own time.

My notes from that day talk about Rob’s ciders with lots of descriptions of cooked stone fruits, stewed apples, rich jammy consistencies, lemon zest, spices and Turkish delight, in other words, big comforting flavours. Ciders that instantly stood out. I wrote elsewhere at the time that “The introduction to the three bottles being showcased suggest promising things to come based on these being their first releases” & “I’m looking forward to being able to sit down with a bottle of each of these once they’re released to explore them further and get to taste each on its own terms”.

With this in mind, when the recent Bristol Cider Salon rolled around, I didn’t hesitate to purchase a bottle of each. And judging by the public reception, nobody else hesitated either. Two weeks later, when we sat down for a chat in Wilding Cider’s home orchard on Limeburn Hill just outside of Chew Magna, he brought along for me a forth bottle, promisingly entitled Dulcet. Given the restrictions of the tasting and the salon, he was only able to show three ciders at each, so this forth is a pleasant surprise. In the interests of transparency though I should mention, unlike the other three bottles this one was gifted to me. 

Rob has spent the past three seasons working with Beccy & Sam at Wilding. These 2022 releases are all using apples harvested from North Somerset orchards that Beccy & Sam manage, before being fermented and bottled on his family farm in Leigh in North Dorset, employing the rural method that both he & Wilding favour.

The rural method, also known as the ancestral method, is one where the cider is filled into bottles before fermentation has completed, giving it a natural sparkle (if timed right) as the yeast continues fermenting remaining sugars in the bottle. However, Stockley uses another process to create a naturally sweeter cider in combination with the rural method, that being cold racking. Like keeving it benefits from using low nutrient apples from older unfertilised trees and cold winters. Unlike keeving, the rural method doesn’t require the addition of enzymes as keeving sometimes does during the process. The cider is racked multiple times during the cold winter period, taking it off the lees to slow the rate of fermentation right down, as the yeast can otherwise continue to utilise the dead cells in the settled lees as nutrients. As the yeasts run out of nutrients, they expire before they’ve had chance to ferment all the available sugar, leaving a naturally sweeter cider. So it’s quite a challenge to combine cold racking and rural methods, as one doesn’t always know whether the yeast will have enough nutrient to continue in the bottle, so the resulting cider may sometimes be less petillant than expected.

Stockley Soirée 2022 – review

Off-dry, still cider, a blend of Dabinett, Michelin, Ellis Bitter, Yarlington Mill, Bulmers Norman, Sweet Coppin, Browns.

How I served: Medium chilled. 20 mins outside the fridge for good measure

Appearance: Like a burnished copper pan. Palo Cortado sherry

On the nose: Lemon zested into warm strawberry jam. The forgotten tin of golden syrup that’s in the back of your cupboard discovered as you were searching for the sugar. Warm caramelised apple à la tarte tatin.

In the mouth: Off-dry but with lots of perceived sweetness. Freshly opening a tin of pineapple, warm spice notes from the Yarlington, and a gentle wave of plum like tannins that wash across the tongue then seeming disappear as quickly as they arrived. A crisp stone fruit like acid balances it all.

In a nutshell: A big juxtaposition of so much sweetness in an off-dry cider might have you questioning the label, but everything is so well balanced. There’s some serious nostalgia of childhood baking from all the flavours at work here.

Stockley Jersey 2022 – review

A medium-sweet blend of Ashton Brown Jersey, Harry Masters Jersey, Yarlington Mill, Michelin, Browns

How I served: 20 minutes outside the fridge

Appearance: Amber, a delicate mousse of bubbles on pouring

On the nose: Quince, cherries & leather.  Bitter almond/amaretti vibes with apple pie in there right at the end. It’s like somebody has smashed a tray of pies together and they’ve landed down their hipster chef’s apron warming the leather into the mélange of fruits.

In the mouth: Instantly more grip with the tannins than the soirée, balanced out by the acid. Hints of lime zest over the big baked fruit flavours. Luscious mouthfeel, almost ice cider like texture. It’s the grown-up equivalent to sipping undiluted Ribenna.

In a nutshell: One to sit and take time with, and let the tannins hold you in place. With big autumnal flavours I’d say keep it for a cloudy day when weather is just starting to take on a chill.

Stockley Dulcet 2022 – review

A sparkling, medium-sweet blend of Dabinett, Ashton Brown Jersey, Yarlington Mill, Harry Masters Jersey, Michelin, Chisel Jersey, Browns

How I served: 20 minutes outside the fridge

Appearance: Deep golden, Amontillado sherry.  A similar mousse of bubbles to the jersey

On the nose: It’s walking into the barrel room of your dreams on a hot day. This also has golden syrup notes like the Soirée, but ethereal in a freshly turned out steamed sponge pudding way.

In the mouth: Lashing of sweet raspberry juice with some dark vanilla bass notes underneath. Peach melba in a tall glass with a long spoon, the ice cream just starting to melt into the poached peach juice and sweet/sharp raspberry coulis. Gentle malic acid and build up of tannins keeping the dessert notes in check.

In a nutshell: Completely and utterly its namesake. It’s your non-cliché ideal of a wander through an orchard in summer. Simple mellifluous joy.

Stockley Top Dog 2022 – review

A sweet blend of Yarlington Mill, Ashton Masters Jersey, Dabinett, Sweet Coppin, Browns

How I served: 10 minutes outside the fridge. With it being the sweetest of the four I decided to keep it a little on the colder side.

Appearance: A similar deep golden to the Dulcet, but with a lighter body and a gentle spritz of fine bubbles that hit your nose as you lift the glass to your mouth.

On the nose: Rose lemonade, a hint of star anise. Bitter orange zest mixed with blood orange juice. Dark chocolate meets chicory & dandelion

In the mouth: Star anise gives way to a little spike of clove. The bitter orange zest really coming to the fore on the finish combined with herby Campari notes like a sweet negroni

In a nutshell: The adult taste of bitterness and  flavours of citrus and hard herbs all distilled into a sweet complex cider that is anything but cloying.

Conclusions

There’s so much at play in each of these bottles, almost paradoxical balances that subvert your expectations. Everything about them feels so finely tuned, so well crafted. My initial feeling back at the Old Pharmacy tasting was that the bottles were good, really good for first releases. I was excited to see what was to come. But having tasted each bottle on its own now, shorn of the events bustling frenetic atmosphere, I think they’re truly special. To have four bottles this complex whilst still being super easy drinkers is a fine art. There’s many layers to them to uncover, or you can simply enjoy them for what they are. Like a great piece of cinema though I think repeat visits will reward something new and satisfying each time. Not since tasting Linn’s offerings at the inaugural London Salon in ’23 have I been this blown away by a new producer. To tread out a well-worn phrase, you had my curiosity, now you have my attention.