REAL DEVON CIDER

HOME GROWN FROM BLOSSOM TO BOTTLE

We make our cider using only the apples grown in our orchards.

Our cider farm has 14,000 apple trees set in 100 acres of rolling Devon countryside. You are welcome to come and visit our farm shop, the cider vat, or join a cider tours or orchard walk. We have been making cider in devon since the 1980’s first at inch’s cider in winkleigh and since 1996 here at solland farm. We planted the cider apple trees in the late 1990’s all our ciders are made only from apples grown on our farm. We are one of the very few cider producers who grow 100% of the apples they use themselves.

Our orchards are grown on a very low input basis. We don’t use any herbicides or pesticide sprays. This is good for the ciders we make as well as good for our wildlife. As a result we have a fantastic range of animals and birds living in our orchards (as well as horses). We work with local conservation groups to encourage bats in our orchards who do a great job keeping the dreaded coddling moth at bay. We also have a growing population of dormice which are listed as endangered in the uk.

We don’t use artificial fertilisers in our orchards which means that the fruit per acre is low, compared to intensive methods. This is seen as a key quality component in wines were there are strict limits on how many grapes per acre can be produced. Natural yield levels produce fruit with more character and flavour, less ‘mass produced’ if you like. Similarly we don’t shake the apples off the trees before they are ripe, we just let nature take its time.

Sampford Courtenay Cider is a family business making craft cider on our farm

The fashion currently in cider making is to press apples very early in the season. When we read of cider makers starting to press in August, we joke that they will be pressing the blossom before long. We usually start pressing in late october on to christmas, but if the apples are late we might not start until mid november and we can still be pressing at the end of january. Our michelin are a case in point, they take a long time to ripen properly and only reward those willing to let them take their time.

Our ciders are all fermented in small batches each autumn and then matured for at least six months, often twelve. Our vintage cider takes two years to make. All our ciders are fermented at their natural strength we don’t add sugar to chaptalise them. We don’t add water to dilute them. It isn’t possible to say that they are 100%juice, but they are as close to that as it is possible to be. Some of our ciders are made using ‘wild’ yeast

others we make using a champagne yeast that has been used for making cider for almost 100 years. Each fermentation produces only 1000 to 1200 bottles of finished cider. Each bottle is individually numbered a limited edition of individual character. As a result of this we don’t have all our styles of cider available all year. Some take longer to mature than others, and each is only bottled when it is ready. We currently make bottle conditioned ciders as well as still and carbonated sweet, medium, dry and naturally sweet. We hope you enjoy looking at our range of Devon craft ciders.