About us
Our aim is to reveal the quality potential of the traditional orchards that we foster in Devon; we cultivate, nurture and encourage them to thrive while creating natural, world class Champagne method, keeved and pet nat ciders that feature on wine lists in some of the UKs top restaurants.
With the help of our flock of Shropshire sheep we work with orchard owners to help breathe life back into their traditional orchards, preventing further decline and the extinction of important local apple varieties, aiming to create balanced, biodiverse ecosystems, that thrive with wildlife and require minimal human intervention.
Our ciders are a pure expression of the apple varieties and the terroir. We add minimal or no sulphites and do not filter them. The vast array of unusual apple varieties lend diverse and unique flavours, aromas, tannins and levels of acidity, which we carefully blend and age in both French oak and stainless steel to create unique, complex ciders of the highest quality.
Unlike commercial orchards, these orchards are rich in nationally rare species and an important home for diverse pollinators, birds & other wildlife. Many also act as a gene bank where trees have survived for a century or more unaided by chemicals such as fungicides. Their disease-resistant genes are an important resource that needs safeguarding for the future. We graft these and other rare local varieties onto new young trees and plant young trees to replace those that have died.
90% of Devon's Traditional Orchards have been lost since WWII and 50% of those that remain are in poor condition due to a lack of incentive to manage them or replace fallen trees (Natural England, 2011). We work with small orchards throughout the Exe Valley, some ancient & full of fallen trees. Others suffocated by encroaching scrub and often strangled by wire that once protected the trees but was later forgotten.
Thanks to courses run by the Devon charities OrchardsLive and Orchard Link we have learnt to manage orchards to increase biodiversity (or maintain it where they’re already diverse), & improve overall health & vitality.
We prune to encourage growth and reduce 'windage', preventing more trees from falling and graze our flock of Shropshire sheep throughout the orchards to control weeds, improve the sward structure, improve biodiversity & soil health. Where grazing isn’t possible we prevent our fostered orchards from being overrun with scrub, nettles and brambles through staggered, late mowing of specific sites but always leave significant areas wild to support a diversity of small mammals, birds, butterflies and other insects.
In most cases the apples in these orchards were previously left to rot on the ground year after year.
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