| 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness'
John Keats 1795 - 1821 (To Autumn)
The sentence may be hackneyed but they are still wonderfully evocative words that sum up the end of summer.
The concentration for so many people at this time is to take advantage of the harvest and we are no exception. The last few months of the year are our most hectic as we pick orchards, take in fruit from other farms, sort, press, blend, bottle and ferment.
By September, we are in full swing. Our bottle shed is packed to the rafters with green bottles, glass flagons and champagne bottles whereas our product store is starting to look somewhat empty. We schedule arrivals of old oak barrels, still steeped in the 'spirit' of their previous contents - whiskey, brandy, rum - which will enhance the cider they will hold for the next two or more years. Pallets of bottles come from as far afield as Portugal and Italy, reels of labels are stacked in the old Apple Store ready and waiting for use.
Many of the apples from our small producers arrive on an ad hoc basis and we have to react accordingly. Sometimes we can leave the apples to ripen for a few weeks but more often than not, we can't. Our larger producers give us some notice of when they will be picking and delivering but the enjoyment of never knowing who is going to bring us what, in what, adds to the pleasure of the process.
Extracting the juice from apples is intensive, hands on work - especially with varieties such as Russett (a labour of love that one). A different degree of ripeness from the same apple will give us uniquely different flavours. Our Fresh and Fruity range of juices come from the first picking of apples - while the juice still has an astringency. Sometimes we steal the unripened fruit from the trees to secure the sharp and distinctive flavour that we want. Achieving the balance of when to pick and when to press crucial. You really can notice the difference - you can, in fact, taste the nature.
Apples are usually pressed within 48 hours of picking. Twigs, leaves and other debris fall away as the apples are washed and fall into a water bath where they are picked up by an auger and fed into the mill to be pulped. The mill (resembling an oversize cheese grater) accumulates the pulp which is released by hand onto a waiting muslin cloth that is folded to form a cheese. At least seven of these are stacked on top of each other before being swivelled onto the hydraulic bed press. During a good day we can get through six tonnes of apples. It's labour intensive, concentrated and messy work. Truth be told, it's not just the machinery that needs hosing down at the end of the day.
As the pressing takes place, the juice is sampled and different variety apples are combined to the pulping mix to ensure a good blend. To prevent oxidation, Vitamin C is added before the juice is chilled and bottled. The old fashioned technique of a hot water bath preserves the juice before the bottles are dried, packed in stillages and put into storage to be labelled another day.
Cider apples are a little easier to deal with as they can be left to ripen off the tree for a few weeks. When first picked they are hard and unyielding. Two to three weeks later, when you can press your thumbnail into the flesh, they are ready to press. Different ciders need different handling, although the initial process is the same for all. Cider apple juice is left to its own devices to ferment within vats. The process is a live one. Put your ear to the side of the vessel and you can hear the barrels or containers 'sing' as the yeast converts the sugar of the apple juice to alcohol.
Sometimes the transformation is fast, sometimes it's gentle, sometimes it can stop altogether and then restart. To open a vat and see the yeasty froth of fermenting juice is always exciting. Carefully skimming the crust or cap to one side, the golden 'cider' below is revealed. The juice ferments to a dryness and becomes a stable product with its alcohol content acting as a preservative. You now have a raw cider.
Cidermaking itself is akin to alchemy - chemistry that turns a base material into something golden and wonderful. And the cidermaker's secrets are as closely guarded as any alchemists ever were. Of course, the combination of apples that are put in to ferment make a difference. Bitter sweet cider apples ultimately create a honey coloured, mellow full bodied farmhouse style cider whereas a combination of cider and dessert apples produces a lighter, lower tannin pale, golden liquid that is ideal for creating a long drink cider. Draught cider is about as natural as you can get. Fermented with wild yeasts, using entirely cider apples, the raw cider matures in the barrel for a minimum of twelve months. The barrel having contained rum or whiskey provides an additional essence. For a clean flavour, like our Veryan cider these enhancements are not wanted and stainless steel vats, as used in the wine industry, are employed. Finally the cider can be left to mature for one, two, three or more years. A gentle end to a turbulent process.
By Christmas, the bottle shed is all but empty again whereas the stillages, vats, barrels and bottles are full. The season is over and if truth be told, we would be happy never to see another little green apple again. Or at least not for another eight months.
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