I am in the process of planting apples at the other end of the farm to the Vineyard at Moondarra. The purpose is to attract birds away from the grapes as harvest draws near.

I emailed a friend before Christmas to discover he was in Herefordshire, sitting in a mate’s kitchen about to eat pork braised in Cider for 20 hours mmmmmmm. It inspired me to a very cider driven Christmas as I drank my way around Normandy, Spain, Suffolk and Herefordshire. I have been a cider lover for many years and always enjoy coming back to it. Whilst I don’t enjoy the overtly “bretty” French ciders I think I prefer unfiltered Norman cider to the English and Spanish versions available here. There seems to be more complexity, texture and bitterness. I have particularly enjoyed Cidre Dupont and their various barrel aged ciders.

These are the apples I would like to ultimately plant;
80% of bitter-sweet apples (Mettais, Bisquet, Joly Rouge, Saint-Martin, Douce Moën, Bedan, Rouge Duret, Douce Coet, Binet Rouge and Frequin) and 20% of acid apples (Judaines and Petit Jaune) This is based upon the production of Dupont.

I am beginning to experiment with production; fermenting dirty apple juice in oak barrels with QA23, a Vinho Verde isolate, with the intent of bottling in champagne bottles with a dosage, a la Champagne, but no disgorgement, giving a yeasty, cloudy cider.