Uploaded October 2013 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
First press. The 2012 cider wasn't up to much due to unripe fruit after the cold wet 'summer'. This year's should be a real vintage after all the summer sun. The first lot of juice was thick and sweet, gravity 1060.
Sorry for the rant, I had just spent a whole long day trying to sell apples at Winchester autumn harvest fayre while a ghastly fairground organ blared out its noise for 8 hours without stopping. I have a ton and a quarter of fine apples (Sunset, Ribston Pippin and Lord Lambourne)which won't sell as their texture has gone from very crisp to firm. The public has become used to the industry apples which are selected for hardness and stored at 4 centigrade from picking right down the cold chain. Crispy but pretty lacking in flavour. If the public don't want our apples they don't have to have them, there are plenty of globalised commodity apples in the supermarkets. We can downsize and just do exhibitions, scion wood distribution, cider and private sales.
Its quite instructive to consider that, after expenses, I barely made the minimum wage for a whole Saturday's work SELLING fruit, assuming I received the apples for free.
Still, well made cider keeps for years, I think I am going to make a LOT of cider in this vintage year of 2013.
First press. The 2012 cider wasn't up to much due to unripe fruit after the cold wet 'summer'. This year's should be a real vintage after all the summer sun. The first lot of juice was thick and sweet, gravity 1060.
Sorry for the rant, I had just spent a whole long day trying to sell apples at Winchester autumn harvest fayre while a ghastly fairground organ blared out its noise for 8 hours without stopping. I have a ton and a quarter of fine apples (Sunset, Ribston Pippin and Lord Lambourne)which won't sell as their texture has gone from very crisp to firm. The public has become used to the industry apples which are selected for hardness and stored at 4 centigrade from picking right down the cold chain. Crispy but pretty lacking in flavour. If the public don't want our apples they don't have to have them, there are plenty of globalised commodity apples in the supermarkets. We can downsize and just do exhibitions, scion wood distribution, cider and private sales.
Its quite instructive to consider that, after expenses, I barely made the minimum wage for a whole Saturday's work SELLING fruit, assuming I received the apples for free.
Still, well made cider keeps for years, I think I am going to make a LOT of cider in this vintage year of 2013.
