RIPE, WILD FERMENTED CIDER
We, Georgie and Cameron, make full juice, wild fermented cider in Cornwall, following the same principles as natural wine. It's 100% apples, naturally occurring wild yeast, hand-picked, hand washed and fermented in ex wine barrels.
In contrast, in the U.K, cider legally only needs to contain 35% apples. The other 65% can unfortunately just be sugar and water with added sulphites and sometimes sweeteners.
However, when made from 100% apples, with wild yeast and no added sulphites, cider can be a delicious, interesting, complex drink. It can express terroir just like a wine and be a much better choice not only for our own health but also for the health of the environment.
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Why should we be drinking wild fermented cider?
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Much Better for the Environment
Orchards are incredible hotspots for biodiversity, soil health & wildlife and if managed correctly can be massive carbon sinks. However, in the U.K traditional orchards are now considered an endangered habitat.
Our aim is to produce a delicious low impact drink, thatβs not environmentally destructive or chemically dependent that helps us to protect and plant more orchards.
Everything about our process from the orchards themselves, to how we manage them to how we make and package the cider is incredibly low impact and environmentally sensitive - we only have one piece of equipment that requires electricity.
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Delicious, Interesting & Complex
Itβs helpful to think of our cider, more in terms of a wine than a sweet fizzy pint. We serve it in wine bottles, we drink it in wine glasses and itβs more similar in flavour to an orange or skin contact wine.
It has a similar functionality to wine, in that it pairs beautifully with food, but is more affordable than the equivalent English sparkling wine, with a significantly lower ABV - all our ciders are between 6% and 8% ABV.
Our cider is as complex, interesting and varied as wine and can be as expressive of the terroir.
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Much Better for Your Health
Our cider only contains one singular raw ingredient, grown organically (although not certified), fermented with wild, naturally occurring yeast. We never add sulphites as it would kill the wild yeast and massively contributes to a hangover. If you drink alcohol with no added sulphites- preferably a Ripe cider ;) - you should feel a lot better the next day.
Tim Spector (Zoe app) has declared wild fermented cider, as practically a health drink on account of all the polyphenols in it (polyphenols support the growth of good bacteria in your gut).
When food is grown with a focus on the health of the soil, the health of the plants and trees, and the health of the ecosystem around it, it makes sense that it has more flavour and is better for you. #winwin
Naturally Gluten & Sugar Free
ORCHARDS
WHEN MANAGED CORRECTLY ORCHARDS CAN BE BIG CARBON SINKS AND INCREDIBLE HOTSPOTS FOR BIODIVERSITY
Orchards are incredibly biodiverse, they contain so many different habitats; living trees, dead wood, the pasture under the trees, scrub, hedgerow and often a water source. This means they provide habitat to support a vast range of animal, plant, bird, amphibian & insect species. For example; itβs the last stronghold of red-list species like the lesser spotted woodpecker.
Additionally, trees and plants take in carbon dioxide for photosynthesises, this carbon dioxide dissipates through the root system where it is stored in the soil as carbon. Whatβs especially cool about apple trees is that they are a perennial crop, which means once you plant them, they will produce fruit year on year, every year, for up to and beyond 100 years. You therefore donβt need to plough or till the land to replant the crop and because apple trees grow very well in this country they donβt require any chemical additions (no fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, fungicidesβ¦NOTHING).
In contrast, even when youβre growing organic vines you need to spray them with copper sulphate to stop mildew and mould, as vines struggle in the wet.
No ploughing, tilling or chemicals means there is nothing to disturb the carbon cycle - all of the carbon stored in the soil stays in the soil.
For this reason we donβt take any heavy machinery into our orchards, we do everything we can by hand and mob graze a flock of Shropshire sheep to manage the pasture under the trees. Mob grazing is short duration, high density grazing method with a longer than usual recovery period. It increases the carbon sequestration potential of our orchards by encouraging the grass to grow longer and the roots to grow deeper. This means there is more green matter and therefore more photosynthesis taking place. This in turn means more carbon will be sequestered and stored in the soil.
PROCESS
OUR CIDER MAKING PROCESS IS VERY LOW IMPACT & ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE
We hand pick the apples from the orchard floor, as we only want to pick the apples when they have dropped from the tree and are therefore as ripe as possible.
We wash them by hand, checking each one for significant breaks in the skin or bruising.
We then scratt the apples; pips, core and skin - the scratter is essentially a giant blender and the only piece of equipment in our process that requires electricity. We then leave the crushed apples, now called pomace, in big tubs to macerate overnight.
The following morning we press the pomace in a hydro-press, which runs off mains water pressure . The juice is then left to wild ferment in ex-wine oak barrels for a minimum of 10 months.
Our two waste products; spent pomace and tree pruningβs are composted to create a mulch for future trees and orchards we have and will plant. We currently manage 4 traditional orchards and have planted 180 new trees.
We use a gravity-fed bottler and a hand-held labeller. All our packaging materials; glass bottles; lightest weight for environmental consideration and cardboard packaging is recyclable.
