RIPE, WILD FERMENTED CIDER

We (Georgie & Cameron) make full juice, wild fermented cider in Cornwall following the same principles as natural wine. It's just apples and naturally occurring yeast, hand-picked, hand washed and fermented in ex wine barrels.

Our method of production involves minimum intervention requiring no chemical additions and minimal energy inputs. It means working with the seasons and their natural temperature fluctuations, having a long slow fermentation to create complex flavours and aromas.

Leaving behind our lives in London but bringing our experience - Cameron as Head Brewer at Brixton Brewery and Georgie in sustainability recruitment, we discovered the benefit orchards have on a healthy ecosystem and their importance in building resilience against climate change. This led to combining our passion for protecting essential, yet now endangered orchards, with our expertise to create a delicious low impact drink.

Why drink Wild fermented Cider?

Delicious, complex alternative to wine, more affordable than equivalent English wine, lower ABV

No added sulphites – if you just drink our cider you will feel MUCH better the next day

Tim Spector, Zoe app; β€œif made in the right way, cider is practically a health drink”

Orchards are incredible hotspots for biodiversity, soil health, wildlife and if managed correctly can be massive carbon sinks

The cider making process is incredibly low impact and environmentally sensitive – we don’t use any chemicals and we only use one piece of equipment in our process that requires electricity

All our packaging materials are recyclable and all our waste products are composted and reused in our closed loop system

Gluten Free, no added or residual sugar – great for diabetics

Context:

In the U.K, legally, cider only needs to contain 35% apple concentrate. Unfortunately, the other 65% is sugar, water, sulphites, sweeteners and packet yeast, which makes cider a somewhat misunderstood drink.

In contrast, a bottle of Ripe cider, contains around 10 apples and absolutely NOTHING else.

We don’t add any yeast as we wild ferment our ciders, meaning we rely on the naturally occurring yeast on the apples to kick start our fermentation.

We don’t add sulphites because this would kill the wild yeast, it’s also what contributes to a hangover. Therefore, if you just drink our cider, you should feel much better the next day.

We allow all the sugar to ferment into alcohol in our long slow ageing and fermentation process – 11 months in ex wine oak barrels and 1-2 years in the bottle.  

Delicious alternative to wine:

It’s more helpful to think of our cider in terms of a wine than a sweet fizzy pint; we serve it in wine bottles, we drink it in wine glasses and it’s more similar in flavour profile 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. It is as complex, interesting and varied as wine and as expressive of the terroir.

 Better for your health:

Tim Spector has declared wild fermented cider, as practically a health drink on account of all the polyphenols in it which support the growth of good bacteria in your gut.

Additionally, it is, one singular raw ingredient, grown organically (although not yet certified) with absolutely nothing added.

It’s wild fermented meaning it contains naturally occurring yeast and bacteria as opposed to yeast from a packet. We allow all the sugar to ferment into alcohol in our long slow ageing and fermentation process – 11 months in ex wine oak barrels and 1-2 years in the bottle. It is therefore a great choice for diabetics and celiacs as it is naturally sugar and gluten free.

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

Better for the planet:

Everything about our cider from the orchards themselves, to the way we manage them, to the way we make and package the cider is extremely low impact and environmentally sensitive.

Orchards are incredible hotspots for biodiversity, soil health, wildlife and if managed correctly can be massive carbon sinks, all hugely important in building resilience against climate change. However unfortunately in the U.K traditional orchards are now endangered. Our aim is to produce a delicious low impact drink, that’s not environmentally destructive or chemically dependent that helps us to protect and plant more orchards.

  • Delicious low impact ciders

  • Hand picked apples from unsprayed orchards

  • Wild fermented and barrel aged

  • Bottled by hand in St. Veep, Cornwall

  • 100% juice, no added sulphites, no added sugar

Why are Orchards so great?  

There are many challenges with growing food in a monoculture. However, orchards are the polar opposite of a monoculture - you have living trees, dead wood, the pasture under the trees, scrub, hedgerow and often a water source, meaning they provide habitat to a vast range of species; animal, plant, bird, amphibian, insect etc. For example; it’s the last stronghold of red list species like the lesser spotted woodpecker. 

Additionally, as many people know, trees and plants take in carbon dioxide for photosynthesises, the carbon dioxide dissipates through the root system where it is stored in the soil as carbon. What’s especially cool about apple trees is that they are a perennial crop, which means one you plant them, they will produce fruit year on year, every year, for up to and beyond 100 years. You therefore don’t need to plough or till the land to replant the crop and because apple trees grow very well in this country they don’t require any chemical additions (no fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides…NOTHING). In contrast, even when you’re growing organic vines you need to spray them with copper sulphite 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 don’t 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 dioxide being taken in and more carbon being stored in the soil.  

Process:

Our making and packaging process is very low impact; we collect the apples by hand from the orchard floor, as opposed to with diesel machinery. This is because we only want to pick the apples when they have dropped from the tree and are as ripe as possible. We wash them by hand, scratt them in a giant blender (which does require electricity) then  use a hydro-press (runs of mains water) to turn the crushed apples into apple juice. The juice is then left to wild ferment in ex wine oak barrels.

We use a gravity fed bottler and a hand-held labeller. All packaging materials; glass bottles (lightest weight for environmental consideration) and cardboard packaging are recyclable.

Out two waste products; spent pomace and tree pruning’s are composted together to create a mulch for future trees and orchards we plan to plant.

Our wild fermented cider is a delicious, complex alternative to wine, a much better choice for the health of the plant and a much better choice for your health