Nice Orchard Blog

We like to litter our blog with as many pretty pictures of orchards as possible. Why wouldn't we? Orchards are at the very heart of what we do. They're beautiful places to spend time in whatever the season, and of course we couldn't make cider and perry without them.

Orchards are also incredibly fragile places, often neglected, and of little commercial value to their owners. You only have to take note of the many 'Orchard Closes', and 'The Old Orchard' housing developments to see what we've already lost of this precious heritage.

By writing about orchards, and also by providing a market for the fruit through our cidermaking, I hope we're doing a little bit to help preserve some of this orchard heritage. A more hands-on approach is being taken by Henry Johnson, who is busy restoring a couple of old Bramley and Plum orchards in Gloucestershire. He writes far more eloquently on the subject than we do on his excellent Charingworth Orchard Trust blog, and the pictures are much more impressive than ours too!

Orchard Rambling

We've had a great day at the orchard in Worcestershire today. Orchard owner John very kindly helped out for an hour or so in the morning, and we managed to bag-up maybe a quarter of a ton of Blakeney Red perry pears. It was pretty hard going, but very satisfying working in such a tranquil environment.

I say tranquil, but the RAF fly very low round these parts! Other than that it was the resident Woodpeckers a-rattling, Pheasants crah-crah-ing, and the distinctive cry of a Buzzard circling overhead. I tried to video the Buzzard, but by the time I'd wound the camera up, it had gone. Instead I did a really bad video blog, which you can view below. Rest assured, I'll be quicker and catch the Buzzard next time...

Perry Pears - Raising a Stink

Perry Pears are unusual things. Small, hard, sometimes very quick to rot, and absolutely horrible to taste when eaten raw.

The unpleasant taste is the result of very high tannin levels in perry pears, sometimes so high that the fruit needs to be milled a few days before pressing to help the tannins 'soften' through oxidisation (known as Maceration). Of course it's the tannins which make perry such a fine drink, and the reason why 'ordinary' dessert pears are not nearly so good for perry making.

The perry pears we pressed a couple of weeks ago were pretty tannic, though not so high that they needed to be 'macerated' to reduce the tannin. These Moorcroft pears are renowned for producing an excellent perry, though it's a difficult pear to make perry from owing to the very short time between ripening and the fruit rotting. In common with many varieties of perry pear and cider apple, Moorcroft pears go by several names depending on where they're grown. When grown in Worcestershire they tend to go by the name Malvern Hills or Malvern Pear for obvious reasons. Choke Pear is another name which perhaps reflects the tannic nature of this variety of perry pear.

Another less common name which has come to greater prominence in recent years, is Stinking Bishop, also the name of a highly regarded artisan cheese made by Charles Martell in Gloucestershire. If you've ever come across this rare soft cheese, you'll know the reason for it's unusual name. During the ripening period, the individual cheeses are regularly washed in perry made from the Stinking Bishop pear. This gives the cheese a unique 'sweaty socks' aroma which certainly lives up to it's unusual name. On the face of it, perhaps not a great advert for Moorcroft Perry, but strangely enough the perry itself is light, floral, and perhaps one of the finest you're likely to come across. So whither the pong?

The quantity of Moorcroft pears we pressed was not that great, and the resulting dry pomace was only sufficient to fill two small sacks. We normally send our pomace off to Keythorpe Rare Breeds as feed for their lucky free-range pigs, but this batch was a little too small for the journey and therefore sat for a few days outside waiting to be disposed of with the green waste. After a couple of days in the sun, the Stinking Bishop moniker started to become all too clear. The smell was overpowering, even the vinegar flys were avoiding the sacks. I dread to think what the bin-men were thinking when they emptied our green bin this week!

We're off to Worcestershire again this weekend in search of Blakeney Red perry pears. Another great pear variety, with the potential to make really excellent perry, though formerly used to dye soldiers uniforms Khaki.... Hmm!.... At least it won't smell so bad.

Apple Day 2009

Apple Day, the annual celebration of Apples, Orchards, and of course Cider and Perry, is almost upon us. Although centred around the 21st of October, some Apple Day events have already taken place, and there are many more to come throughout October.

A listing of Apple Day events can be found on the Common Ground Website, though even this extensive listing is not likely to be complete. This year we'll not only be visiting one of the events, but also taking part by offering samples and sales of our cider at Brocks Hill Country Park in Oadby, Leicestershire (11th October, 11-4pm). This will be our last event of the season, given that we have now virtually sold out of cider.

We've written about Brocks Hill before on this blog, in particular the wonderful Community Orchard which forms a centre point to the extensive parklands. Presumably, many of the trees will still be in fruit, which is something I look forward to exploring on the day.

We hope to have a small display of cider and perry fruit, and some nice images to help explain the cidermaking process right through from orchard to glass. We'll also have a small selection of our friend Diana Fegredo's lovely fruit themed cards for sale, an example of which is shown here. Look out too for Nigel Deacon and Mel Wilson of the Leicestershire Heritage Apple Project, who will be there to explain about rare local apples and why we need to conserve them.

Grape Expectations

Evidence that 2009 may turn out to be a 'Vintage' year for fruit continues to grow. We've already seen exceptional sugar levels in the perry pears we pressed a couple of weeks ago, and heard of similarly high levels in fruit pressed elsewhere in the East Midlands.

Last year we made wine for the first time from our three vines, but the cool, wet 2008 season produced a less than vintage crop of grapes. Sugar levels were pretty low, and we were forced to add quite a bit of sugar to the juice to help achieve the alcohol levels required for a wine which would keep well.

This years crop is slightly smaller than the bumper 2008 harvest, not helped by the problems we had earlier in the year with Wasps. Most of the crop has come from the slightly later ripening Regent variety, the Rondo being particularly badly hit by Wasp damage. But whilst yields are certainly down, the good news is that the all important sugar levels are proving to be much higher. This years grape juice is showing a specific gravity of 1080, and should only need a small addition of sugar to help boost the finished alcohol level to the 12% required for red wine.

We'll be harvesting cider apples, perry pears and local fruit over the next few weeks, and I'm really looking forward to dipping my hydrometer into some more juice as the pressing season continues. After the last few poor Summers, we're long overdue a truly 'Vintage' season for our ciders and perrys, and the signs are looking good that this year could be a very good one indeed.