Ross On Wye Cider - Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost
In a market stifled by years of inertia, Ross On Wye stands apart by having a product range that’s unique in the truest sense of the word.
How’d you solve a problem like cider? It’s the question routinely asked by those seeking to engage and elevate the drink - so oft associated with the pungent smell of morning-after regret - to higher planes.
In an hour long chat with Albert Johnson, the third-generation cidermaker at Ross on Wye Cider & Perry, doesn’t proclaim to have all the answers. But he’s got a few ideas…
Since returning to Broome Hill Farm to carry on the work of his father Mike and grandfather Kenelm, Albert has set about modernising Ross on Wye. A small, artisan producer, producing around 88,000 litres a year, the company has long been respected for the quality of its bittersweet, wild fermented ciders, but has mostly lived in the shadow of Hereford giants Bulmers and Westons.
“We’d find it quite tricky selling to the pubs, particularly round here,” he says. “We’d be going in and saying - we’re a local cider-maker, and we’re making real good stuff from 100% juice - and they’d go - we’ve already got a local cider, it’s made five miles down the road. So then you end up trying to compete on price, which you’re never going to be able to do with someone who makes 40 million litres a year.”
Instead, Albert has sought to reframe and reposition Ross on Wye to reflect the quality, time and care that goes into every one of the 80 or so ciders and Perries it releases every year. Part of this process has involved introducing larger 750ml wine-style bottles, after Albert was left distraught by the sale of 200 litres of oak cask-fermented cider to a Russian exporter for “around £1.60 a litre”.
“We found this 1000 litre IBC of Dabinett and Michelin that was 18 months old at that time, and it was just blew everything else that we tried on the day out of the water,” he says. “It was so silky, so creamy and delicious, and bagging it up and watching it leave the farm in the lowest value container possible just made me think this is ridiculous”.
Desperate to ensure the rest of the batch was sold at a price point and in a format that reflected the quality of the cider, Albert set about putting the remaining 800 litres into 750ml wine bottles, naming the cider ‘Raison D’Etre’ and putting it up for sale at £10 a bottle, more than 50% more expensive than any other cider or Perry Ross on Wye had previously sold.
“I wanted to make a big statement,” he says. “It was about finding a way to display the value in the product that justified all the work that had gone into it.”
Since then, Ross on Wye has gone on to put a the majority of its ciders into the 750ml format (Mike continues to bottle some single varieties into 500ml bottles under the company’s old branding). One such drink is their single variety Flakey Bark Perry, a Perry so unique that it quite literally couldn’t be made by anyone else, or anywhere else on the planet.
The Flakey Bark variety of Perry, you see, is so rare that it’s thought there are just six mature trees producing the fruit in the world. These trees sit atop of May Hill, just a stones throw from Broome Hill Farm. Incredibly astringent to the point of being inedible, these rare pears are known for making deeply expressive and complex Perries. Ross on Wye have been using them for a little over ten years, whenever they’ve been able to get their hands on them. The 2017 vintage of Flakey Bark SVP, however, was very nearly Ross on Wye’s last. “There weren’t enough fruits in 2018 to make it,” Albert says, “and then in 2019 the elderly couple who owned the land on which these Flakey Bark Perry trees grew moved away. We didn’t hear anything from the people who moved in initially, and so we weren’t sure if we’d ever be able to make this Perry again”.
“One day, our friend Pat at Jolter Press (cidery) received a call from them offering them these Perries, which they’d been told made amazing Perry. And Pat said, "They’re not the Flakey Bark Pears are they?”, to which they said “Yes, we think they are!” And of course, Pat said to them “Well, I’d love to have them, but I can’t. You have to sell them to Ross because they’re the ones that make the Flakey Bark. So then he rang me, and I rang them and we’ve got it all sorted out.”
With the 2020 vintage of Flakey Bark not likely to see the light of day until 2022, however, the 2017 batch remains your best chance to sample this expressive and unique Perry Pear. Deep, golden yellow in colour, with a light natural carbonation, it’s not like any other Perry I’ve ever drunk.
Delicate lemon and funk on the nose give way to a pronounced astringency and a dry, silky finish. If you don’t like tannin, this won’t be for you, but if you do - fortunately I do - you’re in for a treat.
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James Beeson is an award-winning beer writer and photographer. To see more of his work, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
