Little Pomona Old Man & The Bee: an exciting new cider

With the rise and rise of craft beer quality cider has been somewhat eclipsed of late but this beautifully made - and packaged - cider deserves a place on everyone’s dinner table.

It’s made by James and Susanna Forbes of Little Pomona, a new orchard and cidery in Thornbury in Herefordshire and named after the farmer who planted their orchard, Mark Murray (and the bees that pollinate the trees)

James and Susanna (a drinks writer who has been an occasional contributor to this site) produce their ciders in very small quantities (there are just over 1250 bottles of this - probably less by now). It’s a blend of Dabinett, Ellis Bitter, Harry Masters Jersey and Foxwhelp (part of which was barrel aged) from the 2015 harvest and is fermented with wild yeasts.

It has an incredibly deep rich apple flavour and costs around £5 for 50cl which is expensive for cider but cheap for a comparable wine. It’s not ‘cidery’ in the conventional taste - more like a strong, vinous apple drink, made to go with food. (Roast pork immediately comes to mind).

The Forbes take fantastic care over its production. To quote from their website:

"We hand pick and hand select each apple. We age our fruit in small crates until the balance of acid, sugars, tannins and fruit is just right before milling and then pressing. We ferment with natural yeast, and wait until the cider says it’s ready before release. That’s it. No water or sugar additions. No pasteurisation, filtration or artificial carbonation."

You can taste it at Birch in Bristol which has a spectacular cider list and buy it from specialist beer and cider retailers such as Hop Burns & Black and some wine merchants such as Borough Wines in London (see a full list of stockists on the Little Pomona website)

It's simply one of the most distinctive and exciting ciders I’ve tasted.

Wine of the week: Morande One to One Pais

They say that the best wine is the bottle that’s empty at the end of the evening and so it proved with this light Chilean red which I shared with my neighbours the other night.

It’s made by Morandé from the widely planted pais (pronounced pye-eece) which has been disregarded for years but is now being used to make appealingly fresh tasting fruity reds that are just right for a warm summer’s evening.

Like Beaujolais, which it resembles, you can drink it lightly chilled with charcuterie, salads and other picnicky food or even with fish. It would be great with seared tuna for example.

And the best news of all? It’s available in Majestic for a very reasonable £6.99 on their mix six deal.

NB probably not for you if you’re a fan of full-bodied reds as I know many are, even during the summer months but I loved it.

Cider Find: Angry Orchard Crisp Apple Cider

A departure this week - a cider not a wine - and an American cider at that. I tasted it in Oddbins at the end of a wine tasting and was really blown away by it

It comes from Cincinnati Ohio, its called Angry Orchard and proudly trumpets that it’s gluten free (isn’t all cider?).

It’s not like a traditional English cider - I’m pretty sure it’s not made from cider apples but it has a really deep appley flavour. 'Crisp apple' describes it perfectly but don’t think Granny Smith.

Hard cider doesn't mean that it's solid - it's simply what they call cider in the US.

Angry Orchard also has a great website with some nice cocktail and cider pairing suggestions (they match it with cider-braised clams but I think it would be really great with Genevieve Taylor's overnight pulled pork recipe I’ve just posted).

Oddbins is selling it at £2.25 a bottle or 3 for £6. Perfect for this lovely summer weather.

Wine of the week: Domaine d’Escausses, cuvée des Drilles

Although I’m supposed to be the wine expert in the family my husband has an uncanny knack of alighting on exactly the right bottle when we go out to eat, unfailingly plucking the bargain from any wine list.

This week’s triumph, at a late meal at Flinty Red after the BBC Food and Farming Awards in Bristol on Thursday night was a deliciously quaffable Gaillac, Domaine d’Escausses, cuvée des Drilles which was on the wine list at just £23 and went brilliantly with all the random small plates we ordered including a challenging dish of smoked pork belly with a spicy slaw and another of braised squid with polenta.

You can buy it for £9.99 from Corks of Cotham up the road who are joint owners of Flinty Red - a modest mark-up which shows how reasonable their wine prices are. The vintage in the restaurant (2012) appeared to be an earlier one than the 2013 had in the shop though. You can also buy it online from slurp.co.uk for £8.95 and other independents including Bentley’s of Ludlow, The Smiling Grape Company and Theatre of Wine

The cuvée is made from Duras and Fer (the local name for Cabernet Franc) - both indigenous varieties to south-west France and is imported - why am I not surprised? - by Les Caves de Pyrène who describe it as “the sort of red that we need to drink for medicinal quenching purposes.” Quite.

Apologies for the quality of the image and the bespattered label (low light, late night) but at least I remembered to snap it!