Made by: Little Pomona Orchard and Cidery

Made in: Herefordshire

Style: Medium Dry to Dry

ABV: 7.7%

Carbonation: Sparkling

Bought: Good Spirits Co. Wine & Beer, Glasgow

Price: £9.00 (750ml bottle)

Producer’s website: Little Pomona

Herefordshire-based Little Pomona are among the more celebrated members of the real cider fraternity and their various ciders are much sought after by those that know their apples. Set up in late 2014 on a small five-acre piece of land in northern Herefordshire, Little Pomona Orchard & Cidery is the creation of Susanna and James Forbes.

As an aside, Susanna can lay claim to having written one of the most lyrical, pretty, informative and inspiring books about cider you’re ever likely to read, The Cider Insider. Well worth getting hold of a copy if you don’t already have one.

Little Pomona is named after the Roman goddess of fruit trees and the orchard and Susanna and James are committed to a wholly natural approach to cider making. Every apple is hand selected and hand picked, the fruit is aged in small crates for as long as it takes and all fermentation is wild. No added water or sugar, no pasteurisation, no filtration and no artificial carbonation.

Despite this deep commitment to old-fashioned ‘proper’ methods, Little Pomona has built a name for itself by not being afraid to push a few boundaries and choose a few of the roads less travelled on the path to cider nirvana. Hanging out with Tom Oliver can do that to you.

This 2017 vintage sparking cider is a good example of that approach. It’s a cryo-conditioned cider which basically works as follows: the base cider is made the standard way and is wild fermented until dry in barrels. The apples used are Michelin, Dabinett and Médaille d’Or apples, all picked from local farmer Harvey Roper’s orchards.

Meanwhile, a small batch of apples is frozen and pressed to extract very small amounts of super sweet juice (which apparently ferments “uber slowly”). While still fermenting, this sweet juice is added to the dry stuff and the lot is bottled, kickstarting a secondary fermentation in the bottle. This delivers a tiny bit of sweetness and a natural fizz.

That’s a lot of love and soul to cram into a wee bottle of cider.

TASTING NOTES, AFTER A FASHION:

It pours with a big fizzy head which quickly exits stage left, leaving an attractive rich orangey yellow liquid that is cloudy to the point of being opaque.

On the nose and straight out of the bottle it’s those frozen apples that are the first thing to hit you with a huge waft of luscious sweet, sweet apple and something even sweeter, possibly pineapple. It smells more like freshly pressed apple juice than cider and it has notes of those pineapple cube sweets you used to get as a kid.

The aroma led you down a certain path then, but the first thing that registers in the mouth is the surprising dryness. It’s just not what I expected after that super sweet nose – but it’s one of those unexpected twists in the plot that puts a silly smirk on your face. Then there’s the fruit. It’s in there but it’s more like peaches or apricots than apples. How is that possible when it absolutely reeks of apple juice? It’s also exquisitely clean and crisp with a lovely tannic grip that keeps it enormously engaging right the way through from first sip to the persistent finish.

It has some herbal notes in there too and a little backbone of spice though for the life of me I can’t place exactly what. White peppercorns? Turmeric, even?

It’s those very fine tannins that help make this cider so special. They structure and pace everything so well and culminate in a finish that is oddly delicate, teasingly perfumed and oh so very long.

5️⃣/5️⃣