Adam Wells - Cider Review

“I’m in Kingsbury Episcopi for the terroir. There are three established honeypot cider apple sites in England, according to research from the now-defunct Long Ashton Centre. All are in Somerset and the bowl of Kingsbury Episcopi is one of them. Julian and Matilda and the team at Burrow Hill can ameliorate and buttress and innovate and sculpt, but terroir is what makes this cider pulse and tick. Every bottle has an orchard of origin. Every vintage has a new story of hot summers, freezing snaps, torrential downpour, thunder, lightning and invasive mistletoe. 

Somerset Cider Brandy doesn’t have the same wonkish, obsessive discipleship as single malt; it isn’t subject to the same online nerdiness and clamouring. It is, for now, whatever its makers want it to be. And of course, indisputably, it is the best in its class.

The maturation room, arrived at next, is a bewildering oak-hoard. A ramshackle cask medley. A barrel-nerd’s challenge. Name that vessel. Foudres and hogsheads, pipes and butts, puncheons and barriques. And, yes, barrels themselves. “We just fill whatever there is,” shrugs Laura. A splintered boat hangs from the rafters. I wouldn’t bat an eyelid if it was full of cider too. “What’s that for?” asks a bespectacled man at the front. “In case it floods,” replies Laura.”