A visit to Land's End farm, to see Roger Wilkins

 
 
 
You can now buy Roger's ciders on our site
 
 
The Sunday morning started with a sharp frost as we set out from Bristol to travel to Mudgley in Somerset. By the time we got there, the mists had cleared and it was a beautiful sunny day.
 
We arrived to find the busiest cider house I had ever visited. About a dozen or more people were sitting or standing around drinking cider, and eating cheese and crackers. There seemed to be no rush on any of these people, until, that was, Roger was spied, darting in and out of the farmhouse, getting bits of cheese from the fridge to sell to people, pouring flagons of cider, and generally making sure everyone was fully attended to. Apart from Roger, nobody else rushed.
 
People sauntered up to the barrels to draw their own half pint tasters. Several people went back for more; this was encouraged by Roger who certainly didn't seem to have time to pour his customers' tasters himself!
 
We were there for around 90 minutes, during which time around 30 people passed through the barn, buying cheese, eggs, vegetables, chutneys and of course, cider. As it quietened down towards his closing time of about 1pm, we managed to corner him for a chat. We were surprised by the number of famous celebrities who were fans of his cider.
 
"This 'eres from Q magazine, an interview with Joe Strummer where 'e talks about my cider," he said proudly, showing us an old cutting pinned to a door, and, pointing to a picture above the barrels, where John Lydon posed next to Wilkins, "and that's Johnny Rotten. David Gilmour's been in here, and Chris Jagger, Mick's brother, lives down the road."
 
All you have to do is sample Roger's cider to taste the extraordinary quality of an artisan product, produced the same way for 40 years. "I do everything by taste, I don't measure anything unless I have to," he said, producing a small device that looked like a miniature telescope and putting a small sample of cider into it. "This is Customs and Excise approved," he said, "I don't really know what strength this cider is but I'll test it for you now". It came to about 6.9%, a very good strength indeed for a Somerset cider.
 
Roger's no stranger to the bag-in-box system CiderPunk.com supply, either, and he's even made his own jig to fill the bags with. I've watched him use it and it makes it easy for him to exclude all the air, and thus keep the cider fresh for 2-3 months. He always measures it out in 5 litre jugs, as when he first used the bags in boxes, he simply filled the bags from the barrel, and then couldn't fit them in the boxes! Nonetheless, it being Roger, don't be surprised if your box is bulging a little when it arrives.
 
We are launching Roger Wilkins' cider here on CiderPunk.com at the start of 2009.
 

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