This is your essential six-pack for the festive season.
Begin Christmas as you mean to go on, with an aperitif to remember with the incredible Brut Rosé. Beautifully aromatic, with sweet violet flowers, Turkish Delight and almond blossom billowing from the glass. In the mouth it’s bright and fresh with a soft, creamy feel and complex flavours of ripe pear, blueberry, sweet plums and their stones, all intermingling with rose petal perfume.
Then, for your starter we have Ripple our Chablis-esque still Egremont Ruesset pouring with lots of white peach, melon rind, anise and crystalised lemon peel with a sweet floral perfume running through it from beginning to end. With turkey and trimmings share the versatile Kingston Black Dragon Orchard Pet Nat which is full of crunchy yellow apples, caramelised peaches, baking spice and runny honey all framed by apricot fuzz tannins.
Still Life With Quince is perhaps the most aromatic cider we'e ever made and is a still blend of both barrel-aged cider and quince wine. As you pop off the cap, tropical flowers and the sweet, woody scent of incense and spice and rose oil appear to fill the air. To drink, it’s pure, juicy tropical fruit – think mango, tangerine and pineapple – interlaced with floral perfume, sweet barrel notes, and succulent, ripe citrus. It is absolutely the perfect partner for soft, creamy cheeses.
New Year's Eve is all about the sparkle so we've gone all perry. Our Pét Nat Perry Hendre Huffcap 2023 is a real study in yuzu, translucent, hazy lemon in the glass, the smell of ripe pears, honey and hay tumble out of the bottle. In the mouth it's all super creamy, concentrated pear fruit to begin with before a gorgeous streak of electric acidity emerges.
For New Year's Day we've gone for a real gastronomic cider, our Art of Darkness 2021. Sunshine on straw in the glass, there’s a characteristic hint of damp cave on the nose with a big weight of ripe stone buried underneath – all apricot and peach fuzz – along with spice and perfume. In the mouth it balances barrel influence and plum and apricot juiciness with beautiful freshness and silky texture.