Fantastic news this month as we’ve just heard we won a Great Taste two-gold-star award for our 2016 Dabinett Medium black-label bottled cider. This comes hot on the heels of a bronze for our Yarlington Mill Medium-Dry red-label cider at the International Cider Challenge, so we are absolutely thrilled.
Great Taste Awards
The Great Taste awards are probably the UK’s foremost food and drink competition, and to win two gold stars means that our cider has been in front of a panel of 25 experts who have unanimously decided it to be ‘exquisite’.
For those of you interested in such things, we get sent some feedback from a selection of the judging tables. It said:
Table 5: Wonderful dry cider apple aroma. Not too dry on the palate but not overly sweet, clean. Quaffable with gentle tannin and slight carbonation.
Table 99: A classic dryness, the Dabinett apple shines through and the finish is fresh and fruity – with good length.
Keep your eyes apple-peeled!
We had our new delivery van wrapped – and very nice it looks too. Please do keep a look out for it, you never know where it might turn up.
This month it’s been spotted in Devon, Cornwall and Glamorgan, as well as places closer to home.
Out and about
In other news we have been here, there and everywhere over the last month. We had a very successful Cardiff International Food Festival down by the bay, and we have just returned from our first Big Cheese festival in Caerphilly. Our cider has been very well represented at the National Eisteddfod in Abergavenny courtesy of excellent Newport based bar operators the Stedman Bros. It also managed to make it into a talk on cider courtesy of a well-known Welsh food and drink blogger, Sian Roberts.
We’re having our first cider-related event at the farm this Saturday 6 August: a sausage and cider themed open-mic night (or is that open-mic themed sausage and cider night?!). The feedback on the shop since we opened has been fantastic, with some really outstanding Trip Advisor reviews.
And a warm welcome to…
New customers on board recently include The Bay Horse Inn in Totnes, who took several bag-in-boxes for their cider festival this month; Fetch the Drinks, a Dorset based distributor specialising in fine beers and ciders; #7 Church Street a fabulous restaurant with rooms in Monmouth; and Hereford’s hippest new bar, Firefly on King Street.
Please remember that August is traditionally the busiest month of the year for cider sales. So don’t delay, get your order in today!
See you at the cider bar!
Alex Culpin,
Cider & Melody Maker
Ty Gwyn Cider Limited