Meet our dedicated production team, who soon will be starting working our harvest season 2019! Part of this year's harvest will consist of cidery tours where you can witness pressing!

Nick, from our Production Team has answered some questions about harvest 2019 so you all can learn about this very exciting time of year!

Who is in the production team and how many harvest seasons have they experienced with Dunkertons Cider? (left to right)

Nick Cooper Season 2

Jack Stokes Season 4

Luc Stokes - First ever Havest season!

Sam Riley - Season 2

How long is harvest season?

Harvest season is 10 to 12 weeks, therefore we only press from late September to December!

How much does a day in production differ in harvest season compared to the rest of the year?

Loads! There are so many extra jobs that need to be done, such as picking and collecting of apples, running the press for up to 8 hours a day, picking up apples off the floor, measuring the juice for sugar, and not to mention the extra mess caused from pressing which needs cleaned daily!

What are you most looking forward to about harvest?

I like best the fact that the place comes alive with activity and dynamism. We get to taste the first apple juice of the year which becomes award winning cider. Also the fact that the work we do in the next three months will decide the quality of our cider for next year.

How does it differ being an organic certified producer in harvest season compared to non organic producer?

Being organic means we treat our fruit differently. We keep detailed notes on which farm it comes from and keep the fruit separated throughout pressing and fermentation so that we can trace each batch of juice to the farm it came from. Traceability is key!

What is a typical day pressing like?

Exciting! It is an extremely busy period for us and the prep starts two months before. On the day of pressing everyone has a role to play. Team work is key because it is even busier when we have the press running as well as the bottling line. 

What is the biggest challenge of pressing season?

Keeping everything and everyone working at 100% happiness and 100% productivity

And finally, what can people expect to see on a harvest 2019 cidery tour?

Everyone attending will get a snapshot of a day in the life of a very busy cidery, they may see apples being delivered, they will see them being processed into juice, if they are lucky they will see Sam in his hi vis onesie dancing around the press!

I REALLY recommend everyone books a place on a harvest tour if they can, seeing how we press our cider is such an exciting and rare opportunity and the production team are so excited to be able to present our hard but rewarding work!

We have a limited number of spaces available for harvest tours and they are already proving to be extremely popular! Get booking!