Last year delivered one of the strongest apple harvests Cranborne Chase Cider has seen in recent memory. Across the orchards of the Chase, the fruit ripened beautifully through the season, producing apples with high natural sugars, bright acidity, and exceptional flavour clarity. The quality of the juice pressed this year has stood out immediately, with depth, freshness, and structure that only comes from a strong harvest and carefully managed orchards.
Bill only finished pressing the final apples last week, bringing another demanding harvest season to a close. The scale of work behind the scenes is enormous, but the results speak for themselves. We were fortunate enough to collect 440 litres of their fresh pressed apple juice, equivalent to roughly 7,500 apples. It is an incredibly generous contribution and one that directly shapes the next stage of our Orchard Spirits Range.
The juice now forms the backbone of two important new releases from Downton Distillery. The first is our developing Pommeau, combining orchard richness with spirit and time to create something deeply rooted in the West Country tradition of apples and cider making. The second is a new Great Bustard Autumnal expression, designed to capture the changing character of the landscape as summer gives way to autumn.
Alongside the apples comes another remarkable local ingredient. The quince used within the Autumnal release was supplied by Martin Nye, the current High Sheriff of Wiltshire. The quince brings a fragrant richness and gentle floral sharpness that works beautifully against the fresh apple juice and warming spice profile within the spirit.
Projects like these matter because they celebrate genuine local provenance. They connect growers, producers, orchards, and landscape together in the glass, whilst ensuring that the harvest itself remains at the centre of the story.
