Should cider be classed alongside the finest wines and spirits?

It’s hoped that cider, a true West Country favourite, could one day sit alongside the very finest drinks in the world.

Promoter and supplier ‘Cider is Wine’ says there is a rising number of producers across the world who are using wine techniques to make cider. It hopes more people will appreciate the quality of the drink in the future.

One cider-maker trying to change the reputation of the drink is based at hotel and estate The Newt in Somerset, near Castle Cary.

It has been selling its products for 18 months. Cellar master Greg Carnell says his team have been using Austrian wine-making cold and slow processes to make their ‘cyder’.

He said: “It’s not the only way to make cider - there’s lots of lovely, traditional methods still being used around Somerset - but it’s just about trying to take it as high quality as we can, taking it back to that English gentleman’s drink of 1750 when cider was actually drunk at the English gentleman’s table instead of wine.

“That’s why we spell our cider with a ‘Y’ because that’s how it was spelled back in 1750.

The apple has produced the West Country’s favourite tipple for hundreds of years and now fans like Alistair Morrell hope it’ll be appreciated far and wide.

He founded Cider is Wine and wants to see it sitting alongside the very finest drinks. Alistair said: “Cider always gets lumped with beer, inappropriately, in my view.

“Cider, actually is much more like wine - whether we’re talking about fermentation, it’s fermented, it’s never brewed.

“There are new waves of cider-producers who want to produce ciders in a genuine, artisanal, authentic way to produce it as a drink that can be appreciated and should be appreciated at a very high level.”

The hope is that people who may never have considered cider as an option might be tempted in the future.

Greg Carnell, from The Newt in Somerset, said: “We get a lot of the time where the guests go away and they were non-believers in cider when they came here. Pretty much nine times out of ten they go away thinking ‘wow, we didn’t know cider could taste like that’.

“Our aim really is to share our passion and celebrate the apple and just getting a new perspective and a perceived value of what cider really should be going forward from now.”

The much-loved and respected cider-makers of the West Country all have their own special methods. No matter how it’s produced - they all want to see it get the respect it deserves.