Mornington Peninsula Cider
Many Ciders these days are made from eating apples & are artificially carbonated. Here at Hart’s Farm, we wanted to make cider incorporating the Paddock to Plate principle – using traditional techniques, but with modern equipment.
Our Apple Cider is produced from both heritage apples from our farm and selected varieties from friends’ orchards in the Red Hill vicinity. These heritage apples have a range of tannic and sharp flavours giving a complex, but well-balanced, fruit structure.
About our harvest and fermentation process
We harvest the apples starting in late February with the later varieties in April. The apples are the crushed on site after each harvest using a continuous belt press & the resulting juice is pumped into stainless steel tanks.
The cider undergoes Primary fermentation in stainless steel tanks & is then aged in French Oak Barrels followed by final blending and bottling with additional apple juice and yeast. This secondary bottle fermentation naturally carbonates the cider, with residual fruit sugars providing balance. Natural sediment (lees) forms in the bottles from the secondary yeast, which gives our ciders added complexity. When the bottled cider has reached the right amount of carbonation, we pasteurise the bottles in milk vats filled with heated water, followed by labelling and packing.
The flavour of the finished cider does vary slightly from year to year and batch to batch depending on available fruit and seasonal characteristics.
