There are exciting – and innovative – things happening at Dunkertons Park, near Cheltenham. Weaned-on-cider editor Candia McKormack goes along to sample the many delights on offer
‘You have no idea,’ says Dunkerton Cider’s managing director Jeremy ‘Bean’ Benson as he shows me around the cavernous cidery, ‘when you’re outside having a drink, just how big this place is.’
It is enormous – there’s no doubt about that – but what’s important now, as it has always been to the Dunkertons’ brand, is that it stays true to its very exacting standards and principles.
‘It’s a very small team,’ continues Bean, ‘only three or four guys in production... and about 1.8 million litres in here by the end of harvest.’
Never have so few men and women produced so much cider (or however the saying goes).
Dunkertons Cider came into being in 1980 when Ivor Dunkerton – then an award-winning BBC producer and director – moved to a smallholding in Herefordshire with wife Susie and sons Martin and Julian. Once he had handed in his resignation to the BBC, Ivor managed to track down an abandoned hydraulic apple press – unmoved since 1940 – and paid the princely sum of £100 for it. He and Susie then set about planting cider apple and perry pear varieties on strictly organic principles, becoming the first cider company whose total production was to Soil Association standards. And, by the early 2000s, they were producing an average of 40,000 gallons of cider a year and winning many Camra awards.
Fast-forward 38 years when, in 2018, Julian Dunkerton – co-founder of multi-million-pound super-cool enterprise Superdry – moved the production side of the business over the border into Gloucestershire, setting up a new cidery and shop near Dowdeswell Reservoir, Charlton Kings.
‘There are 30 single varieties in here,’ continues Bean, as we walk the dystopian city of towering vats. ‘We press all of our apples into single varieties, keeping five before blending the others. The blend I did today has 14 different single varieties in it.’
Of course, those blends are tweaked each year, dependent on the vagaries of the harvest.
‘A Dabinett this year will taste very different to one last year, and so it takes us about four days to make a blend... we’ll spend a couple of hours on it, get a bit drunk and realise our taste-buds are buggered and have to come back to it the next day,’ he smiles... and I wonder if it’s time for a career change.
‘I spent two years with Ivor [before he sadly passed away in 2016],’ he says. ‘I’d go off to Herefordshire on a Sunday morning, have a couple of hours on the vat with him, drinking eight-to-ten percent cider. We’d then go and have lunch with Susie – she’d have made some bread and pickles, or whatever – and then we’d sit down and watch a Western together. I did that for two years, trying to learn about the Dunkerton way.’
It hardly needs stating that Dunkerton’s is very different to the likes of Thatchers, Westons, et al, which generally use two types of apple – Dabinett and Michelin – as they have to produce such huge volumes.
‘When our ciders have finished fermenting – four or five months after we’ve pressed them – we try and keep them for another six months before blending. And so, they’ve been around for ten months or so, developing body and maturing.
‘We’re still the only wholly organic cider producer,’ continues Bean, ‘so, they [Ivor and Susie] were pioneers back then. It was never a commercial thing with them; they just loved being organic, so that’s how it carried on.’
All of the apples that go into making Dunkertons cider are from Herefordshire, and Susie still owns the 40-acre Dunkertons orchard. There are an additional 12 organic farmers growing fruit to meet demand, and they’re now in discussions with Daylesford – who have been organic for 30 years.
On top of Dunkertsons’ five single-variety ciders and six blended ciders and perries, there are plenty more ideas being looked at.
‘We want to do some more single varieties,’ continues Bean, ‘and I’m also looking to produce a table cider.’
Tate Modern – which already stocks Dunkertons cider in its restaurant – has expressed an interest in a weaker cider (around 3.8-4%), attractively bottled (with a cork rather than crown cap) for its menu. Susie has also just produced around 8,000 litres of a variety called ‘Dunkertons Late’ from around 20 trees in Hereford, and so she and Bean are aiming to produce a cider from that, in memory of her late husband Ivor.
Alongside the exciting developments in the cidery, there are plenty of changes afoot on the rest of the Dowdeswell site. Visitors to the shop over the last few years have been able to pick up some of the exceptional bread made by Raoul Dyevre while stocking up on cider. Raoul’s baking has proved such a hit, he now has his own French bakery store within the shop – La Boulangerie Artisan – selling baguettes, croissants, pastries and cakes, all freshly made on the premises. And Cotswolds family-run butcher Waghornes has also moved into the space – collectively now known as ‘The Farm Shop at Dunkertons’ – with their reputation for high-welfare, farm-reared meat and game. They’re also selling high-quality deli products, too, so if there’s anything foodwise you can’t get from Dunkertons, La Boulangerie or Waghornes, then you can be pretty sure to have most of your other needs met by the in-store Daylesford Organic range there.
As well as the changes within The Farm Shop, plenty more innovations are happening at Dunkertons. A huge cinema screen has been installed in their main marquee for arthouse and other film evenings, plus there are DJ sets, comedy and quiz nights, seasonal markets, cidery tours and masterclasses, all on the Dowdeswell site.
Whether visiting on a summer’s day or a winter’s evening, the place is buzzing – with both inside and outside bars, firepits, food wagons and plenty of seating. Get the timing right, and you can also enjoy food from Ronnie’s (Ronnie Bonetti is executive chef at Julian Dunkerton-owned No.131 and YOKU restaurant on Cheltenham’s Promenade), Sourdough Pizza Co., and Bombay Street Food Company (a collaboration with nearby Koloshi).
And, of course, right next door to the Farm Shop is the Holland Cooper flagship boutique, the Cotswold lifestyle brand that has become synonymous with tailored elegance. Jade Holland Cooper, who founded the brand in 2008, is married to Julian Dunkerton, and is a significant collaborator on many of his projects.
‘We’re really excited and thrilled with the outcome,’ she says of Dunkerton Park and the Farm Shop. ‘We’re delivering food shopping in a totally different way – with lovely artisan, curated products, shopped in an old-fashioned way, all under one roof.
‘This is how so many people want to shop, but often aren’t able to,’ she continues, ‘because of time and having to park in so many different locations, and so end up going to a supermarket, which is such a shame. What we’ve tried to do is say, “Right, we can bring the best produce to you – all under one roof – you can easily park, you can get your coffee, you can get your freshly-made bread...” and it's becoming a bit of a community, which is lovely. Food shopping should be an enjoyable thing to do.
‘People want to know where their produce has come from, and how to cook a particular cut of meat, and a butcher will deliver all those things for you. Our cider is made on site, the bread is made on site, the veg is local – Daylesford is local – so it really is the best local produce, all under one roof.
‘Our way of doing things is that we want to always have that element of, “Oh, this is different to how I expected it to be... in a very, very good way.” We want to make things experiential and memorable.’
Jade’s boutique is becoming a phenomenon in its own right, with visitors arriving from all over the world.
‘We are really about investing back into this area,’ she continues. ‘We love the Cotswolds and are not going to move any time soon, so it’s lovely to be able to curate things that are on our doorstep.’
It’s incredibly important to both Julian and Jade that they don’t rush to expand the offerings available at Dowdeswell; what’s essential is that everything is carefully overseen by them, and that they only work with local businesses that fit with their ethos.
‘If you sit and try to imagine developing the whole site in one go,’ says Julian, ‘you’re going to get it wrong. Incrementally, we’re allowing the public to show us what they want, and then it morphs into something that is rather wonderful.
‘I feel a real need for a place where you can come and get fresh food. Sadly, the High Street is dying, and supermarkets are limited in their offerings, so what we’ve tried to do here is curate an old-fashioned high street within a building. We’ve brought together great people and businesses, such as La Boulangerie Artisan and Waghornes Butcher, to come in here and sit alongside Daylesford – who are national heroes in organic food – and really create something special.’
The Farm Shop at Dunkertons, Dowdeswell Park, London Road, Cheltenham, GL52 6UT. Tel: 01242 650147, dunkertonscider.co.uk
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