Welsh Mountain Cider is a family run Ciderworks, apple and pear orchard, tree nursery and smallholding in the Cambrian Mountains of Mid-Wales, UK.
Chava and Bill have worked together for the last 14 years turning a 1115 feet high, six acre plot into Britain's highest altitude Ciderworks, fruit tree nursery and museum orchard. In this time Chava and Bill have planted trees, grafted and sent out hundreds of acres of new orchards, made thousands of litres of amazing cider, grown food, made music and art and brought two delightful girls into the world.
As well as championing natural cider making (100% fresh pressed apples with indigenous yeasts and no additives), they have been trialling over 450 types of apple and pear on the high altitude site, and making a living off the land. The project is developing a model of small scale agriculture, independent of subsidies, on marginal land, and promoting natural cider and minimum intervention orcharding.
Chava hails from wine country in Sonoma County, California. She is a musician, artist and horticulturalist as well as orchardista and cider maker extraordinare. After studying agroecology and fine art at UCSC, she travelled to the UK to volunteer on farms to gain experience with farming and cider making. It was during these travels that she met Bill, fell in love and joined the project at Prospect Orchard. Being truly of resourceful, creative and dauntless “Wild Western” stock, she took on many roles in a set up that was spiralling out of control and stamped her imprimateur on the place. She is arguably the leading female natural cider maker in the U.K. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of apple culture coupled with the art of fermentation that has been gained by thousands of hours of practical experience. She is the leader in the team when it comes to recommending varieties and orchard packages to clients, selecting our graft list for each year, constructing web sites and corresponding with the Real World out there. She also grows most of the food produced on site, is a fantastic cook and a wonderful mother.
Bill studied fine art and spent a lot of his 20s between mid-Wales and the Kumaoun Himalaya. He was predominantly working as a stained glass artist when the opportunity came up in the early 2000s to buy the six acre plot at Prospect Orchard. Bill took the opportunity and immediately started planting apple trees, originally buying 20 different varieties, and continuing to collect, graft and plant the museum orchard of over 450 varieties.
He is an artist, musician and polymath. As well as keeping everything running on the farm, Bill is a creative force, always making things, grafting trees, gashing together all the equipment that doesn't work, and keeping all of our off grid systems functioning.
In 2009, Bill wrote his acclaimed book 'How To Grow Apples & Make Cider', based on his hands on experience of making cider and growing trees.