Exmoor Lockdown Diary 114 - Another Visit To Roger Wilkins Cider
Yesterday I put up a video which we shot at Roger Wilkins cider farm on the Somerset Levels nearly 30 years ago - now I add this newspaper piece which I wrote about Roger in 2017…
Roger being photographed by my friend and colleague Ricard Austin for the paper
A Somerset man will be lifting a glass this weekend to celebrate winning a prestigious national award, but as he says: “I often wets me whistle – nothing unusual in that.”
It’s by wetting his whistle that Roger Wilkins has become one of the best known traditional cider-makers in the country in a lifelong career that has now earned him the Campaign For Real Ale’s exalted Pomona Award.
“I make my cider by tasting it, not testing it, like some big makers do,” Roger told me. “That’s the secret of my success and that hasn’t changed since my grandfather started making cider here in 1917.”
The Pomona Award is named after the Roman goddess of apples and is presented by CAMRA to the person who has done the most to promote real cider or perry either in the past 12 months or – if there is no outstanding contender for the year – someone whose ongoing work has benefited the trade.
“I was a bit surprised when they told me they were giving me the award,” shrugged Roger, speaking during the seasonal apple-pressing frenzy at his Somerset Levels farm yesterday. “But don’t worry - I shan’t be getting big headed. I’ve won things before – two years ago I won the award for the best traditional cider in the country. That’s what they told me it was, anyway.”
Few people in this region would be less likely to be carried away by such newfound fame. Roger Wilkins is the very picture of a no-nonsense, salt-of-the-earth cider-maker and Land’s End Farm at Mudgeley – halfway between Glastonbury and Wedmore – is for many cider fans a shrine to all things old-fashioned and unchanging.
“Our only fear is that he might become some kind of celebrity with his Somerset humour and accent,” said one visitor buying Roger’s golden nectar yesterday. “Loads of famous people already come here – Johnny Rotten is a fan and Mick Jagger’s brother is a customer.”
“I’m 61 and I won’t change now,” laughs Roger. “Nothing much has changed since grandfather started making cider here. The recipe for the cider is exactly the same. It was he who taught me to make it. He came here in the First World War and mother was born Christmas Day that year and I was born in the house December 1947. I helped him making cider when I was still at school.”
Roger makes a basic traditional cider. You can either buy dry or sweet, then there’s medium – which is a mix of the two. The sweet does have an additive, albeit a tiny one – just a single teaspoon full of saccharine for every 20 gallons.
As the golden juice drips from his 1868 H. Beare and Sons, Newton Abbot-made cider-press, Roger tells me: “That’s it. That’s all you get in Wilkins cider – 100 per cent apple juice. Some of these modern ciders – well, all I can say is that they must have shares in Bristol Water Company.”
Sarah Newson, of CAMRA's cider and perry committee, is certainly a fan: “This phenomenal contributor to the industry thoroughly deserves this award for his sheer enthusiasm and commitment to producing the best real cider,” she says. “With his farm overlooking Westhay Moor, Roger could not produce cider in a more stunning location. Maybe these surroundings have been the inspiration for his continued success.”
Somehow, you can’t imagine Roger looking moodily out at the view for inspiration. “But I can tell which orchard the apples come from,” he says in his down-to-earth way.
