We are Sam and Beccy Leach. We are natural cider and perry farmers/makers in Chew Magna, North Somerset. We practice regenerative farming in traditional orchards. Our home farm and orchards are certified organic. Fruit is picked from the ground in the old way, left to mature and fully ripen before pressing, and then fermented gently and slowly with wild yeasts, no sulphites and plenty of time.
We came into cider making from the restaurant world, so from an interest in food and drink, as well as farming. We started to make cider as a hobby and it grew from there.
We chose the name "Wilding Cider" because at the time, we didn't have a base or single orchard to name ourselves after, and we like Wildings - they are feral apple trees growing from discarded seeds. Several good cider apples have been found as wildings, including Dabinett. We also like the approach of wilding farmland - not necessarily 'rewilding' - abandoning farmland to wilderness, but letting wildness come into the farm around the production, with nature and farm coexisting. We see our orchards as a part of nature, not apart from. We also use wild yeasts, so there is a little link there too.
We mostly bottle cider in 75cl sparkling wine bottles and mature for at least a year before release.