Wildflower Roadcider 2024: Orange

REGION: Marrickville, NSW
SIZE: 750ml / ABV: 7.5%

We have made cider together with Lucien since 2018 at Wildflower but this ongoing "Roadcider" project is very much his creative direction and drive. In Lucien's own words, this cider has been a long time coming and is our second release to use apples deliberately planted and grown in an orchard. And what rate and beautiful apples they are and what an amazing orchard they come from.

Dry, sparkling cider in the pet nat style. Made from unsprayed fruit grown at Borrodell, Wiradjuri country. Featuring some of the best cider apple varieties you won’t find at the shops: Kingston Black, Dabinett, Golden Harvey, Bramley, Yarlington Mill + more.

Borrodell grows some of the most sought after cider-variety apples available in the world. Bittersharp and bittersweet varieties like Kingston Black, Yarlington Mill, Somerset Redstreak, Dabinett, Frequin Rouge and Fréquin Tardive de la Sarthe. Ultra sweet and rough-skinned little flavour balls called Golden Harvey, and Bramley, the reisling of the apple world. One thing that sets most cider apart from wine is that you generally want to blend a few different types of apples. The sweet, aromatic ones often have a bit of acid but zero tannin so are a bit one-dimensional when fermented alone, the acid varieties often lack body and the tannic apples are generally very low in acid (with a few exceptions to all of these “rules”, of course).

It's difficult to overstate the impact of Wildflower since its inception only a few years ago in 2017. Hailing from Texas, Topher Boehm has an impressive resume - from Brasserie Thiriez to Jester King to his background in astrophysics - not to mention his unique house yeast. Cultivated from foraged wildflowers native to NSW, think wattle blossoms and banksia, blended with a Belgian saison strain, creating something truly individual which speaks of place. Topher even sprayed the entire brewery with inoculated wort when he moved in, just to make sure everything was literally covered in the house culture.]\