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Cazza Blanco

@cazzablanco

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What a weekend!

With no fruit in the orchard we’d planned to pick, we turned to the wonderful Tim at Ten Acre Orchard in Oxfordshire, where we got our amazing Yarlington last year. This year we were able to get not only Yarlington, but Stoke Red and Kingston Black – two apples we’ve coveted from the start – and Ellison Orange, an outrageously juicy sharp.

The fruit was hard won. Stoke Red, Kingston and Ellison were all tiny, there was very little of them and a lot of rot. But encouraged by the quality of the good ones and aided by our great friend @beatenbyawhisker we persevered.

Then yesterday we had our first ever day without @justinwellsjustin running our press, but he’d given us a 101, so we bravely let @adamhwells take the helm – and it looks like nothing broke!

It was a long, long day with some unbelievable juice running the full spectrum of colour and flavour, but ably aided by @shakespearesstepsister and Raquel, 12 hours later everything was pressed into tank and cleaned.

Our biggest harvest day of the year, and we’re feeling it this morning. But just elated to have been able to pick such a gorgeous orchard again and bewildered at the juices we were able to extract. A month or so off for us now before we come back for the late stuff, but 2026 is shaping up to be our best harvest yet.

Thanks so much to all the Honorary Fourth Wellses and everyone who has supported us from the sidelines. Just one month today (eek!) until we officially launch at @the_castle_tap!!! by @cazzablanco

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14 days ago

And we’re off! Harvest 2026 has officially begun – with an apple we’ve wanted to press from the start of our journey. Huge thanks to cider legend and brilliant friend @thecidersam for letting up pick Egremont Russet in his beautiful Kent orchards.

It was a wonderful day of picking – our first experience of picking from tree rather than from floor, and we couldn’t be happier with the fruit we took away.

Then on to production today where – we think for the first time ever – nothing broke and we didn’t have to ask anyone for advice when something seemed off.

So happy to be fermenting beautiful Egremont Russet in our shed. Tempting fate to say we’re getting the hang of this – there is an absurd amount still to learn – but we’re gradually gaining confidence with our methods and equipment, which makes all the difference to getting through the day. Special shoutout to Debs who came specially to help us with the cleanup at the end – true friendship.

A long road still to go, but some very tired happy faces this evening. Cheers all – and God speed to all who are harvesting this year! by @cazzablanco

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a month ago

Single varieties, gotta catch ‘em all!

We added two great new names to our short list of bottled apples this weekend, as we captured our first single variety Yarlington Mill and Winter Colmar.

Two totally different varieties – Yarlington is all sonorous, booming apple and spice, Winter Colmar is a vibrant, lilting, dangerously drinkable riot of raspberry and keylime.

We didn’t actually think we’d be bottling this weekend but they tasted so delicious when we checked them on Saturday morning that there was only one thing for it.

About 80 bottles of each, which hilariously makes them our most bountiful single variety bottlings ever. We’re super excited about these – 2025 in all its ripely-fruited glory. The Yarlington will certainly age but neither needs to and both are irresistible right now. The bottling machine created a spontaneous blend in the vacuum tank that was almost annoyingly delicious and has given us strong ideas for the future.

Counting the days until we launch, and very excited to share these with you soon! by @cazzablanco

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a month ago

A gorgeous evening yesterday, getting the gang together for our very favourite part of the process – putting our blends together and most importantly discovering the 2025 iteration of our flagship cider, Triptych.

Wonderful to taste through the 2025s – a vintage absolutely astonishing in the ripeness of its fruit. Fermentations are at last complete (Yarlington and Winter Colmar still have a tiny distance to go) and yet the fruit is so fulsome you’d think there was still sweetness here.

Blending was more complicated than we expected. The long-planned permutation of Triptych didn’t quite work for various reasons – Egremont Russet is turning into our white whale! But we replanned on the hoof and couldn’t be more delighted with the blend we arrived at.

It also made room for a new cider we’ve named Keystone, which we hadn’t fully expected and is an absolute riot of bittersweet fruit. A real thunderous, robust and spicy contrast to the elegant, lithe, thrilling character of Triptych.

Of course not all our ciders are destined for blends, and it was just as much of a joy to uncover a single variety Foxwhelp that’s simply too good not to be a solo act (probably the best thing we’ve ever fermented, though all credit goes to the yeasts – we just stuck it in a tank!) Our Green Horse perry is also tasting so fresh and bright and lively that it would be a sin to leave it any longer – plans to bottle it asap are underway.

We keep returning to the absolute privilege of being able to work, albeit in a micro scale, with such remarkable fruits, and to direct them in our own particular way, to arrive at our own styles of cider and perry.

Something that kept occurring to us as we tasted and blended was that, although all of our creations are (we hope!) singular and distinct, there is a theme of a house style beginning to reflect itself through them. It’s hard to quite define – and probably not for us to! – but although these varieties and indeed the orchards we work with are all familiar through other beloved producers, the creations were arriving at are distinctively ‘Three Wells’, in a way that we hope continues to become more tangible. We can’t wait to share them. by @cazzablanco

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3 months ago

2025s alert! We’ve been doing some blending today, and we thought we should probably tell you about them. (And about the tank that is simply too good to blend).

Have a watch – can’t wait to get these into tank and share them with you. by @cazzablanco

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3 months ago

Such a special privilege to be invited to present our ciders last night at the one and only @manchestercider.

In front of a friendly crowd we shared all 5 of our bottled 2024s as well as some works in progress 2025s that still have a little bit of sugar to ferment out.

Was wonderful to share our cider and a bit of our story to such an engaged, kind, knowledgeable and switched-on audience and we’re so glad the ciders went down well. We’re especially grateful for the particular love shown to Foxwhelp, Bisquet and Triptych. (We’re also glad you agreed on which ones we reckon want a bit more time!)

Finally putting our ciders in front of a discerning audience was a big, daunting step, and we’re delighted with the reception and feedback they got. It’s really given us the push we need to get ourselves together and get the paperwork done so we can start selling.

We recognise the privilege of such a new producer being invited to speak at Manchester Cider Club - a club we’ve admired for years and which has inspired so many cider clubs, including our own @readingciderclub. We don’t take it lightly, and we’re so grateful to everyone who joined us.

#cider #ciderclub by @cazzablanco

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4 months ago

Three Wells 2024 is bottled!

And so the curtain falls on a whirlwind last few days.

From the pallet of bottles that had to be unpacked by hand and ferried through the end-terrace, to the late-night after-work racking, setting up our bottling system in the Three Wells Shed of Destiny and learning how to do the whole process … not to mention the endless, endless bottle sterilising, it’s been a weekend!

1:30 AM finishes, only two of us free, a hard deadline of Adam needing to be at a Sunday afternoon dress rehearsal and no empty weekends left this year … we don’t do things by halves, and we were ready to drop at the end.

But this is the best bit. Now it feels real. Cider we’ve spent a year making, two years planning, finally in bottle. It’s taken a lot of work, and an uncountable number of advice/help/support/emergency whatsapps from some incredibly patient makers and friends, but it feels like we’ve climbed a pretty significant hill.

We can’t wait to share it with you when labels and licenses are sorted. In the meantime, we’ll try not to drink it all ourselves.

#cider #cidermaker #bottling by @cazzablanco

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a year ago

The apples are coming down early this year after a scorching summer, but the ripeness is unbelievable, and what a joy and privilege to be back harvesting Foxwhelp in the glorious @littlepomona home orchard.

The rain came pretty heavily at times, but it didn’t slow us down much, and we hoovered up a carpet of beautiful, glistening rubies – what a gorgeous apple Foxwhelp is.

Still a load of work to do on our 2024s – keep your eyes peeled this week for some big, faintly terrifying stuff – but we’re so excited about the 2025 season and delighted with our first day in the orchard. Huge thanks to @elishaimogen for joining us for her first ever day of harvesting – we’re honoured!

#cider #harvest #apples #foxwhelp by @cazzablanco

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a year ago

Apple Spotlight #3 – Foxwhelp (🔥🔥🔥🦊🔥🔥)

We’re more than a little bit excited to have had access to this apple, the last of our varieties (for 2024 at least). It’s Adam’s favourite (probably), a legendary bittersharp dating back at least to the 17th century.

Famed for its acidity, Foxwhelp also has the most beautiful aromatics of any apple. Intensity, clarity, ageing potential, vibrancy – all are second to none. It was the first variety we pressed and we are so, so grateful to @littlepomona, the true Foxwhelp maestros, for letting us use their sensational Home Orchard fruit.

Thanks so much for following our variety spotlights. We’re big believers that learning about apple varieties can have the same huge impact as learning about grape varieties did for wine, and we love all the different flavours and characters each one provides. Have to do something with them all soon…

#cider #apple #ciderapple #singlevariety by @cazzablanco

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a year ago

Apple Spotlight #2 – Bisquet

Arguably often the sidecar to Dabinett’s motorbike for how well the two go together and support each other, but there’s so much more to Bisquet than that.

Another bittersweet – so tannins but not too much acidity – Bisquet is soft, gentle, full of yellow fruit. It’s a beautiful, easy-going variety that just screams ‘apple’. Both a charmer in its own right and – we hope! – a perfect bridge between our more intense varieties.

Shoutout once again to our growers @rosscider – this Bisquet came from the same orchard as our Dabinett, Adam’s favourite, Gammyoulands – we were so lucky to access their amazing fruit, and Ross have probably done more than anyone to persuade us of Bisquet’s brilliance!

#cider #apple #singlevariety #bittersweet #ciderapple by @cazzablanco

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a year ago

A HUGE moment for us as we have our first ever taste of Three Wells Cider!

Tasting the juice off the press was an amazing experience, but tasting it after the yeasts have done (most of) their magical work was something else, and we just had to see where it was at.

We resisted tasting most of the tanks somehow (left it at a smell for now) but there’s a 20 litre tank of Dabinett we’re keeping just for ourselves that had gone further with its fermentation than any others and was sitting down at 1.0005 and we just had to give it a try.

Super juicy, with all the classic orange Dabinett flavour. Plenty of tannins, but not too firm or astringent, just enough for a bit of grip. We’re biased of course, but it was such an encouragement to taste something we’ve made for the first time and actually really enjoy it!

Can’t wait to taste the rest once they’ve finished their fermentations, and to start putting our blends and bottlings together! by @cazzablanco

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a year ago

It’s been a few months since we pressed our apples, and it’s time to Do A Thing!

@adamhwells talks through our afternoon activities, ‘wild’ yeasts, hydrometers and a bit of future blending. by @cazzablanco

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a year ago