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With just three weeks now until we launch we’re thinking about all the incredible people without whom there’s no chance we’d have made it this far – our ‘honorary fourth Wellses’.

There are too many to list – let alone depict – people who have given support and advice, people who have lent equipment, let us pick fruit. People who have done art or photography for us, or given feedback. Our wonderful friends who have cheered us on.

And of course the many people who have come and done pick days or press days. Starting with Henry back in 2024, then @elishaimogen @ajwilliams_cider_maker Paul, Debs, @winery_gnome @beatenbyawhisker @shakespearesstepsister and Raquel. Not to mention the most Fourth Wells Fourth Wells of all, @dianaaf

Probably more than anyone we’ve leaned on the support and constant assistance of @kertelreiter_cider Barry, @rosscider Albert @artistrawcider and @littlepomona James. The absolute best of the cider world.

It’s been an immense few years, and at times immensely challenging, but the warmth and genuine community that we so constantly find in cider has kept us going throughout. You are all absolute superstars. We’re so excited to finally share our ciders with you.

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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!!!

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Foxwhelp Day is one of our favourite and most important days of the pick calendar.

We thought we’d missed it this year as we’ve usually been privileged to pick the @littlepomona Home Orchard but this year its fruit coincided (coincidered?) with our Egremont harvesting.

Luckily the wonderful @artistrawcider came to our rescue and introduced us to Woodlands, one of the most gorgeous orchards we’ve ever harvested in. 10 spectacular traditional, old Foxwhelp trees and an absolute carpet of the most delicious, perfectly ripe apples.

We can’t wait to see how this orchard inflects its flavour in the cider compared to the Foxwhelp we know and adore – but most of all we’re just delighted that Foxwhelp Day was once again in the calendar.

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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!

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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!

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The best place in the world. The best time in the world to be there. Thanks so much @rosscider festival. Same again next year.

#cider #perry

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We’ve made a perry!!!

It’s been a few days. After blending with @justinwellsjustin and @dianaaf last week, we were all ready to start racking, when our pump seemed to give up.

As ever, the cider community came to our aid, with a particular shoutout to the amazing @cider_women. On Sunday we were back on track, and our blends and single varieties for 2025 are all captured in tank!

But our perry was tasting so good that we felt we had to bottle it in time for the @yewtreepeterstow cider challenge. So the last two evenings after work have been spent cleaning and siphoning and tasting and washing bottles and filling bottles and – @adamhwells absolute favourite bit – using the corking device!

It’s a very small batch. We only had one 60 litre tank and a quarter of that had transformed into some kind of 80s horror film cavern/70s jelly-based pudding situation. After siphoning 5 litres for Saturday we only had 51 bottles left (and now only 50…)

But we’re so delighted to have made it. Perry is such a special drink and, given Adam’s writing, it felt only right to have made one ourselves (however daunting we found it). We’re so happy with the vibrant, citrusy, zesty, Green Horse we’ve made from those unexpected Berkshire perry pear trees – hopefully it’s the first of many.

We can’t wait to start sharing our creations with you all – thanks so much for the support along the way.

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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.

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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.

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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

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Always an exciting but nerve-wracking day when we head to the shed for our first taste of the vintage. With the quality of the 2025 fruit we pressed we were desperate not to have ruined it!

And so far so delicious! The bittersweet’s still have some way to go until they’re dry, but their fruit and structure is beautiful, and our low-tannin and early-season stuff is tasting truly delicious. Brilliant to try Winter Colmar for the very first time – think it’ll be a real crowd-pleaser, delightfully brisk, fresh and fragrant. One of our Foxwhelp tanks in particular is @adamhwells favourite thing we’ve fermented to date and will definitely become a single variety if it stays the course. And we utterly loved our Green Horse perry.

Today wasn’t a designated blending day, but as we tasted we sensed the presence of what Triptych 2025 might look like, so we couldn’t help doing a spot of tinkering. Need @justinwellsjustin to confirm, but it just might have emerged – and (fingers crossed) in very special shape.

What a joy to be able to spend Friday evening playing with ciders we’ve made. Still some way to go, but we’re well and truly excited about how our 2025s might emerge.

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Another week and more visitors, some very special guests I’ve been looking forward to having here for a long time now. I’ve been wanting to show Adam (@adamhwells) the pear trees we use for our perries for some years now, even more so since he wrote the book on Perry, and photos of some of these trees have featured in said book. And of course Caroline (@cazzablanco), another third of @threewellscider. Just need to get Justin (@justinwellsjustin) here for the hat trick!

Much walking, a fair amount of Perry and a bit of cider. But the highlight for me is always taking people to the “Helden” tree, and drinking the single tree perry we make from its fruit under it (first photo). Perfect timing as it is prime perry pear blossom time! One of my favourite times of the year.

We did some normal tourist sightseeing too 😜

And now we’re off to Frankfurt to @cider.world! Judging again this year, and lots of networking. A busy week!

#cider #cidre #apfelwein #perry #orchards 🥂

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