Cider

Spent an interesting day down at the Gaymer Cider Company in Shepton Mallet, Somerset. The goal was to learn a bit more about cider. Now cider isn't wine, but it does have quite a lot in common with it. For a start, there are different varieties of cider apple, and the same variety grown in different places will produce ciders that taste different. Cider can be made in lots of different ways, but at its simplest, it is the juice of crushed apples that is then fermented to dryness by yeasts.

The Gaymer Cider Company is not small. It's the second biggest cider company in the UK, and is part of the Constellation drinks portfolio. But the ciders I tried today were all pretty good, and even the more commercial products have a lot going for them. I guess it is like the wine world: there's no reason why large brands can't coexist with small, artisanal producers, and some of the big companies are better at doing big brands than others. Gaymers are launching a new county series, with ciders from Devon and Somerset. I particularly like the Somerset cider, which is dry and complex - and potentially food friendly.

I spent some time with the head cidermaker Bob Cork, who fed me plenty of seriously technical information and answered my rather geeky questions very well. You may be interested to learn that you can get brettanomyces in cider, and that there's a bacterial problem in some 'rustic' ciders which involves rope-like growth of filament-forming bacteria. Mercaptans and sulfides can also be a problem in cider. I was left wanting to learn more, and eager to begin exploring a range of different ciders, armed with some new knowledge about how the stuff is made.

Cider...without Rosie

Having a dog is great, but it's nice to get a break from her sometimes demanding presence. It also means the cats have the run of the house once again.

Tonight I'm trying a couple of ciders for a forthcoming Sunday Express article, both from Waitrose and made by Herefordshire cidery (is that the right term?) Dunkertons. They're pretty good.

The first, Dunkertons Premium Organic Cider, is a yellow gold colour and has a lovely sweet nose that's slightly funky, in a nice way. It has a medium-sweet, broad palate with a lovely fruity, spicy acidic bite. Bursting with complex flavours.

The second is drier: Dunkertons Black Fox cider. It has open appley aromas and the palate is quite savoury and just off-dry. There's a bit of bite: it's a grown-up cider that would be great with food. Both are around the £1.80 mark, if I recall correctly, which makes them great value.

Bank holiday boozing

My twin sister, Anne, her husband Dominic and their two nippers came to stay for the bank holiday weekend. We had a really good time, helped by the fact that our kids and theirs got on very well. Yesterday we headed up to London, spending a couple of hours at the Imperial War Museum and then heading over to Kensington Gardens for a picnic, lubricated with some Lindauer fizz. They live just round the corner from Trent Bridge in Nottingham, so we'll try to arrange a trip up there to correspond with a suitable game (we're talking cricket here). Dominic still hasn't quite forgiven me for taking him to see City play at Notts County (we're talking football now) several years ago when City were travelling the divisions. He's a rugger man, and so wasn't really prepared for the experience of being in the away end with the hardcore City boys. If I remember correctly we drew that one 1-1, with Goater getting one of his three yard specials to equalize and the city captain getting sent off quite early on.

Some nice wines over the weekend, of which my favourite was Henschke's Louis Semillon 2005 Eden Valley (£13 Waitrose). It's complex, tight and minerally with just a hint of struck match reduction and some richness as well as the lemony fruit. Stylish stuff.

We also had a bit of an impromptu beer and cider tasting, including a really weird Marzen Schlenkera Smokebeer from Bavaria that smelled like salami. I really enjoyed the Aspall Dry Premier Cru Suffolk Cyder, which is fresh, light and precise with zippy acidity. Almost Champagne like. Their website is www.aspall.co.uk, and you can get it in Asda and Sainsbury, I believe.