Just before the turn of the century, a chance conversation sparked an idea which now, in 2020, has become one of the island’s best-known local brands.
That conversation was between a former cider maker, and a family who had just acquired a large house surrounded by fields.
They wanted to work out what to do with those fields, and the chat they had with the former brewer gave them an idea. On that day, the idea for Rocquette Cider was born, and has since grown from a part-time hobby, to a full-time business that is stocked right across the Bailiwick.
Having ridden the wave of the Magners Effect (when cider really blew up) Rocquette draft cider is now a staple in nearly every pub on the island. Having won awards in competitions in the UK, the business is now looking to expand its horizons to Jersey. The only thing limiting their success is the number of apples they can produce. Literally. James Meller, the Managing Director of the company, said they bottle until they run out of apples. And around 10% of those apples come from people across the island, who sell their excess to him each year. Mr Meller has even been buying apples from Jersey recently, so they can produce as much product as they can.
Pictured: James Meller.
But things were not always that way. At first, Mr Meller – then a property developer - and his parents planted just 1,500 trees on their land, to kick off a hobby that would keep them busy outside of work and on the weekends. And even then, when those trees were planted in 1998, they would need to be patient, because it would be a few years until apples were properly growing.
“1998 we started planting trees,” Mr Meller said, “we met somebody who had sold a cider business and moved to Guernsey. It was a chance meeting and my family had acquired the property which had fields as well, so it was just joining the dots really. We had fields, what should we do with them? We didn’t know we were going to be making so much now.
“There was no family history of it or anything, it just kind of happened. It felt a bit awkward at the start, I wish I’d paid more attention in my chemistry lessons at school, it would have helped with the science of cider making and the craft of cider making – while the internet is a great thing, you have to experience it, there was a lot of trial and error. Not everything goes the way you want it to go.”
Rocquette have always bottled off the island, because of how much investment having its own bottling facility would need in Guernsey, and it has done this since the start with its traditional 6% cider - which is still their number one seller.
Pictured: James Meller.
“I suppose initially we were making it in small tanks, we started off with 200 litre barrels, and then we started making it in 5,000 litre tanks, and then we moved on to 20,000 litre tanks. It’s the same thing it’s just a bigger tank and the volumes increase.
“One of the biggest milestones we have reached was I think about 10 years ago, about halfway through, we started kegging and distributing to the pubs on draft. That was a big thing.
"It was about that time that I realized this could be a full-time job. We had got our volume sales up quite a lot, and we had got to the stage where I could employ somebody else full-time to help me. It gave us the courage to invest in some more equipment, develop the barn outside, and with that extra business from kegging we decided that we were confident enough to go forward.”
Now, with six full-time staff, Rocquette not only sell their bottled cider and distribute draft kegs to the pubs, but they have two types of bottles – the 6% and a lighter 4.5% XC – and also have a range of seven still ciders sold in three-litre boxes.
To read the rest of the article, pick up a copy of CONNECT in Waitrose, or click here.
Pictured top: A deep dive into Rocquette Cider was the lead feature in this edition of Guernsey CONNECT (images by Paul Mariess).
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