about us

David Stagg, a retired Melbourne solicitor, and his wife Sally, began to establish the Daylesford Cider Company on a 30 acre property, “Montecute”, at Musk, near Daylesford in Victoria’s central highlands, by planting 93  traditional cider cultivars in the winter of 2004.

The initial planting was followed by a further 284 plantings in 2005 and a further 348 plantings in 2006. A further 400 trees were grafted in 2008 and planted out in our second orchard in 2009 bringing the total number of cider trees to over 1000.

Shelley Tasker, a qualified hortoculturalist, joined us in January 2010. Shellely has decided that we need more trees so a further 900 rootstocks have been ordered for grafting in 2010 and planting in 2011. 

If you are looking for cider apple trees for your home orchard, drop us an email and we may be able to supply you.

All our trees are grown on strictly Organic principles and the orchard is currently “in conversion”. We expect full Organic Certification of the orchard by BFA in 2010.

David’s father and family have lived in and around the village of “Montecute”, near Yeovil, in Somerset’s south west cider country for countless generations. The establishment of Daylesford Cider was the obvious choice for David’s retirement project.

The orchard is made up of 18 traditional cider varieties including, Bulmer’s Norman, Tremlits Bitter, Yarlington Mill, Stoke Red, Browns Snout, Improved Foxwhelp,  Somerset Redstreak and the famous Kingston Black. The orchard now comprises more than 650 trees, all grown on Tatura trellis with drip irrigation. With the new plantings next year, the orchard will include more than 1,000 trees.