Looking back now at his call to leave his role as a consultant in the corporate world to produce craft cider full-time, Daniel Emerson reckons you could come to one of two conclusions.

“We must have really wanted to do it; or I must have needed my head examining,” admits the Stonewell co-founder, “because the company was turning over less than I was getting in fees per month.”

Yet, that leap of faith by Daniel and his wife Geraldine in 2012 has paid off in more ways than one. Whether it’s seeing their cider stocked in 700 outlets across Ireland, signing a five-year-deal with a subsidiary of Carlsberg in France or, indeed, being named supreme champion at last year’s Blas na hÉireann Irish Food Awards, where their seasonal Rós cider – made with Irish apples blended with rhubarb from East Ferry – took the top accolade.

“It’s great exposure and that backs up when we say it’s a quality product,” says Geraldine of the latter. “We’ve got that badge to show.”

CITY TO CIDER

Irish Country Living meets the couple at their home in Nohoval outside Kinsale, Co Cork, where their own orchard – the place where the Stonewell story started – is just coming into the season of “mists and mellow fruitfulness” as Keats once waxed lyrically.

Daniel remembers pressing apple juice here with his parents as a child, though followed a very different path at first as a media consultant in the UK and France.

Indeed, it was in Paris that he met Geraldine, who grew up in the Loire in France and comes from a long line of wine makers. Like Daniel, she pursued other passions, studying art history at the Louvre before working for auction houses like Sotheby’s and training as a book-binder after the couple settled in London.

The arrival of daughters Aliénor and Seraphina, however, prompted a desire for a change of pace.

“I kept talking to Geraldine about coming back here and one evening- she was obviously extremely annoyed- and she said: ‘Just shut up or do it,’” laughs Daniel.

“She was expecting the former, got the latter and, three months later, we were here in 2007.”

But while Geraldine joined the West Cork Craft & Design Guild, the rude arrival of the recession put paid to Daniel’s hope of finding a job in Ireland and he had to continue to commute abroad: “I ended up flying out on the seven o’clock flight on Monday morning and coming back at midnight on Friday,” he recalls.

With the birth of their son, Colm, however, the situation became increasingly unsustainable. Daniel took time out to be at home with the family, which was when he discovered that Ireland consumed more cider per capita than any other country.

“And that was really where the idea came from,” he says of the genesis of Stonewell.

CRAFT PROCESS

Having been gifted a traditional basket press by Geraldine’s father, the very first bottles of their all-juice cider were pressed in their courtyard, using apples from their orchard as well as from Irish farmers like Jim Duggan in Laois, Con Traas in Tipperary and David Keane in Cappoquin.

Both admit the early years were “bedlam”, with Daniel still working abroad Monday to Friday to generate the cashflow (the banks simply were not interested), while Geraldine kept the show on the road at home.

“I was the labelling machine,” she laughs/grimaces of the early days.

“Ten cases an hour, three labels per bottle, 12 bottles per case,” quantifies Daniel.

The decision by Daniel to leave his consultancy role and go full-time into the business in 2012, however, injected a new impetus, while the economic climate – in spite of the recession – also played a role in Stonewell’s success.

“Everybody wanted to help Irish business,” says Geraldine, who connected with many of their original customers through Twitter.

“You had eat Irish and drink Irish and do everything Irish, so that was great because, thanks to this mentality, we managed to sell our product. It was Irish made with Irish apples.”

While manufacturing now takes place at a special facility between Carrigaline and Crosshaven that the Emersons developed with support from LEADER, the production principals are essentially the same.

Eating apples come in from mid-September and cider apples from mid-October, where they are washed, sorted, milled and pressed, with the addition of a champagne or wine yeast to create Stonewell’s distinct taste profiles. Once fermented and filtered, the juices are blended before being sent to Donohoe Drinks Company in Co Wexford for bottling. Their range includes their classic medium dry, dry and Tobairín (low alcohol) ciders, as well as specialist blends like the Rós cider, their sparkling Esterre and their port-like Tawny. They also export their cider under the Finbarra label.

With six staff in total, production has grown from 3,000 litres in year one to 300,000 last year, but without sacrificing their core principles; to produce an all-juice cider without concentrate or chemicals.

GOING INTERNATIONAL

And the couple were determined to stick to their guns in that regard, even when presented with their biggest opportunity to date; a five-year-deal with House of Beer, a subsidiary of Carlsberg, to supply the French market, after they were introduced by a contact in The Green Goose Irish pub in Paris.

Was it difficult to hold tough as an Irish craft producer when dealing with such a major player, we ask?

“We see our point of difference as an all-juice cider. We weren’t going to compromise,” responds Daniel, who believes his previous experience in the corporate world was vital during the negotiations.

“We knew what we didn’t want to do and if they were going to ask us to do it, then we wouldn’t do it. And if that meant walking away from it, that meant walking away from it.”

They are now two years into the deal. While all the apples used to make Stonewell and Finbarra for export to countries like the Netherlands, Germany, Italy etc are sourced from Irish farmers, the sole exception is the French market where, due to the anti-obesity legislation, they are obliged to source an element from France.

However, as the company and, indeed, the sector, continues to grow, Daniel believes it will become increasingly difficult to source everything within Ireland and he would love to see incentives for more Irish farmers to start growing apples.

“The ultimate problem that we’ve got – and I did go to see Minister Coveney about this when he was Minister for Agriculture – is that Ireland only produces 44,000 tonnes of apples a year,” he says.

“We have a climate that favours more apples being grown here but the biggest problem, from speaking to farmers I would know around here and speaking to Simon… is you need to subsidise that because, for the first three years, you don’t really get a crop. That’s the biggest challenge but, ultimately, Ireland could produce all the apples that we need.”

Another challenge is that, unlike the craft beer sector, which has benefitted from a duty rebate, the craft cider has not. For example, where a beer producer will pay €40 on 100 litres, the Emersons will pay €94. But they are hoping that will change.

Going forward, they would love to crack another two or three export markets – North America being the holy grail – but closer to home, they are once again shortlisted at the Blas na hÉireann awards in Dingle this weekend.

With so much going on, Daniel jokes that he looks back on “periods of adolescent boredom with fondness”, but does not regret the move home one bit.

“This is by far the better place to be,” he smiles.

“A ‘quiet life’ in the country!” laughs Geraldine. CL

For further information, visit

www.stonewellcider.com