A local cider maker has won plaudits from The Times and Sunday Times for his award-winning cider, made in the Monmouthshire countryside using fruit grown near the gateway to Wales.

Apple County Cider has won several awards over the past decade, including the Great Taste Awards’ Golden Fork two years in a row. Something which has never been achieved by another cider maker since.

All the apples used to make the cider are harvested from the Monnow Valley, and he told us the key to the best tipple is all in the fruit.

“It’s all about the fruit, the passion and getting the cider as pure as you possibly can,” he said.

Ben spent much of his life living in London, but left the big smoke for his late stepfather’s farm near Skenfrith, when having tasted the cider he had been making, decided to enrol in a cider making course in Hartpury.

He reminisces about first moving to the Monmouthshire countryside and the first taste of his stepfather’s cider.

“I moved to the farm here in 2008 and lived with my stepfather, James McConnell, who many people would remember from the farming community around here,” he says.

“His cider was the best I had ever tasted.”

But now, Ben Culpin’s work is being recognised around the world after being featured as the man behind one of The Sunday Times’ six best ciders from around the world. He old us how his former recognition helped in making the magazine.

“They actually reached out,” he said.

“One of their guys, Pete Brown, got in touch and asked me to send some dabinett medium cider down, which is one of my favourites.”

“We have recently been on Sunday Brunch, on Channel 4 and we have also just become Tanners Wines Welsh cider of choice.”