Ōtaki-based Elemental Cider wins several awards at New Zealand Fruit Wine and Cider Awards

Carmen Gray with two of Elemental Cider's gold medal and best-in-class award winning ciders. Photo / David Haxton

When Carmen Gray started Elemental Cider four years ago, she had no idea if it would be successful or not.

But now her Ōtaki-based cidery has won runner-up Champion Producer at the recent New Zealand Fruit Wine and Cider Awards, along with several gold and silver awards and a few category wins.

The awards, which were held earlier this month in Hawke’s Bay, focus on all non-grape wines, including mead and cider, and received a total of 119 entries from 24 Kiwi wineries and cideries.

Elemental Cider entered their four ciders, Totally Oaked, Pear Drop, Orchard Fall, and Dry As, along with their new, world-first cider Pōhutukawa Flower.

“No one is using pōhutukawa in fermented beverages of any kind.”

Pear Drop won Best Pear Cider (Perry) and a gold award and Pōhutukawa Flower won Best Cider with Spice, Botanicals, or Honey and a gold award, with each of the other ciders winning a silver award.

Gray said she’s been entering the competition since 2019, back when Elemental Cider was first launched and only had one flavour – Dry As.

Since then, all their ciders have consistently received silver awards, but this year’s results were the best yet.

Internationally renowned cider expert Gabe Cook, from the United Kingdom, hosted the awards this year, and was especially impressed by Elemental Cider’s Pōhutukawa Flower, picking it as his favourite.

“He said it was just so Kiwi.”

Peckham’s Orchard and Cidery, based in Tasman, was crowned Champion Cider, with Elemental Cider only losing by a small percentage, but despite that Gray said, “We’ll be second to Peckham’s any day.”

Elemental Cider did very well at the annual New Zealand Wine and Cider Awards.

And there are exciting things happening for Elemental Cider outside of the competition too.

They have been selected as one of three Kiwi cider companies to have access to pink-fleshed apples – a brand new variety of cider apples for New Zealand.

“Very few cider apples in the world are pink flesh.”

These apples have been grafted from the best genes of different apple species as part of apple breeder Dr Allen White’s research into expanding the Kiwi cider industry to overseas buyers.

Elemental Cider, which has three orchards in Ōhau, Ōtaki, and Kuku, have also been liaising with Austrian company Voran to get new equipment, which will mean they can move from a 10-ton operation to 50-ton.

Gray and her husband Wal bought their land in rural Ōtaki back in 2006, with plans of living self-sufficiently.

They planted apple trees, but quickly realised they take a long time to grow – about seven years.

So Gray, who was previously a chemical engineer, went to study a post-grad in wine science at the Eastern Institute of Technology in Hawke’s Bay.

After she finished that, she travelled the world as a winemaker, before eventually returning to Ōtaki and starting Elemental Cider.

Since then, the business has only grown, and now Elemental Cider is sold in various New World and Pak’nSave supermarkets in Kāpiti and further afield.

Gray also sells her ciders at markets, fairs, and festivals, alongside an online store.

She’s proud to own the only cidery in New Zealand to sell completely sugar-free ciders, and absolutely loves working with ferments.

“Being in the cidery is my happy place.”