Despite Matt's initial scepticism, the couple's Cheeky Rascal Cider has tapped into the growing demand for the bubbly beverage and has been a roaring success.

Matt, 32, and Ruth, 30, and their team make the cider from strawberries, raspberries and blueberries picked fresh from Matt's family's farm, blended with locally grown apples and pears, in the shed that was once the farm's apple-packing shed.

Their cider production has increased dramatically in the past 12 months, with seven varieties of cider now sold in supermarkets, liquor stores, hotels, farmers' markets and the farm's cellar door and cafe. And, perhaps most importantly, the next generation has created itself a place on the family farm.

"They never let me forget it," Matt says with a grin. "If I question them on anything now, they always bring up the cider."

Direct source

Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm at Main Ridge on the Mornington Peninsula has been in the Gallace family for nearly five decades.

Matt's grandfather immigrated from Italy and bought an 18-hectare property in 1964, planting cherries and apple trees. In between the rows of fruit trees, he planted strawberries - a quick cash-crop to help pay the bills while he waited for the fruit trees to mature.

Matt's father took over the orchard and developed the strawberries, expanding the farm and adding a cafe and cellar door where they sold strawberry wine and liqueurs made from a traditional Italian recipe.
Matt grew up working on the farm.

"I did everything you could possibly think of," he says. "Growing up I worked on the farm, out on the tractor or the rotary hoe. I've looked after everything from irrigation to payroll and customer service at the farmgate. And I loved every minute of it - sitting out on the tractor for 12 hours a day. The peace, there's no one there to bug you."

It's a farming heritage that has held him in good stead.

"Mum and Dad always wanted me to come back to the farm, but we had to come back and grow our own part of the business."

Matt left the farm to study business management, specialising in agriculture water management. He and Ruth, who was a model and had studied PR, marketing and graphic design, had been travelling overseas and had returned to work in the family's cellar door and cafe where they sold the strawberry wine made by Matt's father and grandfather.

"We have always made a fruit wine, to value-add to the strawberries," Matt says. "We saw an opportunity to commercialise it."

In 2005, Matt and Ruth started to develop their own versions of Sunny Ridge's fruit wines which they tried to sell to hotels, bars and retail outlets. Ruth says they had mixed success.

"We called our business Rebello," Ruth says. "It's a play on the Italian word for rebel - we were young, we were making wine from fruit, and no one would talk to us. Feedback at the time was that they loved the product but they didn't know where to put us."

Matt and Ruth made a sparkling strawberry wine known as Stawbellini - 30 per cent strawberry wine, 70 per cent moscato (a sparkling muscat).

"It was a far more accessible product," Ruth says. "People knew what it was." The Strawbellini won a double gold medal at the San Francisco International Wine Competition in 2010. "As far as giving us the credibility and confidence that we were on to something good - it was awesome."

And last year they turned to cider. "That's when everything really took off."

Cider was just gaining momentum in Australia when Matt and Ruth launched their Cheeky Rascal label - blends of apple and pear cider with strawberries, raspberries and mixed berries from their farm. The cider is sold in major supermarkets, liquor stores, at farmers' markets in Melbourne and food and wine shows.

Key ingredient

Matt and Ruth say the secret is in the fresh fruit. "We try not to mess around with it," Ruth says. "We just let the fruit tell the story, with minimal intervention."

These days, Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm has about 200 hectares under strawberries - about two millions plants - at the Main Ridge property and at two other farms, one in Boneo near Rosebud and one in the Yarra Valley. Matt's father has just bought a farm in Queensland which ensures year-round supply.

Field of dreams: Ruth and Matt in the strawberry fields at Main Ridge.

Matt says market demand governs the price paid for fresh strawberries, but the cider business offers a hedge against market vagaries.

"When strawberries drop below a certain price that Dad needs to get, we stop picking for markets, let them ripen in the paddock, make sure the sugar levels are sufficient and then we pick them for the cider. This way we don't need to worry about shelf-life, there's no packing costs, no freight costs or agents' commissions - the strawberries go straight from the field to the winery. Then we make as much wine as we can in the certain time period and store it."

A bubbly future

Ruth says cider is following the same trajectory as boutique beer. "Cider is in a similar position as craft beer was a few years ago. It's only just getting started. If you look at England where we adopt a lot of their traditions, cider consumption has just topped beer consumption. And we have everything here to make great cider - the right climate and the best fruit."

Rebello now has a team of about a dozen staff members working on administration, sales, markets, events and the Main Ridge cellar door. Matt is the general manager and Ruth the CEO, and the pair juggle their roles along with their children, Charlotte, 4, and Isabella, 18 months.

Last month, they launched a mulled cider - a bottle of their Cheeky Rascal Cider, served warm with a bag of spices, used like a tea bag.

In its infancy, the winery produced bout 5000 cases of wine and liqueurs a year. This year it has pre-sold 10,000 cases of its mulled cider alone. And while it's still early days, indications are it will increase eight-fold in the next year. Demand in Australia is growing and now Asia beckons. "It's a sweet product, so it should do well in that market," Matt says.

Despite the corporate work, Matt says the rows of strawberries his grandfather planted still call. "I love getting out on the tractor when I can," he says. "I try to get out and get my hands dirty. It's good to get back to your roots."