French Cider, with English Apples?

[Antonio Rivera]

Hey Guys!

I recently went to France, and fell in love with the cider. I am all set to keeve this coming apple season, but am still a bit concerned about the apples available in New England. I'd like to use "sweet", "bitter", and "acid" apples in a blend but struggle in particular with what the French describe as a sweet apple. Maybe just low tannin and low acidity? They also describe them as phenolic, which I don't really understand. These are some of the apple varieties available to me, they are mostly English in origin. Could some of these work to make a more Norman style cider?

Thanks so much for all your help!

Antonio

Ashmead’s Kernel       

Baldwin        

Calville Blanc     

Chisel Jersey       

Cordera      

Cortland     

Cox Orange Pippin      

Crimson Crisp     

Empire        

Esopus Spitzenburg    

Firecracker       

Golden Russet     

Grimes Golden    

Hudson Golden Gem       

Jonagold       

Jonathan      

Macoun       

McIntosh        

Mutsu      

Northern Spy      

Pink Luster      

Pink Pearl      

Porters Perfection      

Rosalee     

Triump    

Wickson      

Winesap 

Kingston Black
Tremlett’s Bitter
Bramley’s Seedling
Brown Snout
Dabinett
Newtown Pippin
Ellis Bitter

[Claude Jolicoeur]

French ciders get a good part of their character from the way they blend different types of cider apples. They use very little apples that contain acidity - I'd say maximum of 20 to 25%, and often less than that.

Hence about 80% of their blends consists in douces, douce-amères and amères (respectively equivalent to sweet, mild bittersweet and full bittersweet) and the rest would be acidulées and aigres (mild sharp and full sharp). They don't use acidulée-amères (Bittersharp) in France.

As of your question about "sweet", yes it means low acidity and low tannins - but although low in tannins these apples do contain more phenolics than common apples, albeit less that the other categories.

From you list, most are sharps. You only have a few bittersweet varieties (Chisel, Tremlett, Brown Snout, Ellis Bitter) - hence you need to make 80% of your blend from these and the remaining 20% from the others... Note that this wouldn't give you a real French cider, but you'd obtain similar acid-tannin balance.

[Antonio Rivera]

Claude,

Thank you so much for answering! I had been struggling to translate the french apple terminology; your descriptions are excellent. So I think I am all set to do the blend at +80% bitter sweet, 20% or less sharp. Originally I had considered doing less than 40% bitter sweet (Chisel, Tremlett, Brown Snout, Ellis Bitter); less than 10% sharp (perhaps something like Wickson?); and then the rest sweet apple... but in this scenario I struggle finding a good candidate sweet variety that still has "some" phenolics. Are there any here that seem reasonable? Also, do you think that with these blends and keeving, I can perhaps get some of that over-ripe apple barnyard funk that I like so much? Guess I might have to try this to find out....

On a completely unrelated note, I went to France this July and I made sure to follow your advice (scattered on this group forum) and stayed at the gite La Ferme du Vey in Suisse Normand. Best place I stayed at for the duration of the trip! Also visited Ruisseau in Peche like you recommended. He won two gold medals this year, and probably produced the best french cider I had! Also got ciders at the Honfleur market; plus I went to Domfront to try poiree too at Pacory at the urging or Ruisseau, it was an excellent experience made better because I got to practice my French. Finally, I also bought the klercidre kit at Caen & brought it to the USA for keeving thanks to the lab you recommended! Again thank you, since I mostly decided what to do because of what you have recommended in this forum over the years.

Antonio

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[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le dimanche 27 août 2023 à 22:05:45 UTC-4, Antonio Rivera a écrit :

I struggle finding a good candidate sweet variety that still has "some" phenolics. Are there any here that seem reasonable?

Some sweet heirloom varieties would qualify, such as Tolman Sweet or Pumkin Sweet.

 

Also, do you think that with these blends and keeving, I can perhaps get some of that over-ripe apple barnyard funk that I like so much? Guess I might have to try this to find out....

This is more related to the microorganism flora present in the cidery, and it might be harder to get something similar.

 

On a completely unrelated note, I went to France this July and I made sure to follow your advice (scattered on this group forum) and stayed at the gite La Ferme du Vey in Suisse Normand. Best place I stayed at for the duration of the trip! Also visited Ruisseau in Peche like you recommended. He won two gold medals this year, and probably produced the best french cider I had! Also got ciders at the Honfleur market; plus I went to Domfront to try poiree too at Pacory at the urging or Ruisseau, it was an excellent experience made better because I got to practice my French. Finally, I also bought the klercidre kit at Caen & brought it to the USA for keeving thanks to the lab you recommended! Again thank you, since I mostly decided what to do because of what you have recommended in this forum over the years.

Seems you had a nice trip!