Cider 2020

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On this page you can find more detailed information about the cider produced during the season 2020. The info will be added based on the cider development, with the "most product specific" description to be expected by September when the cider is ready for sale. As in the seasons before, I've tried to harvest and buy manually harvested apples but because of the variety of reasons (health issues, time, treasury), I had to also buy around 60% of the apples which were harvested with a small semi-automatic machine and triage done by person mostly on the field. I had to work this year as a seasonal worker in cidrerie Vergers de Ducy during the autumn so the time which I could dedicate to my project was more limited which reflected especially in the harvest part. Still all the apples which I processed were harvested in small untreated orchards, part in Vale de Saire, Cotentin region and part in the Vale do Sole, Calvados region. The apples at Vale de Saire region were processed with help of mobile "presse à paquets" using local service provider. The other "half" was crashed by cylindric press in place where I work. The fermentation of moût/juice was left to the wild yeast on the apples and in the cave, no products were added during the course of fermentation. Also newly, the cider was not filtered in any manner. I was solely relaying on soutirage/racking, which doesn't interfere with colour, fragrance and taste as filtration does. I've no control of temperature at the moment in my cellar. The sugar content, expressed by specific density was bit lower this year, lets say from 1040 to 1060 depending on the lot, so bit lower than 2019 season and way lower compared to 2018 season. Again there were issues with rather higher temperature for fermentation than optimal, which is around 8°C for cider however thankfully it got colder in January which helped to slow down the cider and I could start to work with it better. At the moment, around 20th of February at least half of the cider, around 20 hl (2 000 l) are ready for bottling, the rest needs a bit more time to slow down, make the yeast bit more tired and less numerous. For the bottling which is about to come, I'll be doing final soutirages and after that I will do the yeast cell count. The yeast cell count together with curve of density decrease will be the major factors on which I base my decision of when to bottle and what to bottle. Before bottling I'll be preparing my "assemblage"/mixes.

This year I've decided to bottle around 5 000 of 75 cl bottles and around 1 000 of 37.5 cl bottles, the rest of the cider will be distillation and vinegar. I'll do again brut, extra-brut and newly I think about doing "total-brut" which should be cider fermented to complete dryness but fizzy. I plan to experiment with cider aged in oak barrels, this time in new ones and not after calvados like last year, just oak. After that there will be selection of micro-cuve/micro-lots like honey cider, raspberry cider, buckwheat etc. As every year this year I'll be bottling one truly traditional cider which was done as the last one in the season using ancient broyer/crasher and click-claque oak press system. This year novelty is the usage of "methode traditionnele" clear bottles which can take up to 10 bars at 20°C. I'm also trying to switch for Champagne corks of 29 mm. Both of these changes are steps in the direction of higher safety, the bottles should not explode and cider should last for longer allowing for archivation. Also these steps lead in the direction of the hight quality image product which I'm trying to build. And yes, all of these changes are more costly. Once the cider is bottled, prise de mousse naturelle by native yeast takes place building up slowly the carbon dioxide in the bottles up to 2-3 bars if I'm lucky, more than that if I'm not ... This process takes around four months. Especially during the first two months the temperature of around 8 to 10°C is very important, another two months of lower temperature and if all goes well the cider is ready for drinking and if well behaved staying in the bottle. The planing says that if all goes well the cider will be ready for sale during August or September. It is also safety concern, if the cider is stable at two to three bars after the warmer summer season is over, it is way less likely to start to re-ferment therefore safer to distribute to customers. As always please keep in mind that the product is alive and if you can please do try to keep it stored below 10°C or at least below 15°C. With time the product is more and more stable, the yeast dies off. In general for longer intercontinental export cider which was stored for two summer seasons, so around one and half year after bottling is considered safe enough to be shipped around the world.