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 harvested my apples manually and I tried to buy manually harvested apples. However because of variety of reasons (health issues, time, treasury), I had to also buy around 40% 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 Les Vergers de Ducy during the autumn so the time which I could dedicate to my project was more limited. This showed especially during the harvest part. Just to get the taste of the season, I took only three days off from mid of September till mid of December and worked around or over 300 hours per month. Still all the apples which I processed were harvested in small untreated orchards, part in Val de Saire, Cotentin region and part in the Vale do Seulles, Calvados region. The apples at Vale de Saire region were processed with help of mobile "pressoir à paquets" using local service provider. The other "half" was crashed by pressoir à bande/cylindrical press in place where I work. I've transformed around 18 tonnes of apples resulting in around 110 hl (11 000 l) of moût/juice. Newly I've pasteurized around 600 l as untreated and unfiltered apple juice.

The fermentation of moût/juice was left to the wild yeast present on the apples and in the cave/cellar, no products were added during the course of fermentation (nor before or later). Also newly, the cider was not filtered in any manner. I was solely relaying on soutirage/racking, which doesn't interfere/decrease the intensity of colour, fragrance and taste like the 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/batch, so bit lower than 2019 season and way lower compared to 2018 season. As at the previous season there were issues with rather higher temperatures early in the season 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 from the total which I want to bottle this year (40 hl = 4 000 l), is ready for bottling. The rest still needs more time to slow down, make the yeast bit more tired and less numerous. However I have to be careful because the densities are already quite low highest being around 1019. 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 over the time will be the two primary factors on which base I decide how to assemble/mix the lots/batches and when I do so.

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 go for 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 keeping it's fizziness. 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 lot of truly traditional cider which we pressed as the last one in the season using ancient broyer/crasher and click-claque oak press system. It was quite an event, the apples were over riped, the marc sprayed in all direction like in some bad monster movie, it was hilarious!

This year novelty is the usage of higher quality "methode traditionnele" clear bottles which can take up to 10 bars at 20°C. I'm also trying to change from 27mm composite bouchons/corks to Champagne corks of 29 mm with layer of natural bark. Both of these changes are steps in the direction of higher safety, the bottles should not explode even when exported intercontinentally and cider should last for longer allowing for archivation. These steps also lead in direction of product of high quality image 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 highly desired. Another two months of similar temperature or lower than 15°C and if all goes well the cider is ready for drinking. If well behaved it stays in the bottle when opened. The planing says that if all goes well the cider will be ready for delivery during August or rather September. It is also safety concern. If the cider is stable and keeps it's two to three bars after the warmer summer season is over, it is way less likely to start to re-ferment when the temperatures are going already down, therefore it is safer to distribute to customers. As always please keep in mind that the product is alive and if you can 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 cider suitable for intercontinental export is such which was stored for two summer seasons or more, so around one and half years after bottling, this is considered safe enough to be shipped around the world. There are other techniques of stabilization but we do not discuss them here because I do not use them at the moment.