CTN: Cider tasting notes?

Hello All,

In honor of Johnny Appleseed Day, I thought I would post my thoughts on various ciders I've tried over the past year.

First, let's lead off by slagging the ciders I would not recommend. "Clos Normand," which I got at Whole Foods for $10 or so for 750mL, was watery and I really hope they didn't build a wall around the orchard (as depicted on the label) because it was a waste of effort. The cheapest ($4.50/750mL) and most commonly distributed brand I saw was Blackthorn, which is a shame because it had little apple flavor and mainly tasted like some kind of malt beverage. This may be because, according to Wikipedia, it's made from "apple concentrate, sugar and sweeteners and is fermented with a controlled yeast strain." Yecch.

Moving into the ciders worth drinking, the "varietal" Granny Smith cider by Newton's Folly ($7 per six pack at Trader Joe's) tasted discernibly of Granny Smith, but really didn't have much intensity. My feeling is that the really good cider apples probably don't have names that we'd recognize in the grocery store, since anything in a grocery store is designed to ship well.

One cider that was expensive ($11/750mL at Whole Foods) but good was Woodchuck's "Farmhouse Select" from Vermont. Could use a little more carbonation, but it has (dare I say it) complexity and the texture that suggests skin contact. The most winelike of the ciders I tried.

However, the winner of my tasting competition was Wyders, from Canada, which is relatively inexpensive ($3.30/650mL or $8 per six pack at BevMo). Very crisp, well-carbonated, semi-sweet but not cloying, and lots of cidery apple flavor. As I mentioned elsewhere, I served this in place of my usual off-dry white at Thanksgiving, with great success.

Thanks Walt,

I"m going to an Apple wine/Cider tasting in Frankfurt on Sunday. It features 250 Artisanal Ciders from ten or twelve countries (mostly Europe, but I think there is one winery from Canada too.) Your mentioning Cider got me excited and thirsty.

Cheers,
Bill

I think that you were unlucky with your Norman cider. There are many excellent artisan ones in Normandy but I guess that few are sold beyond a radius of some 30km from their source. One cider which is exported from just over the Norman border in Mayenne is that of Éric Bordelet http://www.ericbordelet.com/ ; very tasty and suave and not cheap but I prefer the more rustic ones from lesser known producers.

Bill, 250 ciders! You have me excited as well, and I'm half a world away. In high school in Ohio, there were a number of places that produced artisinal fresh cider (which naturally outshone the supermarket stuff in roughly the same way the rising sun outshines a headlight). However, none produced hard cider that I saw. You're a lucky, lucky man.

Tim, I think you are right. If I had to name the regions I associate with quality cider, Normandie would be right at the top, with Hesse (the state in which Frankfurt am Main is located) right behind. That's why it was so dissappointing that visiting several shops I only found one from Normandy and none from Germany at all. I see that my favorite wine shop, K&L in San Francisco, stocks the Bordelet ciders, so I will give them a try. Certainly the Norman ciders I've had while visiting Canada and France have been outstanding, so I think that you're right.

Yeah, Bordelet is one of the French producers that will be there. I used to really like them back in the US. The Poire is also very good and I remember it being very reasonable $8.99 per 750 or thereabouts?

Hessen is the Apple Wine (Ebbelwoi) capital of Germany for sure. It is more popular than beer there and if you visit a Hessische home, you will very likely be offered Apfelwein first. While much of the production is simple and cheap -even some of the big names aren't bad though, and go perfectly well with Handkaes mit Musik, a local snack of Quark cream cheese mixed with Natron and left to age a few days, then mixed with caraway, oil, vinegar, onions, salt and pepper and served on buttered sourdough bread. I've aquired quite a taste for the stuff.

There are though, some smaller, artisanal producers of Apple wine in Hessen to rival any cider producer in the world. They are unfortunately not exported and often expensive. I will report back!

Cheers,
Bill

Oh, Bill, Ebbelwoi / apfelwein and Handkaese mit Musik are maybe the two things I miss most from that area. The third would be seeing families hanging out in Weinstube.

Walt,

The cider scene is improving here in Ontario too.

Until a few years ago, selection of home-grown ciders was essentially nil; now there are several to choose from.

Some favourites of mine include: Spirit Tree, Waupoos and Thornbury. All are sparkling, dry and generally light-bodied.

Unfortunately, there still isn't anything to choose from as regards the more tannic ciders that you'd expect to find in northern France or in England. Hopefully, this will change as more growers here plant the true cider apple varieties, like Kingston Black, Yarlington Mill and Dabinett.

I've been making sparkling dry ciders for a few years too, and supplant the tannic component by crushing crabapples. It works well