Three Countries in 22 Photos

What follows is not a proper photo essay because my journey through England, France, and the Basque Country took me to some eddies and side-tours not strictly focused on cider. But maybe that's a feature of this post and not a bug. I'll put most of them below the fold so they don't run forever down the page.   They proceed in chronological order and although I took about the same number of photos of each place on my good camera these, on my phone's, seem to be unevenly distributed.  Sorry, Normandie!  Also, I tried not to repeat photos I used in earlier posts about Herefordshire, wild fermentation, Normandy, Txotx season, or perry. 

The Grain Barge in Bristol had the best tap cider I found, but Ashton
Press, which I liked, is owned by Butcombe Brewery.

Sometimes the hedgerows seemed menacing.

Perry

From time to time, you hear someone refer to "pear cider."  Given that many American ciders are now made with other fruit, I suppose you could say that a cider made with some portion of pear juice is a pear cider. But the stuff made wholly from pear juice: that's perry (or, in France, poire).  

It's a pretty rare beast in the US, either available only as an import or something made from eating pears.  But in England, many of the traditional cider makers also make perry. Indeed, the one late pressing I happened to witness was of pears at Hecks in Somerset. (The aroma of pressed pears is sweet and lush. If you could bottle the scent, you'd quickly get rich.)

Like apples, perry pears (they're always called "perry pears," never just pears) are grown because they contain the sugars, acids, and especially tannins that make a good perry.  Because of their rarity at home, I have rarely even had them. That was rectified in my swing through England, because the cideries all had more than one available.  They're more rare in Normandy, but still roaming about. In fact that Calvados you love may well contain a small amount of pear. 

Perries are the red-headed step-children in the cider world--neglected and misunderstood, an afterthought. But some cider makers are devoted to them and produce beverages as elegant and complex as cider. Indeed, Tom Oliver recently won best in show for a perry at a national contest where they were outnumbered by ciders three to one.  

Oliver's perries are elegant and finely-wrought little creatures, characteristic as much for their pillowy softness as their flavor. I noticed it on our first pour, of the Draft Perry. The word that sprang into mind was "meringue"--both for the bright flavors and mousse-like texture. Red Pear Cocktail perry had a poached pear flavor and light delicacy.  (Both completely concealed their alcohol spines.)  By contrast the bottle-conditioned medium had tons of tannin, a bit of herb in the nose, and a touch of blue cheese. It reminded me more of Mike Johnson's perries at Ross-on-Wye; those have a sturdier farmhouse quality, with burnished tannins (they seem softer in pears than apples), more alcohol warmth, and a hint of wild yeast. Those who love smacking tannins found in English ciders would approve of them. 

Norman poire is to perry what Norman cidre is to English scrumpy--a lighter, sweeter, bubblier tipple. Pears naturally tend toward sweetness, not only in sugar content but pear flavor. In Normandy, where the philosophy is sweet and effervescent, they can seem almost evanescent in the mouth. I was surprised to find, however, that in a side-by-side pairing with different courses, the poire consistently matched and usually exceeded its counterpart, a cider. 

There's an adage among orchardists: "pears for your heirs."  Perry pear trees take a long time to begin producing (15 years), and even then they are harder to harvest. Cider makers say perry is harder to make, too; the flavors are more subtle and fermentation is for some reason more finicky. This may account for the reason there are fewer perries on the market--and I despair that perry pears will ever grow in our neck of the woods. (Though, positive note: in Rngland perry is now so popular that they're putting in acres of new fruit.)  But they are worth trying to track down.  They are not just a curiosity, but a wonderful beverage in their own right. 

In Normandy

If you're familiar with American cider-making, the English tradition is pretty straightforward. Nearly all American cider makers pitch yeast, but otherwise, the contours are familiar. French cider making takes you another step (or three) into the unknown. 

French ciders are comparatively weak, ranging from less than three percent (doux, sweet) to about five (brut, dry).  They are all sweet by comparison, though on the stronger end the tannins offer plenty of balance. And they're effervescent, with a pop of the cork reminiscent of champagne. 

They achieve this by the strange technique of keeving ("defecation" in French, so I'll stick with the English). I have been trying to wrap my brain around descriptions I've read, so was glad to have Guillaume Drouin walk me through his process. Everything proceeds as normal through the pressing stage. Drouin has several dozen varieties of apples, all of them unfamiliar to my ear (especially as it rolled mellifluously from his tongue), but mainly bittersweets  They are collected at three times from late September through December and pressed: then begins the interesting stuff. 

After grinding the apples into a pulp, they are macerated--or left to sit for a period of time. This is said to soften the tannins as the pulp oxidizes. (You'll forgive me if I get some of the science wrong here--I haven't had a chance to review the tape and am working from memory.  I believe something happens enzymatically to the pectins as well.) Not everyone agrees that it works, but Guillaume, who trained as a winemaker before returning to Normandy, has tried it both ways and is convinced maceration works. 

Once the juice is pressed, he chills it to 46F / 8C and sends it to the fermenter. Then the magic happens. The pectins (I think) rise, forming a "brown hat" that steadily compresses.  The cider maker tests the chapeau by climbing to the top of the fermenter and poking it with a stick, testing the resistance. When it's ready, They rack the clarified cider from the bottom of the fermenter until the hat descends fully. 

Thereafter, Guillaume works to stress the cider, keeping it cold and racking it over and over again, forcing the yeast to repopulate. If the temperature rises above 52F / 11C, he will chill it again. Eventually, the yeast essentially gives up, coming to a gravity of the maker's choosing. The cider starts with a gravity of 1052-1056 (it depends on the sugar content of the apples) and will finish as high as 1025. A "dry" cider is 1012-1015. (In England, dry ciders range from 0.098 to 1005). 

As with Belgian beer, the cider goes through a refermentation in the bottle. Guillaume expressed exactly the same sentiments as the Belgians: without this stage, the flavors won't develop and mature. 

I spent an afternoon with Cyril Zangs, who doesn't use keeving to make his cider. Like other French cider makers, he does naturally condition his ciders. He also practices the peculiarly French technique of "disgorgement" used to make champagne--though this seems to be unusual for cider. 

In disgorgement, the cider is fermented on its side, so the yeast collects lengthwise. Then the bottles are placed in racks, arse-end up at about a 45 degree angle. Gravity slowly pulls the yeast to the neck. Over the course of weeks, the bottles are regularly rotated a quarter turn or so to encourage the yeast down the bottle. They have to go slowly so the powdery yeast is helped down by the heavier yeast and doesn't drift off in solution. At the end of the process, there's a little plug of yeast in the neck. 

This is when the cider make disgorges it--opening the cap so the plug is blown out. They do this in winter, when the cider is sluggish and cold, so there's not a huge loss of carbonation. They take one of the bottles to top off the others, cork and cage and they're done.  M. Zangs claimed not to make typical French cider--and he doesn't. His ciders are drier and finished like champagne.  On the other hand, the way he makes cider seems uniquely French. 

I encourage you to go buy a bottle of whatever French cider you can find. They share some similarities no matter how different they are. The apples are of a place. I can't exactly describe them, but you'll begin to recognize their character. The nose usually contains a bit of refined wildness, a waft of fromage. The body is mousse-like but delicate with bubbles. Altogether different from Engliah cider, but somehow familiar. 

Photos: Drouin fermenters; old Drouin press; Zangs cidery. 

Naturally Fermented

Cider is not like beer. In so many ways. I was a bit cavalier when I dove into cider making, reasoning that knowledge of one fermented beverage gives you a leg up on another. Consider me chastened. 

One of the most interesting discoveries in my cider-is-not-like-beer files is fermentation--obstensibly the one element that should be similar. The first thing to know is that, while cider is made up of easily digestible simple sugars, it lacks nutrients that beer has in abundance. That turns out to be a good thing, because it means cider makers can inhibit yeast, drawing out fermentation times. That in turn means cider that has retained subtle fermentation flavors and aromas. Fermentation can take weeks or months given the right circumstances. 

One of those circumstances is cold.  Yesterday afternoon I was standing in a gorgeous old warehouse for Cyril Zangs' cider. Here in Normandy so many of the old half-timbered buildings survived the 17th and 18th centuries that you can find them empty and available to rent--to, say, house your fermentation vessels. The weather in here (and the cider country in England for that matter) is very much like Portland's: near freezing at night, highs around 40-45 F.  That means cider ferments throughout the winter at these temperatures. Traditional cider makers prefer to use ambient temperatures to chill fermentation--so far I haven't encountered anyone yet with chilled tanks (though they all expressed a wish to get them sometime).

And here's what's amazing to the beer guy: the yeasts stay active.  Part of it is the volume; even at winter temperatures, a vat of cider will probably stay above 40 degrees. And if the temperatures do drop low enough, the yeast just go dormant. Fermentation begins again once the cold snap ends.  The cold is perhaps the biggest aid to a cider maker--it inhibits the really nasty characters and allows the cider to develop to its full potential. 

I have so far visited five traditional cideries and whether Norman or English, they have the same attitude--the less they interfere, the better the cider is for it. I wonder if American cider makers could trust the process enough to just press the fruit and wait?  An uninsulated barn or warehouse anywhere in Oregon or Washington would do.  But not-doing can sometimes be harder than doing.