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Cider Digest #1145
Subject: Cider Digest #1145, 29 June 2004
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1145 29 June 2004
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Bottles and Capping of Cider ("J. K. Davis")
Plastic vs Plastic ("Drew Zimmerman")
Chaptalized 'cider' - dry or sweet. ("McGonegal, Charles")
Marketing cider ("Richard & Susan Anderson")
cider visit (Derek Bisset)
Normandy ("John Howard")
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Subject: Bottles and Capping of Cider
From: "J. K. Davis" <andiroba@hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2004 17:47:37 -0400
Gentle Cider People:
I come with (bottle) cap in hand to request your advice. To date, I've been
bottling my cider in beer bottles, crown capping them. This has worked very
well for even my carbonated cider.
But I am considering going slightly more "upscale" for my cider, bottling it
in wine bottles to place it with the wine market vice beer. Can I count on
wine bottles accepting a crown cap securely? I enjoy cider with a little
carbonation, so I think a cork is out. I don't want to go the champagne
cork route.
Also, I've seen wine bottles with screw tops, both metal and poly. Any
opinion on them? My first blush is that cider with those tops would be
lumped with the cheap wines crowd.
Seeking cider sealing advice, I am
Jan Davis
Weasel Hill Farm
Amissville, Virginia
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Subject: Plastic vs Plastic
From: "Drew Zimmerman" <drewzimmer@comcast.net>
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 11:38:15 -0700
Does anyone know what the difference is between HDPE tanks labeled "FDA
approved for potable water" and "food grade resin approved for UDA and
FDA use"? I'm looking at these for cider fermenters and the water tanks
are around $.50 a gallon while the others are around $2.00 a gallon.
Drew Zimmerman
Seattle
------------------------------
Subject: Chaptalized 'cider' - dry or sweet.
From: "McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 09:33:19 -0500
>Murdo Laird writes: "I believe there will be plenty of room for all styles
of cider in the market place, no one
>would compare a Riesling to a Cabernet and fault either of them because
they were not made the same way - would they?"
This is what I was trying to say. Thank you Murdo. That, and cider folks
should be in a good position to appreciate many styles, having already
overcome any grape snobbery society might have inflicted upon them.
I get a fair number of people at my place who say 'Thank you so much for not
making it sweet." I appreciate them a lot.
I get a lot more who say they like dry wines - but don't, not really. They
like to _think_ they like dry wines. I believe my neck of the woods runs
to a heavy sweet tooth. And I've got bitten trying to keep a sweetened
cider stable. Hence the 10% ABV table wines that I wouldn't try to impress
a 'least fiddling' school cidermaker with.
Chaptalized wouldn't _have_ to be sweet - but as Andrew notes, it distorts
the balance, and is harder to blend around. Not impossible with good
varieties, I think - but that really gets to opinion/belief/personal taste.
I actually don't run up the alcohol on anything I keep dry, and stay under
the 8.5% ABV mentioned by Andrew Lea - though I do market as an apple
'wine'. I don't like the term 'hard cider', and am still waging the
education campaign to reclaim the meaning of 'cider' way from juice.
So here's to the appreciation of all those great apple varieties that we get
to play with blending, whatever styles we might end up with.
Charles McGonegal
Aeppeltreow Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Marketing cider
From: "Richard & Susan Anderson" <baylonanderson@rockisland.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 22:43:20 -0700
At Dick's urging I will expand my recent comments regarding marketing cider
in response to Charles McGonegal's post. I was off in my comments to his
post. I meant "chaptalized" not "fortified", "Chaptalized" is just not a
word that rolls off my tongue. I realize that all of you have suffered my
malapropisms and poor spelling for years.
I prefix my following comments with the following disclaimer. I do not know
anything about drinking habits or the Liquor Control laws of the states you
live or market in.
Susan and I started producing cider from apples we grow in 1999. We knew
little other than what we had read and had lots of help from Andrew Lea and
others. We had never drunk much cider other than the industrial brew on the
supermarket shelves. Both of us came from IT backgrounds and have lots of
missteps along the way to making a marketable cider. Our cider is a dry,
very dry English Style. Lots of Bittersharp and Bittersweet apples. We like
to compare it with a midrange white wine. We make it like wine, bottle it
like beer. We are very small, sell everything we make as wholesalers in
primarily urban/suburban markets. It is packaged in a 22 oz amber or 12 oz
legacy bottles. This is a retirement venture for us and while we could
expand, will likely not. Mostly we do it because it fun as well as a
challenge!
To keep this short I will share one vignette with you. We got our first
press by giving a talk with fresh cider apple samples and a small pour of
the cider at a Fall Apple Show in Seattle several years ago. I think some
lights went on after tasting the apples and the cider. One of the other
presenters was also food/garden writer and blew us away by writing his
impression of our product and how it worked with food in one of the major
Seattle papers. Needless to say it was great press. One of the funny
outcomes from this story was that one store manager who had told me the week
before that our cider tasted like "sawdust" and "good luck" called back with
hat in hand to place an order, its not a big account but we still stock
regularly in his store.
What I would like to see is some discussion of how to successfully market a
natural cider product. There are a number of business models. But in my
opinion little is known about the "who and why" habits of this market. The
collective CD voice can help with ideas on who, where, packaging etc.
Why help? Well one of the major complaints on the CD is why do we not have
any choices on the shelf other than industrial cider and a few imports. Let
get this collective voice working to help producers like Charles be able to
build a sustainable product line around a cider product without having to
dope it up with sugar.
Alas the Mariners lost again.
------------------------------
Subject: cider visit
From: Derek Bisset <derek_bisset@shaw.ca>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 08:06:15 -0700
Many thanks to all who offered advice on places to visit in England and
where to find cider .
I look forward to visiting places like Much Marcle and Ocle Pychard and
tasting cider made from Slack-ma-girdle cider apples . By the way,this
is one of the few indications I have seen that cider isn't another male
preserve .
------------------------------
Subject: Normandy
From: "John Howard" <jhoward@beckerfrondorf.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 12:03:33 -0400
I am happily submitting a cultural/technical account of my trip to the heart
of cidre making in France. There is only so much one can learn in a few
days, and between language and cultural differences, plenty of opportunity
to misunderstand. So I would be very interested to hear others' comments on
how their experiences may have differed or agreed with mine.
After spending a week in Paris poring over maps and guide books, my wife and
I negotiated a week-long invasion of Normandy that included brocantes (flea
markets) in the morning and farms in the afternoon, punctuated by two-hour
lunches and three-hour dinners. Normandy is beautiful, the food delicious,
the drink superb (a pommeau aperitif; cidre with a seafood entree; a shot of
calvados over apple sorbet between courses -- a modern take on the
traditional shot called a "trou Normande;" and a bottle of Bordeaux with the
plat and a cheese course, finished off with an espresso and a smoke at the
table). These folks know how to Live.
The tourist offices in the little villages were very helpful in directing us
to cidre makers who would be interested in talking to an amateur and might
also have some English. So between my wife's remarkably good high school
French, a smattering of English on their parts, and much dumb gesturing on
mine, I came away with a better understanding of the French approach. I also
came away with flea market luggage packed with oozing rounds of fresh
Camembert, pots of foie gras, and bottle upon bottle of poire, cidre,
pommeau, wine, and calvados. But, my prize bottle is a vial of esterase
enzyme (enough for 50 L of juice) generously given to me by a friendly
farmer, who after a complicated translation spanning two languages and
measurement systems, finished the conversation in perfect American accented
English.
The farm cidre I tasted was generally much less sweet than the cidre I've
had in the States from the larger French producers. Much of it seemed
infected with a Brett-like flavor and smell distinctly reminiscent of the
Camembert cheese also produced in this region. I guess that's what the
French call "terroir."
Most trees seemed to be on standard root stock, heavily pruned early in
life, and then usually just let go. I asked one farmer why he continued to
plant standard trees and he answered, "Because they are beautiful!" Amen. I
drove by a few recently planted intensive orchards, but don't know if they
were for table or drink. Animals of all kinds were grazed in the old
orchards, clever spiky galvanized "collars" (available at the local farm
supply store) kept them off the trees. No one seemed worried about using
wind falls.
At first I thought the farmers were just reluctant to tell this overeager
American spy what varieties they were growing. But I came to understand that
they didn't attach much significance to the names of their old trees. They
just knew some were bitter, some acid, and others sweet. One farmer
explained that there were several thousand varieties by name in Normandy but
probably only a few hundred actual varieties. The newly inaugurated Pays de
Auge AOC regulations list a dozen or so recognized and recommended
varieties.
Some farmers blended varieties at pressing, others fermented single variety
batches and blended afterward. Few had temperature control other than the
thermal mass of their ancient barns. No one seemed too fussed about when to
bottle and simply considered a young bottled cidre to be sweet, and a
year-old bottle to be demi-sec, and a two-year-old to be sec. Some
specified the sweetness on the label, so they just waited to put the label
on until it was ready to be sold.
Everyone I asked uses esterase enzyme and calcium chloride. One claimed he
only used it if he had not got the brown hat after a week. Apparently, the
time for chapeau brun formation is highly variable and dependent on the
weather, but once it forms, it happens quickly. Clearly it's a source of
much anxious waiting and watching.
The farmers who troubled to get the AOC designation did so for only a
portion of the year's output, but said that everything they made and sold
from the farm was as high a quality. Apparently, they have to apply each
year for the right to put the AOC designation on their label by completing
lots of paperwork and submitting a sample of the finished product for
professional governmental tasting (nice job!) accompanied by a periodic
inspection of the farm. Some farmers employ a cidre consultant to assist in
the blending of their AOC product (Another good job!). Others seemed
disdainful at the thought of anyone else making such a decision on their
behalf.
All seemed to be pleased about the creation of the designation as they hoped
it would raise the prestige (and value) of the product. At the going rate of
2 to 3 euros per bottle, I understand why. Most farms also produced
calvados, the quality of which varied highly from producer to producer. A
traveling still makes the farm circuit each year, and still owners are often
paid with a share of the spirits. I suspect the calvados is much more
profitable. In fact, a large cask is often put up at the birth of a male
child to be sold upon his retirement, a French 401k.
I got a great dose of cidre info, even greater doses of cidre, and found
some beautiful old ebony-handled carbon steel table knives at one of the
brocantes. Come fall, I'll send a report on my defecation experiment.
Cheers,
John Howard
Philadelphia PA USA
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End of Cider Digest #1145
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