What is a Cider Apple?

Just as serious winemaking requires vintage grapes, serious cidermaking requires certain apples never found in the family fruit bowl. Cider apples are barely beginning a return to U.S. orchards, but back in the Old World, many varieties are grown for both specialty and mass market ciders.

Vintage apples offer :

• High tannins, for bitterness, astringency, and "body."
• High sugars, for alcohol production
• Sufficient acid for full flavor and balance.
• Pleasing apple taste and aroma

English-speaking cider makers describe cider apples as bittersharp, bittersweet, sharp, or sweet,* ranked as "full, medium, or mild," according to the levels and combinations of acids, tannins, and sugars in their juice. All contain a lot of sugars, often masked by acidity or bitterness. Biting into most of them is a bad experience.

From different cider apples our ciders draw their myriad aromatic charms. For centuries, blending has been the name of the game, though exceptional apples such as Kingston Black are famed for giving excellent "single-variety" cider.

Hundreds of cider apple varieties have been found, developed, propagated, described, discussed, promoted, lost and sometimes found again. In our orchards we test more varieties all the time, seeking those that grow well on our hill in our weathers. So often, the same fruit grows gorgeously in one place and boringly in another, or vice-versa. Under apple varieties are listed, by category, some of the cider varieties growing here. We haven't tried to evoke the mysterious aromatic qualities of each -- words fail.

n o t e :
* Sharp and bittersharp varieties contain more than 0.45 % malic acid, while sweet and bittersweet varieties normally fall below this level. Sweet and sharp varieties contain less than 0.18% tannin; bittersweet and bittersharp varieties, more than 0.18 percent tannin. All offer high sugars, or should.  

Bramtot Bittersweet


Foxwhelp Bittersharp