We were greeted at Cidrerie Traditionelle du Perche in a very tour-centric manner. After a brief introduction and a few off-the-bat questions we were guided into a small auditorium for a video presentation. It contained your standard harvest, press, and bottling information designed for casual cider tours. The orchard contained 23,000 trees that they grew… Read more »
Stats: Harvest: All by hand, no tractors used or owned. Shake and collect from ground into 25Kilo onion bags. These bags are then left to sweat/rest for a 1 month in the cider barn- Though the later harvested fruit will sometimes rest for 2 months. Blending at the press: Apples are blended at the press to… Read more »
After a lunch that featured a Prosciutto salad that would soon become legend, we made our way to one of the larger cider producers we visited in France. The Ecusson facility had been being used to press and ferment cider since 1919. We arrived shortly after 1:30pm and immediately put on hairnets and jackets. The… Read more »
The 40 hectares of fruit bearing property strives to be as self-sustaining as possible by allowing cattle to graze in the orchard. During the multiple month harvest, there is another 40 hectares that the cattle are moved to. Roughly 60 varieties are grown with some of the highest producing trees being 200-year-old pear which yield… Read more »
Set in the beautiful Norman countryside, Domaine Drouin is of an average size for most artisan cider and calvados producers. They process close to 200 tonnes of apples per year at their bucolic facility. They have a pretty standard processing operation for what we have seen in Normandy and Brittany. They bring in machine harvested… Read more »
211 Route De Pommereux 76 440 Saint Michel D’Halescourt Phone: 02 35 90 61 39 http://www.domaine-duclos-fougeray.com/ Cidermaker/Guide: Herve’ Duclos (owner) Fruit: Uses 24 varieties of traditional French cider apples. Orchard: 18 HA located on an east-facing hillside. Soils mainly Jurassic clay and limestone. Orchard is sheep grazed, no additional fertilizers or amendments used. [Rootstock type?]… Read more »
