STYLE COUNSEL
NATURALLY SPARKLING WHETHER IT’S TO ADD VIVACITY AND COMPLEXITY OR AS A WAY OF PRESERVING CIDER WITH MINIMAL INTERVENTION, CIDEROLOGIST GABE COOK FINDS METHODS TO CRAFT NATURALLY SPARKLING CIDERS HAVE A RICH HISTORY, ESPECIALLY HERE IN THE UK. One of the joys of cider is its simplicity: get apples, squeeze them, extract juice, place in a vessel and ferment. The resultant dry, still cider has been enjoyed in various parts of the “Old World” of cider for millennia. Cider can, however, exude all of the finesse and elegance of wine, expressed most pertinently with naturally sparkling ciders. These drinks – the close cousins of opulent champagne, vivacious crémant and cool-as-cats pét nat – are now starting to emerge as some of the finest drinks made on these shores.
WHAT & WHERE Quite fantastically, naturally sparkling ciders have quite the heritage in the
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UK. If we travel back to the early 17th century, we find the aristocracy drinking high quality cider from beautiful crystal flutes, with wine being scarce due to Britain’s almost permanent state of war with its various European neighbours starving off its importation. Crucially, this fine cider was allowed to spend time in new bottles coming from the furnaces of Sir Kenelm Digby in the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire. He was innovating with bottles that were stronger and more stable than any other in their day. These strong bottles enabled a final portion of fermentation to be completed within the bottle, ensuring that the cider was kept free from spoilage
and, most importantly, adding a light, natural sparkle. Remarkably, Digby’s exploits were being undertaken before Champagne pioneer and Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon was even born. We have legitimate cause, therefore, to describe this as being the “Forest of Dean” Method rather than the “Champagne” Method – not sure whether the French will go for that!
“WE HAVE CAUSE TO DESCRIBE THIS AS BEING THE ‘FOREST OF DEAN’ METHOD RATHER THAN THE ‘CHAMPAGNE’ METHOD” Today, varying interpretations of naturally sparkling cider are made across the globe, from Old World to New, from Northern Hemisphere to Southern and from traditional craftsmen to modern specialists. The area most associated with naturally
sparkling ciders is France, where the regions of Brittany and Normandy have undertaken a unique process of cidermaking that elicits a natural fizz, whilst also retaining an unadulterated sweetness. These ciders, normally achieved through the keeving process, are so idiosyncratic and so inextricably linked to a region and to an old cider culture, they have been omitted from this style discussion today, in favour of allowing the space and time to tell their full story separately another time. The singular, key aspect of any naturally sparkling cider is that the carbonation has been achieved, well, naturally!! Or more specifically, without force carbonation. Broadly speaking, naturally sparkling ciders head down a few different paths. Let’s delve a little deeper….
MÉTHODE TRADITIONELLE These are ciders which undergo their primary fermentation in a vessel – whether it be steel, plastic or wooden
