Bio Village Cidre Bouche

Image courtesy of www.prixing.fr

Last cidre of the holiday then. I have to admit that I am a bit of a Francophile – much of France looks (on the surface) so much like Britain in appearance. Much more sun mind (although whether that is just my choice of timing or not I cannot tell). However, I have never been to the South before. Boy, is it hot down here!

Once again I have to confess to having failed completely to take a photo of this bottle before chucking it away (well, recycling it anyway). So, once again I am at the mercy of someone else to get a photo at the top of this review! I do think images are important - if you are in a supermarket and have a review open then the image helps reduce the wasted time trying to find the damn thing. See - it's not so I can show off my photography skills (?!?!?!)

Please allow me to indulge in a little story telling by way of introduction to this review. When I first started making alcoholic drinks I opted for wine – bought several vines and waited several years for the fruit to ripen. However, in the UK, you will have several years of unripe grapes to one of decent grapes. Mind you, I learnt how to make wine during this period – strawberry, ginger and plum wine mainly. Until someone I worked with (who had very good sense) suggested that apples were a far more reliable crop in the UK – world beating probably. And the rest is, as they say, history. 

Why do I mention this? Well, I had never seen vines at their best – and there are plenty of them here and judging by the crop on them they are doing very well indeed. Grown much in the same way as modern orchards, they are low and trained along cables with only so much fruit per vine. It is far too hot to grow apples here… they need to slowly ripen to be ready and ripe during the autumn… in this temperature they would be dry and fairly nasty. Don't get me wrong, there are orchards out here - if you can call them that. Trained in much the same way as vines, they have additional protection of a cloche overhead to limit the sunlight. It all looks quite a faff to be honest!

Anyway, on to the cider. I thought it looked a bit ‘supermarket’ but on closer inspection see that it is organic (or ‘bio’) – it is even certified in some way though I am not at all sure what it is or how it stacks up. What I am much more impressed with is the use of an ingredients list, "jus de pomme a cidre fermente, carbon dioxide, So2". Wow, pretty good eh!

 So, it is highly sparkling, golden and bright. There isn't a huge smell to it. OK, it is cold so perhaps not going to give off too much, but when I let it sit a while the aroma is still faint, light and a little appley.

The taste is quite juicy - very juicy in fact. And sweet. It is pleasant but it isn't far off apple juice to be honest. I can find some body but that isn't through the tannin - it isnt that acidic either. I find it balanced. The aftertaste is short to medium and, again, it's juicy.

I like this cider - it is quite refreshing. It is also actually much better than I had expected from - better than the label that represents it!

Unfortunately, this cidre falls just short of an apple at 67/100. However, it is above average and (as with some of the others) if its all you can get hold of in a non cider producing region of France then go for it.