This is the another cidre bought from Neufchatel (I still can't get over the fact that you can buy cidre from a greencgrocers!). The last one I tried was ecxellent - worthy of a silver apple (for what that matters to anyone but me:-) it will be interesting to see if this one stacks up in the same way. It is also the 50th review I have done now... and I am barely scratching the surface of quality cider so far. I am pleased that there is more to say about tasting cider than I feared with the first few.
Although there seemed to be a lot of artisanal cidres where ever I looked, I think it is more or less the same number as you would expect to find in Herefordshire or Somerset - its all a case of going to the right place to find them. Driving around though it is noticable that anyone who has any land has a couple of trees. Very pretty in the springtime as they are full of blossom. It is also interesting that many also have cherry trees and in some towns it appears that more people opt for cherry over apple. The orchards that I passed seemed smaller than the big orchards found in the UK, but there are definitely more of them... again though this could be a case of being in the right place.
This cider, like the majority of others is sparkling and golden. However, its beyond hazy and even leaving it to settle for a couple of days was still pretty cloudy. As with many others it is appley to the taste - matching the smell. To taste though there seems to be a lot of bitterX - bittersweet, bittersharp - the acid and tannin is almost as if there is a bunch of crab apples in it. It doesn't feel as balanced as many of the others. This does give it a fairly distinctive character though, and I did enjoy it. It didn't cloy and was pretty smooth. It was also clearly a full juice cider and even though it was cloudy, there wasn't any yeast to the taste.
My suspicion is that is was a little young and unbalanced. But even though, it still rated at 66/100, which is respectable.
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