Bordelet Sydre Argelette

Brewed by Cidriculteur Eric Bordelet
Style: Cider
Charchigne, France

Gold color with a thin head. Musty apple aroma. Honey and apple dominate the flavor. Lightly tart, fairly sweet. The mustiness comes through like old, worn out oak barrels. A distinct ’cellar’ quality.

(750ml bottle) Hazy apple juice body with small white head. Aroma is medium sweet, apple, some tartness, floral, faint seltzer. Taste is medium sweet, starts sweet up front before turning dry mid-tongue. Nice tartness and light sourness. Light-medium body, light crispness.

Bottle. Cloudy light brown drink with a mildly sweet apple aroma and a very dry apple and slightly spritzy flavour. Overall an average drink.

2005 Vintage. Good to see that these super delux ciders have hit Australian shores. Strictly for the enthusiast given the price ($27 for 750ml), perhaps more so given they are suprisingly low in alcohol.

Colour and pour is fairly standard for the genre (light gold amber) and big head early. Aromas are intriguing; dirty apple must, old wood, stalks. A cassic note lurks as well. Definately has a wine corked character but that is more or less ’part and parcel’ for the style. Flavours are quite mild but well buily. Fruits are understated, dry, some spice, more faint cassis. Good presence despite the low ABV.

2005 vintage. Pours a clear, medium golden body. Ultra-fine carbonation bubbles cascade slowly into a fizzy, off-white pool at the head of the glass. The aroma comes off as a beautifully spiced reduction of apples, very reminiscent of a baked apple pie. The nose also shows a good amount of wild mustiness that I mistook for oak at first. High residual sugar accounts for a very sweet, concentrated apple flavor and somewhat cloying mouthfeel. The wild must comes through strongly again, as does a touch of cinnamon. A decent amount of acidity tries to peek through, but is alas enveloped by the sweetness. This is a fun, easy drinking little cider that won’t knock your socks off, but will satisfy nonetheless.

Pours an attractive deep gold - um, clear apple juice color - with about a half inch of fizzy white foam. Very effervescent. Boils down (ok, boils isn’t the correct term, but you get the idea) to a thin layer of foam - with something of a thicker ring of suds at the sides of my Samuel Smith half-sized no-nick taster glass? Mild apple juice (as opposed to apple cider) aroma. Sweet apple and puckering tart apple at the same time. They compete for prominence, settle for a draw, and leave the audience (me) very content. Finishes both dry (on the tongue) and sweet (everywhere else). How can that be? This is without question an apple champagne. And yet it is medium bodied - just when you expect it to turn light. After half a glass, it remains very carbonated, even though the head is now completely gone. Minutes after my last sip, the dryness on my tongue remains. All traces of sweetness are replaced by a mild spicy/herbal taste. Chamomile maybe? I think so. Wait - make that subtle dry black pepper, with some chamomile.

2003 vintage. Clear shiney gold-like copper body. Minimal white head. First whiff was stale apples. Whiffs after that get better… sweeter with cinnamon. Taste is kind of stale at first… but decent. Appley sourness, some sweet cinnamon.

2003 bottle via marcus. The cider pours to a dark orange body with lots of visible carbonation that slowly creeps up through what is likely a viscous liquid. A thin white head forms. The aroma is, like Ernest states, mossy. Some dry woodyness. Not a bunch of apples. Where are the apples? Perhaps some light cassia. The flavor is pretty complex. Apples, light cassia, sweet concentrate. The palate is smooth, not overly carbonated, sticky at times.