2022 Julien Frémont Piterne Cidre

REGION: Normandy, FR 
SIZE: 750ml / ABV: 9.9%

"Piterne is named for an old Norman legend, like a presence that lives in farms, presses and apple attics. It is a blend of two vintages of ciders, 2021 and 2022, with the apples from both years, as usual, aged in the attic above the cider press and aging rooms for some time prior to pressing.

The component from 2021 was aged until fully fermented for one year in a 400 litre Calvados barrel, still rich in Calvados tannins. It was then assembled with still fermenting juice from 2022 in a 50/50 assembly.

Julien says the power and bitterness comes from the very good 2021 vintage and the tension and acidity from 2022. It is a very intense cider, albeit like all his drinks, with only a gentle fizz. It’s 9.9% ABV. Very limited." - Living Wines

Julien Frémont is a cider and Calvados maker from Normandy who makes cider the same way that his family has made it since the early 1700s – and using the same beautiful wooden press that the family has owned since that time. The only differences between the old way and Julien’s way is that he prefers dry cider and the traditional approach was to make sweet cider in this region. Julien tends his orchard using organic and biodynamic principles. Cows graze between the trees to keep the ground cover healthy.

After he hand-harvests the apples they are carried to the loft in the large, ancient building that dominates the farm using a ‘home grown’ pulley system of little buckets that carry them upwards. Here he ‘cures’ them for at least a month and sometimes for many months so that the flavours concentrate as the apples dry out. This dramatically reduces the juice yield when the apples are finally pressed but significantly improves the flavour of the cider. We find his ciders immensely satisfying and beautifully crafted and he uses no additions. No sulphites are added at any time. There are also some oxidative notes to his cider as the wooden barrels he uses are over 100 years old. This adds even more complexity to the finished product.