Is cider the next champagne?

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As bassist for the Grammy Award-winning band Mumford & Sons, Ted Dwane is more used to being asked about folk rock than ferments, but when we speak on a sunny June day, his new life as an artisan cider maker suits him well. . “It’s an obsession that dominates you,” says the 38-year-old. “To do something amazing with this fruit that would otherwise just rot. In the fall I can’t pass apples to the edge without stopping to pick them”.

His Sussex cider house, two orchards, began as a lockdown experiment in 2020 with Mumford’s tour manager, Fred McArdle. “I grew up drinking Sussex cider and I remember it being so classy and clean,” says Dwane. “It was hard for me to find ciders like that, so I thought, why don’t I make them myself?” At first they ‘removed’ all the fruit from family and friends, but Dwane has planted 20 acres of orchards and the cider house now occupies a former cow barn near Dwane’s home on the South Downs.

The pair’s first proper cider, Two Orchards Traditional Method 2020 (£107 per case, thefinecider.company), makes her debut this summer on a label owned by her longtime friend, singer-songwriter Laura Marling. Made from a mix of cooks and eaters from the East of England, and more tannic cider apples from the West Country, it combines the fruity crunch of a Cox apple with the sweetness of Madeira cake and a lively brightness.

Two Orchards makes sparkling cider using the “traditional method”, the same method used to make champagne. The fruit is fermented once to create a still cider, then given a secondary fermentation in the bottle to add the fizz. Like champagne, it is aged on the lees (spent yeast) for two years before release to generate finesse and complexity.

It combines the fruity crunch of a Cox apple with the sweetness of Madeira cake and a lively shine.

Traditional method ciders have been around for 400 years, possibly longer than champagne. (It is for ciders, rather than France’s sparkling wines, that the first ultra-strong see english, or “English glass” bottles, almost certainly made). The method fell out of fashion as cider became industrialized. But now, thanks to the craft cider movement, the style is being revived. “It’s the antithesis of mass-market cider,” says Felix Nash, founder of The Fine Cider Company, which supplies The Clove Club and The Fat Duck. “It is a cider that you can serve in a glass of wine or in a celebration.”

Some of the best examples of the traditional method are done by Polly and Mat Hilton of seek and encourage, a cider house working to restore old orchards around the Exe Valley in Devon. “Some of our orchards are hundreds of years old and contain varieties never seen before,” says Polly. “We keep them with a flock of 30 sheep.”

All of their Traditional Method ciders are a “field blend” of different cooking and eating varieties, which tend to be more acidic and lower in tannins than cider apples, a combination that lends itself well to the traditional style. “If I were to use a very basic analogy with wine, it would be a cider at the white wine end of the spectrum,” says Mat.

Find & Foster Appellation Blend 2020 is cool and refreshing, with aromas of red apple skin, honey and beeswax. It has fine champagne-like bubbles and a touch of petrichor on the finish. Some older bottlings I tried had aged beautifully, developing concentrated notes of applesauce, pear skin, crystallized honey, and quince (2020 hitting the market now, while 2019 is already here).

The first time champagne merchant Peter Crawford tasted Find & Foster’s ciders was, he says, a revelation: “They had the same texture and depth as champagne, but had less alcohol,” says the award-winning founder. drink champagne. “There was a lot in common between the two processes, it fascinated me.”

Crawford had recently moved into his family headquarters in Fife, Scotland, a 400-year-old estate blessed with its own orchards. He went on to establish his own cider house, the naughton cider company, dedicated to the elaboration of ciders with the traditional method “as an aperitif. Clean and pure with that beautiful line of saltiness.” The second launch of the cider house, Naughton Brut 2020 (£26), is a blend of 50 apple varieties, including Bramley and Cox’s Orange Pippin. Silver-gold, it is made of fine bones and minerals with a very delicate and creamy effervescence.

Traditional method ciders have been flying out the door at La Fromagerie in west London; the latest holiday sales even surpassed champagne. “We love the pairing Find & Foster Appeal with Harborne Blue, a spicy blue goat cheese made just a 45-minute drive from the cider house,” says Joshua Page of La Fromagerie (who runs the cheese and cider tasting company fieldandorchard.es). “The combination of flavors is amazing, but it’s also about the story. It is clear that what these cider makers are doing has caught people’s attention”.

@alicelascelles