SUMMER REFRESHMENT FROM THE G.O.A.T. OF CIDER PRODUCTION: ERIC BORDELET
We celebrated my late mother-in-law’s 80th birthday one steamy summer day, the kind where the air was still and heavy and even hotter inside the house than outside. Both Dale and I had been running around preparing to host four generations of her family, doing the usual cleanup and cooking chores. My shirt was soaked before the party began.
I needed something to drink.
Desperately.
And I wanted something interesting and delicious I could drink all day without getting drunk. In this heat, drinking wine all day—even bottles of chilled rosé—would surely result in dehydration and sledgehammer headaches.
Then I had an idea. The hard ciders from Eric Bordelet were only 4% alcohol and always they had been very refreshing to drink. Then, as now, most were dry and all of them complex to the taste, satisfying my inner wine guy completely.
I poured some cold sparkling cider for Lorraine, the birthday girl, who loved Bordelet’s ever-so-slightly sweet Sydre Tendre ($13.99). Next, she sampled Bordelet’s Sydre Argelette ($19.99), a wondrously complex sparkling apple cider dry to the taste, yet full of caramel, baked apple and spice flavors.
“I like this even better,” she said, her eyes lighting up.
I immediately told the staff at The Wine Country of my thrilling summer re-discovery. With so many wonderful bottles of crisp white and pink wines to choose from, it is easy to forget some of the most obvious summer pleasures of all, like these dry, sparkling Bordelet ciders, refreshing, full of life, complex, enjoyable and supremely satisfying to drink. All are bottled in 750ml bottles.
ERIC BORDELET CIDERS TO ENJOY TODAY
Eric Bordelet Sydre Tendre $13.99
Eric Bordelet Sydre Argelette $19.99
Eric Bordelet Sydre Poire Authentique $16.99
Eric Bordelet Sydre Poire Granit $25.99
Eric Bordelet Sydre Corme 500ml $46.99
What Is Didier Drinking?
One similarly hot and steamy summer afternoon in France years earlier, Berkeley wine importer Michael Sullivan, owner of Beaune Imports, was visiting his friend, the great winemaker Didier Dagueneau at his home in Saint Andelain in Pouilly-sur-Loire. Dagueneau, the world’s most celebrated producer of Sauvignon Blanc, was kicking back on his veranda happily sipping a sparkling golden beverage.
“What have you got there?” Sullivan asked.
“The greatest cider in the world,” replied Dagueneau. “It’s made by a friend of mine.”
And that is how Sullivan’s Beaune Imports began its relationship with a great beverage which he would soon bring to the West Coast. Soon he would become Bordelet’s largest importer anywhere in the world.
Introducing Bordelet Ciders
The beverages they sipped that hot August day were artisanal ciders produced by a one-time sommelier at Paris’ three-star Arpege restaurant. His name is Eric Bordelet and he is widely acknowledged as the greatest producer of cider in the world. His creations are not only supremely refreshing to drink in the summer, they pair surprisingly well with food all year round. Eric completely refurbished his family’s ancestral orchards and ciderworks in the Pays de Loire located just two kilometers south of Normandy, and in the process revolutionized the genre.
These are not ciders like the super-sweet fruit juices found in American grocery stores. They are mature, marginally alcoholic (4%) sparkling beverages that reflect their Northwestern French terroir as much as any wine in the country.
When Dagueneau learned that Bordelet’s father lived on the edge of the Calvados appellation and grew fruit trees for making cider, he persuaded Eric to return to the family estate and create a totally new, natural approach to cider making. Within a decade, Bordelet was acknowledged as the greatest cider producer in France.
With his extensive wine background, Bordelet had a special perspective with which to transition to his new life. His ciders would be nearly as complex as the world’s finest wines, and they would possess a character and thirst-quenching ability that would not only make them unparalleled summer sippers, but wonderful dinner beverages for a large array of cuisines.
Two Kilometers from Normandy
I first met Eric Bordelet, a handsome, serious-minded fellow with an occasional puckish grin, at his family’s sprawling estate just south of Normandy in the Pays de la Loire over two decades ago. Driving up to his newly built home which was attached to his cider works, there were the imposing vine-covered ruins of a great old stone estate whose roof had caved in long before anyone living could remember.
It was a stormy, drizzly, cool and dark day when we arrived at Bordelet’s estate in the spring of 2002, the Château de Hauteville. Like a scene out of Wuthering Heights, the long driveway cut through a grassy meadow and aimed right for the stone ruins of the 17th century manor all covered in moss and other wild overgrowth.
To the right of the ghost mansion was a restored stone building with Bordelet’s residence and the cider works. To the left of the old mansion lay Bordelet’s apple orchard, with closed-space trellising, looking much like grape vines. All of Bordelet’s plantings were intended for future generations.
Different Styles of Bordelet Cider
Bordelet crafts several different styles of cider, some from apples and some from pears. They are low in alcohol, about 4%, are now vintage dated, and they are as refreshing as all get out. We offer two of his apple ciders: one an off-dry Tendre ($13.99), and the other, the dry, complex Argelette ($19.99).
His two pear ciders (sometimes called perry) are Poiré Authentique ($16.99), a cider whose taste is off-dry due to the higher acidity found in pears, and Poiré Granit ($25.99), the very special bottling from pears picked off 300 year old, 70 foot high trees planted in a granite soil at a friend’s farm 10 kilometers from the domaine. From a distance they look like big oak trees in winter, but upon closer examination, these massive trees were spouting buds all over their twiggy branches.
Fermentation takes place in the bottle, and the classic ciders can age 5 to 7 years, with the Granit and Argelette able to go 10 years to develop complexity of flavor. Bordelet says that the impression of sweetness improves with age, the same as with older wines.
Bordelet’s apples are not the kind that are grown for eating, and they don’t look like it. When the apples are fully grown, they are more the size of crabapples, so they will have a higher skin-to-pulp ratio. At harvest time they become so ripe they fall off the trees, at which time they are collected for mashing and extraction of the juice. before fermentation. His apple trees last about 80 years before they become non-productive.
The pears, on the other hand, come primarily from orchards to the rear of the cider works, in two orchards of magnificent pear trees. The old timers in the region swear that pear trees must be 100 years old before they start producing cider pears of real quality. Bordelet’s pears must be harvested by hand, and depending on the size of the tree, they may be reached by ladder or by hydraulic cherry-picker. The latter is certainly the case for the 70 foot high trees used for the Granit bottling.
A Very Special and Ancient Cider
A few years ago, Bordelet released a special cider in a 500 ml bottle called Cormé ($46.99), made from an ancient local fruit once used to make cider, which was all but extinct. This super-rare cider is made from an ancient crabapple-like fruit native to the border area of the Loire Valley and Normandy. Bordelet, the master of French cider, produces this bottling the same way he does his award-winning ciders, naturally fermenting them in the bottle. It is a dry cider with explosive flavor, a drink you must try at least once in your lifetime.
The Greatest Chicken I'd Ever Eaten
After touring Bordelet’s cider works and tasting his amazing ciders we sat down at Eric’s dinner table where he served us the greatest tasting roast chicken of my life, and I experienced many new pairing ideas besides mere thirst quenching from his bubbly art.
Bordelet’s fruity Sydre Doux (now called Tendre) was served with a platter full of small nibbles in various pastry and bread-like coverings, straight from the oven.
Next he served the Poiré Granit, the impressive and subtle off-dry cider from the old orchard with his fish course, a fabulous sauté of whole scallops, including the flavorful, red crescent-shaped roe that you almost never see on this side of the Atlantic.
When it came time to eat the main course, Bordelet’s incredibly flavorful roast chicken, the former sommelier pulled out a series of intriguing and ground-breaking red wines from the cellar. Blind, of course.
I turned to importer Michael Sullivan of Beaune imports and asked, “what did he do to that chicken to give it all that flavor? Wrap it in bacon?”
Michael replied, “No, he just roasted it.” He then turned to me and said, “For the first time in your life, you’re eating a real chicken.”
We returned to the ciders for the cheese course, Bordelet served a magnificent 12 year old Sydre Argelette, a subtle and refreshing dry sparkler from apples grown in clay soils which we drank with a great Normandy Camembert.
Finally, the dessert was a rich, caramelly baked apple tarte tatin. An older vintage of sweet and complex Sydre Doux was offered, and the rich flavors of the cider played off the tarte nicely and formed a nice bookend with the earlier Doux.
When our French wine manager visited Bordelet during her French wine tour a few years later, she relayed my enthusiasm for his chicken dinner.
“Yes, I remember Randy,” Eric said. “Tell him next time he comes I’ll roast a wild turkey.”