I am writing from Massachusetts USA, where a hard cider revival is going on. I have two questions.
Firstly, is it the custom in Germany to add sugar when producing cider? It is tradition here, but the leaders of our cider revival, the late Terry Maloney and partner Judith of West County Cider, do not do so. They aim for a product that is refined, as wine is, but of course without the added sugar the cider does not have the impact of wine and is very comfortable as a house beverage for those of us who may want to do some mental work after dinner.
Secondly, as to terrior. I am told that our geology in MA is similar to Brittany, the two regions having been separated just recently in our planet's history. MA and Brittany are both apple country. I never did learn about the soils of Germany, despite living in Saarbruecken for four years (and learning to drink beer, and Riesling.) Do your cider farms lie on granite, as ours do? Or something else? (NY is a big apple area also and is on shale. I recently had some sweet, unstructured NY Riesling... There is some really excellent apple ice wine coming from NY, produced by peeling sheets of ice off of the vats in winter to achieve good concentration.) Anyway I wonder what you can tell us about the soil and its effect on the cider.
terrior? sugar?
I am writing from Massachusetts USA, where a hard cider revival is going on. I have two questions.
Firstly, is it the custom in Germany to add sugar when producing cider? It is tradition here, but the leaders of our cider revival, the late Terry Maloney and partner Judith of West County Cider, do not do so. They aim for a product that is refined, as wine is, but of course without the added sugar the cider does not have the impact of wine and is very comfortable as a house beverage for those of us who may want to do some mental work after dinner.
Secondly, as to terrior. I am told that our geology in MA is similar to Brittany, the two regions having been separated just recently in our planet's history. MA and Brittany are both apple country. I never did learn about the soils of Germany, despite living in Saarbruecken for four years (and learning to drink beer, and Riesling.) Do your cider farms lie on granite, as ours do? Or something else? (NY is a big apple area also and is on shale. I recently had some sweet, unstructured NY Riesling... There is some really excellent apple ice wine coming from NY, produced by peeling sheets of ice off of the vats in winter to achieve good concentration.) Anyway I wonder what you can tell us about the soil and its effect on the cider.