Last night the inevitable happened. Australian products took out the top prizes at the Australian Cider Awards.

The Hills Cider Co. took out the top perry prize and the “Best in Show” with their Pear. Congratulations to the team at Hills for a fabulous product. Scoring 57 points out of a possible 60 reflects the quality.

And to cap the Australian night, the winner of the top cider was Small Acres Cyder with their methode champenoise ‘Cat’s Pyjamas’.

Following meetings at Orange NSW in September 2011 and at Healsville Vic in January 2012 a group of cider and perry producers decided to proceed with the formation of a producers organisation. As a result, Cider Australia has been incorporated (in NSW) and is working with the organisers of the Australian Cider Awards to bring to the public a number of events associated with the Awards.

Cider Australia now have their own website:

 http://www.cideraustralia.org.au/

where information about the organisation and the public events can be obtained.

Please note that Cider Australia and the Australian Cider Awards now share the same logo.

This site was originally created to assist in the development of cider apple orchards in Australia. Comments as to subject areas to be covered are welcome. Contact via cideroz@cideroz.com

There are 31 cider apple varieties available that have been confirmed as “true-to-type”, meaning they appear to conform to the named variety in the country of origin. The basic information about these varieties can be found on two webpages of the NSW Dept of Primary Industries:

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/horticulture/pomes/cider

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/horticulture/pomes/additional-cider-varieties

Since these webpages were created the variety Tardive de la Sarthe has also been confirmed true-to-type.

The 31 varieties originated either in England (”cider”) or France (”cidre”). It is not essential that cider be produced from cider apples. However traditionally cider was made from special apple varieties with levels of tannins and acid that make the fruit less appealing as conventional dessert fruit. As the raw ingredient for cider production these specialised apples come into their own enabling the production of the Hereford and Somerset cider styles as well as the Normandy and Brittany cidre styles.

Cimetiere de Blangy is a French cider apple in the “douce amère” (the English bittersweet) class. In France it is also known as Blangy and Blagny. In Australia it was until recently listed in collections as Cimitiere du Pays.

The name Cimetiere de Blangy indicates the derivation of the variety. It was a tree located in a cemetery in the town of Blangy-le-Chateau which is about 15km north of Lisieux in Basse Normandie. The town of Blangy-le-Chateau comes within both the Calvados and Pays d’Auge regions giving a good indication of lineage and quality.

Under the control system prevailing in France it was included in the 1949 and 1958 listings for planting in the Calvados region. It appears to have been “retired” from the listing in 1966 (Pommiers à Cidre, INRA, 1997). Despite this, it still appears on various French websites including www.normannia.info with a date of August 2007. The most interesting web reference in relation to Cimetiere de Blangy is probably the newly available book by Henrik Mattsson, “Calvados”. This book is subtitled “The world’s premier apple brandy – tasting, facts and travel”. Mattsson lists approximately fifty cider apple varieties that are being used for the production of Calvados, and Cimetiere de Blangy is one of three that are in Australia.

Current Australian information on Cimetiere de Blangy indicates that it flowers in mid (cider apple) season. As with all varieties there is variation year to year but this central positioning makes it a relatively easy variety to pollinate. Most years it has good overlap with Improved Foxwhelp. The blossom stages for Cimetiere de Blangy of king bloom (centre flower only open) and full bloom (all flowers in cluster open) are pictured.

Tardive de la Sarthe is the latest (May 2009) cider variety to be confirmed as being true-to-type and takes the total of cider varieties in Australia to 31.

In France it also has the synonym Frequin Tardif de la Sarthe but this name has not been used in Australia.

This variety was privately imported into Australia in 1985 at the same time as Tremletts Bitter. Despite Tardive de la Sarthe being French in origin it came to Australia via the famous Long Ashton Research Station at Bristol. Following importation it “sort-of” disappeared and it has only recently been tracked down. Fruit from the tree growing in Australia has been examined and found to conform to the description published in “Pommiers a Cidre”, Bore and Fleckinger, INRA 1997. Images of fruit produced in Australia have been examined by staff of INRA and the variety identification confirmed.

Tardive de la Sarthe was put onto some of the approved variety lists in France in 1949 but was removed in 1991 because of it’s sensitivity to fireblight. This is not a consideration in Australia since we don’t presently have this disease in the country.

Published data from France places Tardive de la Sarthe in the “amere” class – relatively high tannin levels and relatively low acidity. See the NSW DPI website for a chart of other “amere” types. Under the English system of four classes, Tardive de la Sarthe would be classified as a bitter-sweet but it’s tannin level is on the high side for this class.

There is virtually no Australian information about Tardive de la Sarthe – yet. The likelihood is that the Australian climate will suit this French variety as most of Australia has more in common with French conditions than the conditions prevailing in the British cider growing areas. It remains however to gain experience about the performance of this variety in the orchard and it’s reactions to the diseases that we do have in Australia.