News 2023 11 01
Another greetings from Normandie,
The harvesting season is starting to approach it's last part, if all goes well within two weeks we should be done. In general we finish around end of November, but this year we will need to "accent" the sale period before Christmas (if you know about some good advent and Christmas markets let us know please!). So far, two pressages were done, we have over 70 hl (7 000 l) of cider fermenting already. If all goes well, we may have another 70 hl more but lets see. We expect around 20 tonnes transformed this year, it was very rich on apples. We will probably do just one more pressing which will be rather big. This last one will be specifically for "cidre bouché", cider for bottling. Today, the storm "Ciarán" will hit our region, which means that over 90% of the apples will be on the ground, so last passing of the orchards will start. If anyone is available come, the show is on! Now as the title suggests, believe it or not, there are not just apples to be harvested around Normandie these days. Anyone who is into hazelnuts would just get crazy here. For the apples we call it "tapis", carpet, likewise for the nuts, they are just everywhere. It is just amazing, the roads are lined with the bushes, within an hour you can easily harvest between five to ten kilos. Bit later on, after the hazelnuts, the chestnuts mature. The trees here are really huge and everywhere, the amounts are impressive. Of course as for hazelnuts, they are all completely natural, "sauvage". Last but not least, black thorns (Prunus spinosa). You may wonder what you can do from them, well wine is one of the things, I've heard jam is also a possibility too, but in our case, syrup is what we are after. As you may remember, we do 1:1 sugar to fruit ratio, cold based syrups. One of our friends tried syrup from blackthorn and it was really amazing. Finally this year our first batch is on, just a very small experimental one. Otherwise we did [mirabells (Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca)], red current, a bit of raspberries, some sour cherries ... If all goes well, around summer or autumn next year, the syrups will be ready for sale. With these products we would definitely like to upscale and also try some low alcohol percentage wines around 5-6%, just like our ciders. Also in France, some good syrup with extra-brut cider is very popular, so ... Well, that would be all for today, have a great autumn and a note or two will be send within a week or two, announcing the end of the harvesting season.
Sincerely for Cidrerie Jara,
František
