Two Bottles Cyprien Lireux
There will be a bit more fermented orchard fruit. From Cyprien Lireux in Normandy, we're drinking a bottle of Parcimonie and a bottle of Premices, both from the 2023 vintage.
We really get into apples, or pears. And so we continue to drink a bit more fermented orchard fruit. It won’t be alcohol-free this January, then. But it remains light. Alcohol-free is still a good keyword, though. While researching and browsing for the two Muri bottles last week, I was surprised by how much choice there is now. There are complete web shops with only alcohol-free alternatives, and at least the labels of the alternative producers are just as beautiful as the usual natural wine suspects. The danger of the bottle then becoming mousy or fermenting again should be limited, but whether it’s delicious or just hip? Who knows. I’ve at least firmly resolved to dive a bit deeper into this this year. But not today. Today we’re drinking Normandy. Geography isn’t necessarily my strength and I also like to confuse here with there and there with here. But I can remember relatively well where Normandy is. The Allied landing there has been used often enough in film, television, and video games. And because the Allies had to drive from somewhere to France and I can at least mark the UK on a map with pretty good certainty, I can also find Normandy in northwestern France. The Pays d’Auge is an area in Normandy in the departments of Orne and Calvados. And boom, we’re at the apple. I had no idea until just now that Calvados is a department, but that somehow makes sense as a protected designation of origin. To avoid making the incomprehension of Calvados lovers even greater, I’d better not say that for me it’s actually only had to serve as a very good substitute for Applejack in cocktails so far, and I’ll leave Calvados as an inner knowledge gap for sometime in the future.
If you don’t distill the apples, you can make cider from them, just like Cyprien Lireux does. At just 24 years old, fresh after graduating in 2020, he returned home to the Pays d’Auge to make cider and poiré from traditional standard trees in scattered orchards. Three years later, he bought a farm along with the meadows and is planting new trees. Always with him, the dogs. All fruits come from untreated trees from across the region. The apples and pears are harvested by hand and then stored for a few weeks in wooden boxes before being ground and pressed. It’s fermented completely spontaneously and filled without sulfur or additives. Natural cider, then. We’re trying two bottles from Cyprien: The Parcimonie 2023 is a cuvée of many old French apple varieties, most of which I’ve never heard of before. Among them Frequin Rouge, Boudin, Douce Moen, Petit Jeanne and Douce Coelinier. The yeast is filtered out at around 40 grams of residual sugar before it goes to the bottle for the second fermentation. The Prémices, also 2023, is made from several old pear varieties from trees that are already over 200 years old. It is also spontaneously fermented and filled without sulfur or additives. By the way, the Prémices has been given one of the most beautiful poiré labels I know. And that’s important too.
The Parcimonie achieves the balance between intensity and elegance. Sure, it’s a bit musty, it’s apple must with bubbles after all, but at the same time it’s so clean, so clear, so fruity simply. There are apples, some spice, and then with air, the smell goes more and more in an ethereal fragrant direction. When drinking, you have mellow apples on the tongue, spice and a lot of freshness. And that just stays there. It’s beautiful. I always find it difficult to dissect particularly much aroma depth with cider. It doesnt reach what fermented grape juice reaches. But that doesn’t mean there’s no depth and it certainly doesn’t mean it’s less beautiful than grape juice. Because this one, it’s very, very beautiful.
The Prémices surprisingly starts with more pull. It smells leaner, somehow more sinewy and much cooler in the fruit. It feels a bit like it’s concentrating on less space, moving closer together to then pull through the nose with more pull. But how much energy is then pushed onto the tongue, the nose doesn’t prepare for that. It has an enormous amount of power, is still fine, elegant and it somehow radiates. Whether I would blindly guess pear, no idea. To be fair, I haven’t really drunk pure pear sparkling wine that often. Often it’s a mixture or just apple. Maybe that’s exactly why cider pears are so exciting. They develop a lot of sugar, at the same time a lot of tannin, are not really stable after harvest and above all they are enormously a lot of work. Because most cider pears have nothing in common with the large pears from the market, they are rather small in comparison. Although the typical cider apple is pretty much the same, at least here in Germany. There’s just a lot of work in it. In picking up, in processing. The Prémices is completely, completely different from the Parcimonie. And not just because one is apple and the other is pear. Who would want to compare there. The Prémices on the terrace in summer, the Parcimonie by the fireplace in winter. Or simply buy more and drink both in summer and in winter. Our six bottles at least didn’t last long enough to experience the summer. I need a refill.