The Phenomenon of Ice Cider
The Inventor of the Drink Still Makes the Best
On their farm near Frelighsburg, Quebec, just a mile from the border with Vermont, Christian Barthomeuf and his wife, Louise Dupuis, make an exceptional cidre de glace — “ice cider.” In December or January, even February, depending on the weather, they pick frozen apples from their 600 trees. The internal temperature of the fruit must reach –10 degrees C (14 degrees F). They press the frozen apples, just as frozen grapes are pressed to make traditional German eiswein. What flows out is the most concentrated, sugary part of the juice. The more watery part remains behind in the form of ice crystals mixed with pomace.By Edward Behr
Barthomeuf, a tall, soft-spoken man with shaggy gray hair, grew up in France in a tiny village in the Department of Cantal, famous for its cheese. He’s “paysan pur,” he says. His grandparents on both sides were self-sufficient farmers, selling a small amount of milk for the cheese in order to buy the few things they didn’t produce. Barthomeuf came to Canada on a sabbatical year, and he stayed for the wide open spaces and sense of adventure. In 1989, not far from the present farm, he made his first vin de glace — eiswein, or ice wine — the first to be made in Quebec. Soon after, he applied the method to apple: his was the world’s first cidre de glace.
The new product was highly successful. Now dozens of ice ciders made by other Quebec producers capture the taste of conventional fresh eating apples. In attention and sales, they mostly overshadow Barthomeuf’s, although he has received recognition. And in taste Clos Saragnat inhabits a different, higher plane, combining sublime caramel with deep appley flavors, more cooked than fresh. The body is full body and the sweetness easily carried by the tartness of the apples. Clos Saragnat is by far the best ice cider I’ve tasted.
Because “cidre de glace” and “ice cider” have no legal definition, most producers take a major shortcut. (Barthomeuf was asked to join work on a proposed appellation for ice cider in Quebec, but so far there has been no agreement on which methods would be allowed and efforts have come to a halt.) They harvest their apples at the normal time in fall and put them into cold storage. Later, as convenient, they press the apples and freeze the juice outdoors. Brought back indoors, the frozen juice begins to melt and the more sugary part runs off. That’s far easier than picking and pressing frozen apples in midwinter.
Barthomeuf and Dupuis stick to the original tactics. They share the work and have one employee. Barthomeuf also works as a consultant to other ice-cider producers.
That first ice cider of Barthomeuf’s contained mainstream apple varieties. Today, 40 percent of Clos Saragnat’s apples come from named varieties, largely new eating ones, such as the disease-resistant Liberty, Freedom, and Trent, but also the English cider apple Bulmer’s Norman. Barthomeuf seeks a blend of acid and nonacid fruit, of sugary and bitter. To achieve that, 60 percent of his apples originate with wild trees. To find them, he used to go into the woods in January to find trees that still held their apples at that time, noting their positions with a GPS. The quality of the fruit had to be good, showing no disease; he would return two or three times during the year to confirm that. Then he took his selections to a nursery to be grafted to make trees for the orchard.
Clos Saragnat is certified organic, both its apples and grapes (Barthomeuf still raises those, too). For the apples, he opposes the use even of approved organic pesticides, because they also “kill,” however quickly they break down. It’s much better to build up the health of the soil, so the plants resist problems. He used to mow the grass in the orchard three or four times a year by hand, using a scythe, a skill he learned from his father. “It’s faster than a weed whacker,” he said. Now geese live in the orchard and eat the grass; their droppings are the only fertilizer. All that Barthomeuf the apples are merely pruned. To the vines, he applies manure from his two work horses, fresh manure, “just as in nature.” The horses plow and work in the woods.
No gas or diesel engines are allowed in either orchard or vineyard. “L’objectif est pétrole zéro,” he said to me when I first met him. He has since gotten rid of his diesel tractors. Materials and equipment are hauled by two silent electric vehicles. On one of them he has mounted an expensive pump that can apply organic sprays (not pesticides) to the vines. Electric power in Quebec is nearly all hydro, so the house and cellar were already at zero. On the roof of the house he has mounted solar water-heating panels. In two years, he hopes to add photovoltaic panels that to generate electricity (still better than hydro electricity) to charge the batteries for the orchard vehicle and pump.
In the above-ground cellar, small stainless-steel tanks are filled with ice cider. “I don’t do anything; it makes itself,” Barthomeuf said. He doesn’t warm or chill the liquid in the tanks; he adds no yeast, relying on what appears in the juice. The fermentation lasts from six to 18 months, according to the qualities of the juice that year and the weather. The alcohol in the final drink varies from 8 to 12 percent — “it’s the yeast who decide.” The cider remains in the tanks on its lees for at least two years: “I don’t touch it,” he said
During the first year to year and a half, the ice cider changes significantly, as the initially separate tastes of alcohol, sugar, and acidity come together. After that, the ice cider changes only slowly. In fact, an opened bottle hardly loses any of its good qualities at all over two to three weeks. By way of explanation, Barthomeuf said, “I work with oxidation.” He does little to protect the ice cider from air. The couple still retains three bottles of that first ice cider made long ago: “At 17 years, it was still excellent.”
“It takes money to wait,” he observed, referring to the aging before sale, which delays income. It’s not that he has a lot of means, but he has managed to achieve a rhythm of aging, which others either can’t or choose not to do. Quebec’s provincial liquor authority, the Société des Alcools du Quebec requires a small addition of sulfur and a light filtering for the bottles sold in its stores. The bottles the couple sells at the farm contain no added sulfur nor have they undergone filtration, and Barthomeuf doesn’t think they need either. One bottle survived in perfect condition a trip to Australia in a backpack. The ice cider sold directly at the farm also receives an extra year of aging.
Clos Saragnat is a small business, producing annually just 8,000 to 10,000 bottles of 200 ml each. Besides, Barthomeuf and Dupuis make a good vin de paille, a sweet “straw wine,” from their grapes, which are picked and dried for six months. They had been making vin de glace, ice wine, but the frozen grapes compete for the presses at the same moment as the apples, and Barthomeuf wanted to set their wine apart from the many other Quebec ice wines made by less than ideal methods. (Clos Saragnat’s yield of vin de paille is only 600 to 1,000 bottles of 200 ml, and yet the vineyard takes 80 percent of Barthomeuf’s time in summer, he said. I asked, why do you make it all? “It’s to show that one can make vin de paille of international quality in Quebec — but it’s expensive.” A bottle costs $42 Canadian.)
The farm is located in an old apple-growing area, and the ice cider is a pure product of place. The price is a little over $27 in Quebec (slightly less at the farm), similar to other brands, except that those come in 375-ml bottles. Yet Clos Saragnat, beyond its pure methods, offers a more concentrated, precise taste that’s roughly twice as good, if I have to quantify, and so it’s a better bargain. Barthomeuf and Dupuis hope that it will soon be distributed in the United States; it already appears in certain high-end restaurants in Europe and elsewhere.
About 25 miles east and a little south, in Charleston, Vermont, Eden Ice Cider appears headed in a similar direction. Eleanor Leger, a seventh-generation Vermonter, and her husband, Albert, an Acadian from northern New Brunswick were inspired by a taste of Neige, one of the first Quebec ice ciders, for which Barthomeuf acts as consultant. The Legers began to make ice cider in 2007. For now, they buy fruit and juice from two of the best Vermont apple orchards, Champlain Orchards and Scott Farm, producing in the most recent vintage about 15,000 bottles of 375 ml. Albert teaches chemistry at a school in New Hampshire, where they still live most of the year, the conjunction of science and ice cider not being entirely coincidental, since ice cider benefits from scientific precision. “It’s a lot of trial and error still,” Albert said.
Eden ice cider tastes largely of fresh fruit, including some uncommon apples. Eleanor, the expert on varieties, said that almost half the apples are McIntosh or its offspring Empire, typical of cool northeastern orchards. The rest come from a range of less-common varieties, including heirlooms, cider apples, and russets, which, she explains, have good flavor and typically reach 15 to 18 degrees Brix, where Macs are at 11 to 12. Among the heirlooms are Calville Blanc, various Reinettes, Ashmead’s Kernel, and Esopus Spitzenburg.
To produce their own fruit, the Legers have been planting trees gradually, aiming at a total of 5,000. The methods, though not certified, are biodynamic. They have more than 30 varieties so far. “The more varieties you add,” Eleanor said, “the better it is.” She has chosen some of the same varieties they currently use, as well some traditional bitter-sharp English cider varieties, including Tremlett’s Bitter and Stembridge Cluster. She thinks that cider apples, because the freezing concentrates the tannin, should compose no more than a quarter of the mix.
The Legers don’t press frozen fruit. The two orchards ship them both apples and already pressed juice. At Eden, the Legers press the apples at a rate of 250 gallons of juice a day — “That’s a long day,” Albert said. The juice fills thick-walled plastic cubes, some holding 250 gallons, some 300 gallons. They freeze the juice outdoors and then bring the huge frozen blocks indoors where the temperature is 38 degrees F (3 degrees C). After a day or two, they open the bottom valve and out flows the sweet juice. They add a selected Riesling yeast, and to control the balance of alcohol and sugar, they stop the fermentation by putting the liquid back in the cold. To ensure fermentation doesn’t restart in the bottle, there’s also a filtration to remove yeast (that doesn’t have much effect on flavor, the size of yeast being relatively large, allowing a fairly open filter). An opened bottle, kept recorked and chilled, holds well for two weeks or longer after opening.
You might think there was a place for single-variety ice ciders, and yet most apple varieties don’t stand up on their own, the Legers said. They demonstrated that by giving me tastes of experimental batches of straight Ashmead’s Kernel and straight Calville Blanc, two of the most highly regarded apples (the first for eating, the second for cooking). I tasted them, and each was good but curiously incomplete compared with the blend. They also make a Northern Spy ice cider, aging it for 12 months in four oak barrels that previously held Chardonnay wine. They chose Northern Spy for its balance of sugar and acidity as well as flavor. The excellent taste has with an edge of flavor beyond that of the regular blend. The Legers don’t consider the Northern Spy better but rather different, not as light and refreshing as the blend. In addition, they make a fine ice cider containing over 30 heirloom varieties from Windfall Orchard in Cornwall, Vermont.
A 375-ml bottle of the highly tasty regular Eden ice cider costs around $29. At a moderate 10 to 11 percent alcohol and with good acidity to match its sweetness, it is light enough to go very well with food. It suits appley-buttery-caramelly desserts, as you expect with most dessert wines, as well as cheeses such as cheddar and moister, sweeter blues (not the drier, nuttier ones). I haven’t tried foie gras, but the ice cider went well with a livery terrine. ●
To learn where these ice ciders are sold, go to saragnat.com and edenicecider.com.
