La Maison Ferré (Cider)

Village:
Comblot
Appellation:
Cidre de Perche
Grower:
Gregoire Ferré
Website:
https://www.lamaisonferre.fr/
Downloadable PDF

In 2009 Gregoire Ferré left his family farm and crossed the Huisne valley in the Perche region of Normandy to purchase his own 60-hectare farm. At the time, the farm had 20 hectares of apple and pear orchards, and 40 hectares of grains and pastureland. The previous owner produced calvados but not cider. Gregoire built upon the small stock of calvados and began producing cider in 2010. Today, Gregoire has approximately 40 hectares of apples with 30 different varieties and 10 hectares of pears. He produces apple juice, cider, Pommeau and Calvados from apples and Poiré from pears. Gregoire always farmed without chemicals and in 2021 the farm was certified organic.

Link to spirits page to see Calvados and Pommeau:  La Maison Ferré (Calvados)

Cidre Brut “La Cave de Gabriel”

This cider is named for Gabriel, the grandfather of Gregoire’s wife. It is a blend of about 7 varieties with 80% of bitter and sweet apples, and 20% of tart apples. The goal is to balance fruity/floral aromas and tannins with freshness (acidity). The apples are harvested between September and mid-December only after they have fallen to the ground. Until buying a modern press in 2023, Gregoire used only an old wooden press built in 1954 that was designed to be mobile so that it would make the rounds from farm to farm during and after harvest time. It extracts only 50% of the possible juice and takes two hours to clean in between pressings, so it is not practical, but Gregoire will continue to use it alongside the modern press as the results justify the pain. The cider is produced with traditional methods. The fermentation occurs from indigenous yeast and the must is not pasteurized. The secondary fermentation is in the bottle with the addition of yeast (as in Champagne). It finishes its fermentation in bottle over the course of at least 3 months.

Region: Normandie / Bretagne

The list of apple varieties grown in France is daunting with over 600 varieties having been identified. Over the centuries, apple varieties have been cultivated locally, so that from one small area of Normandy or Brittany to the next, the varieties of apples will change and thus so will the expressions of the ciders. The varieties are categorized by flavor type: tart, bitter, sweet, tart-sweet and bitter-sweet. Each cider producing area has developed a regional style based on their particular blend of flavor types and using the local varieties within each category...

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In the last couple of years Barbara and I have been attracted to wines with lower and lower alcohol levels and French ciders at 4% to 5.5% certainly meet that criterion. More importantly, though, the ciders that we have chosen achieve the difficult balance of our favorite wines, which is the combination of lightness and intensity.

All industrial and most independent cider producers have abandoned traditional methods of cider production and prefer to use selected yeasts for fermentation, pasteurization to end the primary fermentation and gasification instead of a natural secondary fermentation.

Happily, there is still a group of cider producers who want to make cider following the traditions of natural yeasts and without using either pasteurization or gasification. These are the producers that are passionately resisting the sterility of modernization and who merit our support.