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Île-de-France
Less famous than its Norman and Breton cousins, Briard cider smells of heritage apple and ripe banana — and still slumbers in the stone presses of Seine-et-Marne.
Cider-based drink from Île-de-France.
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Brie is, and has been, a land of apples and cider: cider has been produced here for several centuries. Under the Ancien Régime, estates were vast; they were broken up during the Revolution. At the end of the 19th century, the phylloxera crisis devastated the vineyards and wine had to be replaced with another beverage: the Briards turned to cider, and the countryside filled with apple trees.
This cider owes its distinctiveness to the local varieties from which it is made: Barré de Boissy, Barré à Grappes and above all Faro, which gives it pleasant flavours of ripe banana. Other names recur in Briard orchards: gros barré, rambour d'hiver, belle joséphine, châtaignier, ravaillac. Even today, a producer in Saint-Denis-lès-Rebais, near Coulommiers, specialises in heritage Briard varieties such as Fleuritard, Gendreville or Vérité.
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In Beton-Bazoches, a monumental press from 1850 still stands, built by Désiré Naveau, compagnon du Devoir et du Tour de France, and the only one of its kind in Île-de-France. Cider reached its peak production during the First World War, before a long decline over the course of the 20th century; old orchards have since tended to disappear from the Briard landscape, and associations have set out to replant local varieties and promote the cider.
Taste
A cider with low acidity and light tannins, with pleasant flavours of ripe banana from the Faro apple.
Texture
Very thirst-quenching; the dry cork-stoppered farmhouse cider is sparkling.
At the Beton-Bazoches press, a 700 kg stone millstone, once drawn by a horse, crushed the apples.
The precious pulp was placed in double presses that operated alternately, yielding hundreds of hectolitres of cider.
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Briard cider is enjoyed on its own or accompanies a dessert; it also flavours poultry to make poule à la briarde.
Cidre de la Brie carries no official quality mark (PDO (AOP), PGI (IGP), Label Rouge): it is a cider of local tradition, made from heritage Brie apple varieties.
No producer is listed for this product yet.