Cider tasting nerdiness

I've been thinking about this for a while now.

Without going full Wurzel or anything, I am a cider drinker.

 

No, I don't "drinks it all of the day" or even "every day". But I like trying new ciders and it's my first choice if we are out. I've often thought about creating something to track the ones I have tried and my thoughts. Not that I really have a vocabulary to talk about cider ... but figured I should read up a bit.

Naturally, there's a lot of information about beer and wine tasting ... but I also found quite a bit on cider. So I printed out a bunch of worksheets, took some notes, and put a bunch of scribbles together. And then I did nothing.

The other night Suz and I arranged to meet for drinks after work, and noticed that our local was holding a French "cidre" month. So ... I sketched up my layout, printed it out, and bound it into a little booklet. Yeah, I made one each for me and Suz.

Honest, I do know how nerdy this is. Subscores for appearance, aroma, taste, and overall impression, adding up to 50 points overall.

Suz arrived and we started our tasting. We had two from Lefevre, two from La Chouette, and one from Pierre Huet.

I'm not going to lie, I felt a bit silly trying to describe the "aromas" and not just say "tastes like apple cider".... But Suz -- long-suffering Suz -- dove right in and played along.

I should be clear that we didn't actually drink that much cider -- 4 12-oz bottles plus one 750ml bottle between us. Even the ABVs were low.

Here's how I scored our 5 ciders:

Lefevre Winter Cidre:  28/50 **this may be a "don't score too highly at the beginning** low score
Lefevre Cidre Brut: 24/50
La Chouette Demi-Sec: 42/50
La Chouette Rose: 45/50
Pierre Huet: Cidre Bouchet Brut: 39/50

The La Choquette Rose was the most remarkable; made from pears and red-fleshed apples it was striking in color, crisp and tart, and would be fantastic with autumnal dishes such as roast vegetables. That's definitely one I would go out of my way to find and drink again. The others were, while drinkable, not really striking.

Most of all it was fun to sit around and chat with Suz for a few hours -- and I'm hoping we'll do it again soon!

Oh arr oh arr aay.