Etienne Dupont Organic Cidre Bouché Brut de Normandie

Brewed by Domaine Familial Louis Dupont
Style: Cider
Victot-Pontfol, France

Another fantastic French cider. Is this the beer world’s most reliable style? Very light in terms of palate weight (abv only 4.5%) and the apple frut is not in your face, but the flavours positively dance across the tongue. Quite grapey on the nose but the palate is dry with fantastic mineral tang, sherbet and soft and clean apple juice. Incredibly gluggable.

750 ml bottle from Imbibe Wine. Nose is nicely tart with green apples showing up shortly and a slight note of horseblanket in the background. Lightly hazy urine yellow with a medium white head. Flavor is light tartness balanced by light sweetness and green apples.

Pours like apple cider, imagine that looks like piss sitting in a toilet, yet surprisingly attractive. Nose like a lambic, formidable scent of sour apples. Very bubbly on the lips and nose with a full mouthfeel. Tastes like apple cider with faint alcohol, smooth like water and very dry, leaves me wanting a glass of water to quench this cotton mouth...might be the opiates and purple haze though...overall impression is delicious and warmingthough. I need a refill.

The 2006 bottle uncorks with a fireworks bang, and cider gushes all over my hand and the table. Once relocated into a glass, it is cloudy necatrine with a slight milky opacity. After the initial rush of bubbles exhausts itself, steady carbonation forms a few foam island on the surface. The aroma is at first earthy and sour, followed by a lungful of horsey brett funk... after a minute or two, scents of dust and old cheese also become prominent. A happily, surprisngly apple-y flavor- stewed Granny Smiths with a nod toward Fijis- and accents of salt, cinnamon, and smoky creosote. The palate is quite oily and crackles with poprock fizz. The coda consists of a puckeringly tart finish and oily-bretty tonguecoating aftertaste. Although many of the individual components are... unexpected,... the cider as a whole is (accidentally I’m sure) quite interesting, complex and refreshing.

It is a vintage 2006 and now it’s Easter 2009. It is warm golden with a rapidly vanishing head. The aroma has notes of ripe and baked apples. The flavour has a light sweetness and a light sourness and notes of ripe and baked apples. It has a very full body, it is very uncomplicated and charming, I could drink a lot of this one!

2007 bottle, served cellar temperature. Pours gold-orange with a smallish head. Aroma very much akin to an unblended lambic: full of tart, sour notes, along with green apple. Flavor, however, is a reserved blend of sweet apples and mild alcohol. Body is medium, with light carbonation. Overall decent, though I found the flavor to be underwhelming given the dynamism of the aroma.

Pours yellow and fizzy. Smells of dry apples and spicy. Tastes dry, but on the watery side as compared to their other ciders.

Crushed with Jakebra. HUGE head that dissipated in about du and haif seconds. Awesome, kinda gueuzey, farmhouse, funky, sour, badass aroma. Flavor isn’t quite there, but the carbonation give it a very nice mouthfeel. Finish is a little too bready/yeasty, but this is still excellent.