Proudly Made
in Normandy

The craft­ing of Pommeau de Normandie, a blend of fresh apple juice and Cal­va­dos, requires patience and precision. 

Pommeau de Normandie served in a glass with ice cubes

It all starts with the apple trees. Naturally.

These orchard apple trees belong to a list of varieties that reflects local uses and specificities.

Cider apple in the hands of a producer

At least 70% of them grow bit­ter or bit­ter­sweet apple varieties.

These orch­ards can be grown in one of two ways: either as “high-stem” orch­ards in orch­ard mead­ows or as “low-stem” orch­ards in spe­cial­ised orchards.

Rows of apple trees in an orchard

In the tra­di­tion­al mead­ow orch­ard, the trees are grown as high-stemmed trees and spaced at least 5 meters apart. The ground is sys­tem­at­ic­ally grassed, except around the base of the trees, where weed con­trol can be applied with­in a 0.30-meter radius.

The trees are often of vary­ing ages, as they are con­tinu­ously renewed.

Spe­cial­ized orch­ards, on the oth­er hand, are made up of uni­form rows of trees planted every 2 to 3 meters, with rows spaced approx­im­ately 5 meters apart.

The aver­age yield of mead­ow orch­ards is set at 20t/ha, while that of “low-stemmed” orch­ards is 30t/ha.

The pro­duc­tion con­di­tions of the fruit (vari­et­ies, soil, cli­mate, and cul­tiv­a­tion prac­tices) ensure the dis­tinct­ive­ness of the musts used in the craft­ing of Pommeau de Normandie. This dis­tinct­ive­ness is char­ac­ter­ized by a high con­cen­tra­tion of sug­ars and phen­olic com­pounds, as well as excep­tion­al aro­mat­ic qualities.

A pear tart with glass of pommeau de Normandie

Phenolic varieties must account for at least 70% of the composition of the musts.

French oak cask containing pommeau de Normandie

Sim­il­arly, it is not per­mit­ted to pro­duce must using only one type of apple: no single vari­ety may account for more than 50% of the juice composition.

Once har­ves­ted, the apples are grated.

The res­ult­ing pulp is pressed without macer­a­tion. The juices must nat­ur­ally exhib­it a min­im­um sug­ar con­tent of 108 grams per liter.

They may be cla­ri­fied through depec­tin­iz­a­tion, rack­ing, or, in some cases, used in their raw state.

The must is then fortified—at the right moment—with Cal­va­dos, Cal­va­dos Pays d’Auge, or Cal­va­dos Dom­fron­tais that has been aged for at least one year in wood and has an alco­hol con­tent exceed­ing 65% by volume. This pro­cess halts fermentation

This process is known as mutage.

The blend is then aged in oak barrels for a minimum of 14 months.

Pommeau served at the table with a crumble

The alco­hol inhib­its yeast and bac­teria, mean­ing that the sug­ar and alco­hol con­tent change very little after this peri­od, with only slight alco­hol evaporation.

The blend is reg­u­larly worked to achieve per­fect homo­gen­iz­a­tion and to allow the oxid­a­tion of poly­phen­ols, which is essen­tial for its dis­tinct­ive coloration.

The final batches may be com­posed by blend­ing sev­er­al productions.

They are then filtered and bottled.

Pommeau de Normandie con­tains at least 69 grams of unfer­men­ted sug­ar per liter, with an alco­hol con­tent ran­ging between 16% and 18%.

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In perfect harmony

Environmental responsibility
An orchard at dawn in the Pays d'Auge

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