My father doesn’t like cider. Well, to be honest, he doesn’t like natural cider. And he doesn’t know much more, maybe some English or Irish comercial sweetened watery cider. ? He walks on the wine side of life. Red, rose or white. Sparkling or still. But wine.
Today we had a family meeting at Mom&Dad’s. Rice with chicken, fresh seasonal tomatoes with salted anchovies… So I brought a bottle of Weidmann & Groh, considered one of the best ciders from the German region of Hesse, that I bought at Cider World Frankfurt. But when I showed it to my family, I lied. I said it was wine, not cider. Well, in this part of Germany cider is called apfelwein, so I didn’t lie at all.
In fact, this is what we could call cider like wine. Made with boskoop apple, I would say you can appreciate some of the usual wine making techniques in this apfelwein. But the result is very delicate and pleasant. Weidmann & Groh Boskop 2018 is a single variety fine cider, dry, little fizzy, with a light acidity. From the point of view of my own wine culture, it reminds a wine between a white txakoli, but less acid, and a verdejo, but less cloying. Maybe an albariño. It has of course a nice green apple and some tropical fruit flavors. Not too much astringency and 9%AVB (a little higher than usual due to the warm temperatures of the last summer). The thing is that it could be difficult to realize the difference between this apple wine and a white grape wine. Never tasted something similar in the cider world, perhaps some birne most from Austria.
My family tasted this fantastic cider believing it was a German grape wine, and after the first shot, I told them what it really was. Everybody was surprised. I love Basque natural cider. But I also think there are different ciders that fit different palates. My dad is a good example. “Now I can tell I like cider”, he said.
