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Maison Sassy Brut Cider 5.2% - 6 x 750ml - Hand-Crafted Traditional Normandy Fruit Cider, Premium-Quality, Low Calorie, Gluten Free, 100% Natural & No Added Sugar

£9.9£99Clearance
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You’re probably familiar with Old Rosie. It’s the original cloudy cider from Weston’s cider mill in the famed cider-making region of Herefordshire. It’s old-fashioned, it’s unfiltered, it’s cloudy and, at 6.8%, significantly stronger than all the other ciders on this list (and that’s after Weston’s reduced the ABV a few years ago. Nevertheless, for many cider lovers it holds a special place in their hearts. Weston’s has been making cider since 1880, pressing, blending and fermenting fruit from its orchards into ciders and perries. Today, the same mill and the same vast oak vats are used to deliver a huge variety of ciders; but Old Rosie (named after the company’s 1921 steam roller) is one of the best-known and loved. The taste is refreshingly sharp, almost scrumpy in style as a result of slow maturation, but with a lightness and dryness that makes it very drinkable. A reliable classic. Xavier D’Audiffret Pasquier (left) and Pierre-Emmanuel Racine-Jourden in the grounds of the Chateau de Sassy Changing the image of cider Gluten-free 100% natural and made from apples that were organically grown in Château de Sassy’s orchards this is one of the lowest calorie alcoholic drinks on the market. The recipe is a heavily-guarded secret that combines almost twenty different varieties of apple including the pink-fleshed Geneva Crab that give it its distinct colour. The result is a clean sophisticated sorbet-esque style that is far removed from those funky farmyard flavours so often associated with Normandy cider. Expect crisp Braeburn apple plum hedgerow berries and cream. This versatile off-dry tipple would be perfect served with sunshine tomato salads tarte aux pommes crumble red berry sorbet or could be wonderful mulled. He describes production as “very artisan.” He uses fruit from trees planted in loam soils which apparently creates a “nice acidity” with low yields, they only plant 150 trees per hectare compared with the normal 600, and he waits eight years for the trees to mature before using the apples. The ciders are made from a combination of his own orchards and bought-in fruit from ten local farmers.

SASSY Rosé Cider (33cl) NV | Product Details Maison SASSY Rosé Cider (33cl) NV | Product Details

Created to change perceptions of cidre, Maison Sassy’s ethos is all about creating high-quality, authentic, handcrafted products. Their products are all natural, made with 100% pure fruit juice from a complex blend of hand-selected cider apples and pears. 100% locally sourced, from fruit to bottling, their cidre also has a lower ABV and fewer calories than many ciders in the market. This means that the total sugar content in many of their ciders is much lower than other market alternatives. Sassy by name and sassy by nature; this handcrafted rosé cider certainly lives up to its moniker. It has been lovingly created by a pair of young Frenchmen – childhood friends Xavier d’Audiffret Pasquier and Pierre-Emmanuel Racine-Jourden – who were keen to revolutionise what is not only their favourite beverage but also Normandy’s most famous export. Employing the expertise of a cellar master with more than 30 years’ experience they have succeeded in giving ‘cidre’ a very modern twist. But attitudes are changing in England too, with companies like Cider is Wine or the Fine Cider Company insisting that cider should be made like wine and enjoyed as such. Better quality ciders are increasingly available in pubs and restaurants, and people are waking up to the joys of real, whole fruit cider. Sassy is a great place to start if you want to know what the fuss is about. As well as rejuvenate the category, Xavier wants to help promote his home region and protect its cider inheritance. “We wanted to launch something that could help to revitalise the Norman economy. The wine economy is massive and we’d like to do the same now for cidre. We saw that a lot of apple producers were destroying orchards,” he said. Innovative production methods The D’Audiffret Pasquier family are cider aristocracy, as you’d expect with such a magnificent name. They have been making cider and Calvados in Normandy since the 19th century. But Xavier’s (I’m going to break convention by using his Christian name as saying D’Audiffret Pasquier over and over again just looks too unwieldy) business has only been going since 2014 and is completely independent.Kopparberg, it is not real cider. It’s more like hard seltzer than a cider,” Xavier complained. At the same time he recognises that though much of what people drink isn’t great quality, the cider market in Britain is ten times the size of France. Low apple ciders “make cider popular. It’s not a good product, but people like it,” he admits. To make the cider, the team uses a pneumatic Champagne press that works gently so it doesn’t introduce any harsh tannins into the juice. His ciders are lower in alcohol than the Norman average, beginning at 2.5% ABV for the Le Vertueux and going up to 5.2% ABV for the L’Inimitable . He puts this low alcohol down to shorter fermentation times which they cut short by chilling to leave a little residual sugar. The ciders are then bottled and carbonated. When it comes to cider testing, we conduct rigorous taste tests to ensure that every bottle and can is worth your hard earned cash. We gather a number of cider samples that are either currently or soon to arrive on the market and taste each submission for our initial thoughts. Those that make it through the first round are then subject to further testing, where we compare like for like ciders to find the best in specific categories.

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In 2017, they began exporting to Britain. If cider has a problem in France with its old man image, then Britain has it far worse. Say cider and many will think of tramps or teenagers in parks. In the UK, cider only has to contain 35% apple juice compared with 80% in France. Sassy is made from 100% whole fruit, and yet it is in the same category as Kopparberg.

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