Cider apple
Argile Rouge
A late, dark-skinned Norman bittersweet whose name refers to the heavy red clay soils it was selected on, and which behaves very differently on lighter ground.
Also written Argile Rouge de Normandie.
- Classification
- Bittersweet — French cider apple families
- Harvest
- Late (Late October)
- Single varietal
- Rarely bottled on its own
- Blend role
- Tannin and structure, Late season, Sugar and body
- Origin
- Normandy
- Species
- Malus domestica
- Flowering
- Pollination group 4
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Biennial bearing
- Markedly biennial — heavy and light years alternate
- Keeping
- Good
How it is classified
French cider apple families
Bittersweet · Douce-amère
Low acid with substantial tannin.
Basis: Tannin 2 to 3 g/L and acidity below 3 g/L as H₂SO₄.
Every classification on CiderHQ names its system. Why there is more than one.
What it contributes to a blend
A direction, not a measurement. These bands are the level of resolution the evidence supports, and they say which way adding this fruit pushes a blend rather than what the finished cider will be.
| Axis | Typical | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Acid | Low | |
| Tannin | Firm | |
| Sugar | Moderate | |
| Bitterness | Moderate | |
| Astringency | Drying | |
| Aroma | Restrained | |
| Body | Full |
French bittersweet family placement.
Firm and dry with a slightly earthy bitterness; the skin colour carries into the must and the finished cider keeps a bronze tint.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Argile Rouge, and for a great deal of cider fruit that is a finding rather than a gap. Bittersweet apples in particular contribute tannin, sugar and body while being close to aromatically mute, and most of what a cider made from them smells of was produced by the fermentation rather than carried in by the fruit. CiderHQ publishes the absence rather than filling the space with descriptors nothing supports.
Measured analysis
CiderHQ holds no sourced juice analysis for Argile Rouge. Figures for this cultivar circulate, but they reach the present through compilation rather than through the original tables, and publishing a number we cannot attribute would give it an authority it has not earned. What is known about how the fruit behaves is described above and below.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Late
- Flowering
- Pollination group 4
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Cropping
- Markedly biennial — heavy and light years alternate
- Keeping
- Good
Disease and pest susceptibility
| Issue | Susceptibility | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Canker | high | Serious on the wet clays the cultivar is named for, which is an awkward fact about a fruit selected on that ground. |
Juice and pressing
- Deeply coloured must
- Moderate to high tannin
- Very low acid
How it is used
- Body and colour in late Norman blends
- Cider for Calvados
On its own
Rarely bottled on its own
Rarely bottled alone; the flavour is solid rather than distinctive and the acid deficit is severe.
About Argile Rouge
Argile Rouge takes its name from the red clay of parts of Normandy, and the naming is a reminder that traditional cultivars were selected in place. A fruit noticed and propagated because it did well on heavy wet ground is not necessarily a fruit that will do well anywhere, and Argile Rouge’s tannin and sugar both shift noticeably with site.
In blends it contributes structure and colour. The must is deeply pigmented and a cider with a substantial Argile Rouge fraction holds a bronze cast that is visible in the glass, which matters in a tradition where cider is served in wide bowls and looked at. Its acid is very low even by Norman standards, so it is used with sharp fruit or with deliberate acid correction.
Canker is its persistent problem, and the irony is worth stating: the wet clay that gave the cultivar its name and its selection environment is also where canker does most damage. Growers on lighter Norman slopes report far less trouble with it, which suggests the disease record attached to the cultivar is partly a record of where it has been planted.
Related cultivars
Recorded relationships, including the ones this fruit is routinely confused with.
Fruit that plays a similar part
Cultivars sharing a classification under the same system and a comparable role in a blend. Not a similarity score — a stated relationship.
Bedan
A mild Norman bittersweet, planted more widely across the Domfrontais and the Pays d’Auge than almost any other traditional cultivar, and valued as much for how its juice keeves as for how it tastes.
Médaille d’Or
A small, russeted Norman bittersweet with exceptionally high tannin and sugar, famous in England out of all proportion to how much of it anyone has ever managed to grow.
Nehou
A Norman bittersweet long grown in English orchards, giving high tannin from a small, late, hard fruit and cropping better than most of its class.
Reine des Pommes
A dark red Norman bittersweet with a grand name and a solid reputation, imported into England alongside Michelin and Médaille d’Or and analysed there as a bittersweet of some quality.
Noël des Champs
A very late Norman bittersweet whose name places its harvest at Christmas, grown to keep a press working when everything else has been milled.
Peau de Chien
A heavily russeted Norman bittersweet whose unflattering name — “dog skin” — describes the rough, dull, leathery finish that also marks it out in a mixed load of fruit.
Where it grows
What people ask next
Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.
- How do you blend cider
- What is the difference between french cidre and english cider — French cidre is usually sweeter, weaker and more carbonated, because fermentation is arrested while sugar remains. English cider is more often fermented dry and finished still or lightly sparkling, and is stronger for it.
- What is maceration in cider making — Maceration is letting milled pomace stand before pressing, so that enzymes soften the tissue and phenolics and aroma move from the skins into the juice. It raises both colour and tannin, and raises the risk of oxidation with them.
- What does the pays d auge aoc actually require — Pure cider apple juice from a closed variety list, a blend at least 70% phenolic varieties and at most 25% acidulée, compulsory maceration and pectic settling, capped orchard yields, and a sparkle that may only come from fermentation finishing in the bottle over at least six weeks. Pasteurisation, added water, added sugar and gasification are all prohibited.
- What is normandy cider
- What is the pays d auge — The Pays d’Auge is the heartland of Norman cider, a country of clay soils and standard orchards east of Caen. Its cider and its calvados both carry appellations of their own.
Where to go next
- How cider apples are classified — Why there are four schemes and none of them is universal.
- The blend explorer — See which way changing the proportions moves a blend.
- Blending — What a cider maker is actually deciding when they build a blend.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
IFPC · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
The French technical institute for cider production. The authority for the French cultivar classification families, for keeving as an industrial process, and for the pectin and nitrogen chemistry that keeving depends on.
Traditional record Evidence standard for this record. What that means.