Cider apple
Cimes
A French cider apple combining substantial acidity with a real phenolic load — an uncommon pairing in the modern French planting stock.
- Classification
- Not classified under any recorded system
- Harvest
- Mid (Late September to mid October)
- Single varietal
- Sometimes bottled on its own
- Blend role
- Acid lift, Tannin and structure
- Origin
- France
- Species
- Malus domestica
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Biennial bearing
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Moderate
How it is classified
CiderHQ holds no French family classification for Cimes, and the reason is evidential rather than geographic. The French scheme is defined on acidity thresholds stated in grams per litre — douce below 4.5, acidulée to 6.75, aigre above — and the dataset that measures this cultivar publishes an acidity column whose unit it does not name. Under one of the two conventions in use the fruit falls on one side of a threshold and under the other it falls on the opposite side. Publishing a class would mean publishing a guess, so the measurement is published and the label is not.
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 | High | |
| Tannin | Firm | |
| Sugar | Moderate | |
| Bitterness | Marked | |
| Astringency | Drying | |
| Aroma | Present | |
| Body | Full |
A 2018 IFPC analysis: 7.4 g/L malic acid, pH 3.4, 917 mg/L total polyphenols, specific gravity 1.055.
Sharp and phenolic at once — the French equivalent of a bittersharp, which is the rarest of the four English classes too.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Cimes, 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
Each figure is shown with where and when it was taken. They are not averaged: the same cultivar grown in another climate genuinely gives different numbers, and collapsing them into one would be the most misleading thing this page could do.
Malic acid7.4 g/L
France — orchards supplying the IFPC cider-apple juice characterisation, 2018 · Reported as malic acid. Single-season characterisation of twelve varieties chosen as recent or commonly planted. · Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
The dominant acid in apple and pear juice, and the one that tastes sharp. Measured in grams per litre.
Specific gravity1.054 SG
France — orchards supplying the IFPC cider-apple juice characterisation, 2018 · Published as density in grams per litre (masse volumique) and stored here as specific gravity by exact division; no temperature correction is stated by the source. · Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
Juice density, the practical proxy for sugar before fermentation. Measured in specific gravity.
pH3.40 pH
France — orchards supplying the IFPC cider-apple juice characterisation, 2018 · Meter on pressed juice. · Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
Acid strength, which governs microbial risk and sulphite effectiveness. Measured in ph.
Total phenolics916.5 mg/L
France — orchards supplying the IFPC cider-apple juice characterisation, 2018 · Total polyphenols; the presentation does not name the assay, though the magnitudes are consistent with Folin–Ciocalteu. · Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
The assay is not named by the source. Compare with other French figures rather than with a permanganate tannin figure.
All phenolic compounds together, usually reported as gallic acid equivalents. Measured in milligrams per litre.
Compare within a study to see where these figures sat among the other cultivars the same work analysed — which is a more robust statement than the figures themselves, because absolute values move between laboratories and the ordering inside one study mostly survives.
Watched in the orchard
What named research programmes recorded about this fruit at their own sites. Bloom, harvest and cropping belong to a place and a run of seasons rather than to a cultivar, so they are reported site by site rather than merged.
IFPC cider apple juice characterisation
France — orchards supplying the Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles · 2018 · Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
Northern French cider country, chiefly Normandy and Brittany: maritime, mild, wet, and the closest continental analogue to the English West Country. The source does not break the samples down by orchard, so the location here is as precise as the evidence allows.
- Held as
- Listed as “Cimes”
- Total acidity, published as A “total acidity” column, ranging 0.9 to 9.1 across the twelve varieties. The source does not state the unit. The French convention expresses total acidity as sulphuric acid, which would put it at 0.73 times the malic figure; the printed ratio is nearer 0.45 to 0.55, which matches neither that convention nor a malic one. Rather than guess a unit and publish a number in it, CiderHQ publishes the malic acid figure the source does label and records this column as unusable.
Twelve varieties, one harvest. Malic acid, total acidity, density, pH and total polyphenols measured on pressed juice; sensory profiling run alongside on the same juices. The assay behind the polyphenol column is not named, and the unit behind the total acidity column is not stated.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Mid
- Flowering
- Not recorded
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Cropping
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Moderate
Not recorded in the source that measures it.
Not recorded in any source CiderHQ has verified.
Juice and pressing
- 7.4 g/L malic acid
- pH 3.4
- 917 mg/L total polyphenols
- Moderate gravity at 1.055
How it is used
- Blended where both acid and phenolics are wanted from one component.
On its own
Sometimes bottled on its own
Acid and phenolics together is the profile that makes a single-variety cider possible. Nothing in the record says it has been tried.
About Cimes
Cimes is a French cider apple that the French cider institute measured in 2018 at 7.4 grams per litre of malic acid, pH 3.4 and 917 milligrams per litre of total polyphenols. That pairing — real acid and real phenolics in the same fruit — is the rarest of the classification combinations in every country that has one. The English call it bittersharp and have about four of them worth naming; the French call it aigre-amère and have few more.
The reason it is rare is worth stating: the same ripening processes that build phenolic material in a cider apple also consume acid, so fruit selected for one tends to have lost the other. A cultivar that holds both is doing something unusual, and it is why single-variety ciders — which need a fruit that can carry a drink alone — cluster so heavily in this class.
CiderHQ asserts no French family classification for it, because the dataset that measures it does not state the unit of its acidity column and the French thresholds are sensitive to that. On the malic figure alone it would be aigre; under the sulphuric convention it would be acidulée. The site publishes the measurement and declines the label.
Names, origin and identity
Cultivar naming is the hardest problem in cider fruit data. The same tree carries different names across ten miles, and two different trees have shared a name for two centuries.
Origin · traditional account
A French cider variety in the modern planting stock. Nothing about its origin is recorded in the source CiderHQ holds for it.
Why it matters
- One of the few varieties in the French institute’s dataset carrying substantial acid and substantial phenolics at once — the aigre-amère combination, which is scarce in every national repertoire.
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.
Hewe’s Crab
The historic cider crab of Virginia — small, hard, very high in acid and unusually tannic for an American apple, and probably a hybrid between a cultivated apple and a native crab.
Kingston Black
The most celebrated English single-varietal cider apple: a small dark-red bittersharp carrying acid and tannin in one fruit, and a tree difficult enough that its reputation has always outrun its plantings.
Durona de Tresali
A very hard, very late Asturian cultivar from the parish of Tresali, in the acid-bitter block, and one of the last fruits of the season to be pressed.
Sauergrauech
An old Bernese cider apple, sharp and unusually astringent for the region, and one of the few Swiss cultivars that a cider maker would recognise as purpose-grown press fruit.
Stoke Red
A small, dense, dark-red Somerset bittersharp carrying both high acid and substantial tannin, and the most reliable alternative to Kingston Black for a single-varietal cider.
Trierer Weinapfel
The characteristic apple of Moselle *Viez*: a small, hard, very acid fruit from the Trier country, with a little more phenolic grip than most German cider apples.
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.
- What is kingston black — Kingston Black is a Somerset bittersharp with an unusual balance of acid and tannin, long regarded as capable of making a complete cider unblended. It is difficult to grow well, which is why it is scarcer than its reputation suggests.
- 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 a house blend
- What is normandy cider
- What is breton cider
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.
Caractérisation de jus de pomme à cidre et analyse comparative avec des jus de pomme commerciaux
Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC) · research institute · passage verified 2026-08-25 · covers 2018 harvest
A technical-day presentation by the French cider institute, retrieved and read in full on 2026-08-25. Twelve French cider varieties characterised for malic acid, total acidity, density, pH and total polyphenols, with sensory profiling on the same juices. The first French institutional juice figures CiderHQ has been able to open, and important out of proportion to their number because the site holds many French cultivars and previously held almost no French measurements. The total acidity column is not published by CiderHQ: the slide does not state its unit and the ratio to the malic figure matches no convention the site can identify.
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.
Research Evidence standard for this record. What that means.