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Cider apple

Dabinett

The most widely planted English cider apple: a small, late-ripening bittersweet whose soft, full tannin ferments into a cider that needs almost nothing added to it.

Also written Dabinet, Dabbinett, Dabinett’s.

Classification
Bittersweet — Long Ashton classification
Harvest
Late (Late October)
Single varietal
Sometimes bottled on its own
Blend role
Bittersweet base, Tannin and structure, Sugar and body, Late season
Origin
Middle Lambrook, Somerset
Species
Malus domestica
Flowering
Pollination group 4
Vigour
Moderate
Biennial bearing
Markedly biennial — heavy and light years alternate
Keeping
Good

How it is classified

Long Ashton classification

Bittersweet

Low acid, high tannin. The class that has no real equivalent in dessert fruit and that defines West Country cider.

Basis: Below about 0.45% w/v acid and above about 0.2% w/v tannin.

Sits comfortably inside the bittersweet quadrant rather than near a threshold: low acid with tannin well above the 0.2% w/v cut-off.

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.

Contribution to a blend, scored 1–5 as a band. The filled segment is the typical value; the paler segments are the range.
AxisTypicalRange
AcidVery low
TanninFirm
SugarHigh
BitternessModerate
AstringencyNoticeable
AromaPresent
BodyFull
Based on: published analysis

Long Ashton acid and tannin ranges for the cultivar, read against a century of consistent description of its behaviour in Somerset blends.

Contributes a rounded, low-bitterness tannin and a soft weight that carries a blend without sharpening it.

Aroma

No aroma descriptors are recorded for Dabinett, 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.

Put Dabinett into a blend

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.

Measured on the fruit

Measured on the fruit itself, before anything was done to it. These figures hold whatever was later made from the juice.

Reported analyses of Dabinett, by property and source — measured on the fruit
PropertyReadingWhereWhenSource
Fruit diameter63 mmWSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA2002–2017Modern analysisWashington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
Fruit weight42 gNew York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, USAlate 1970sHistoric analysisAVI / Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1989, edited by Donald L. Downing (ISBN 0-442-22117-7)
Juice yield534 L/tWSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA2002–2017Modern analysisWashington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center

Measured on the juice

Measured on juice as pressed, before fermentation. This is where most cider analysis lives and what the classification schemes are defined on.

Reported analyses of Dabinett, by property and source — measured on the juice
PropertyReadingWhereWhenSource
Total acid3 readings, spanning 0.180–0.220 % w/v0.150–0.220 % w/vLong Ashton, Somerset, EnglandLong Ashton analyses, 1903–1985Historic analysisNational Fruit and Cider Institute / University of Bristol
0.220 % w/vWSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA2002–2017Modern analysisWashington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
0.180 % w/vLong Ashton Research Station, near Bristol, Somerset, England1905–1975Historic analysisAndrew Lea
Total tannin3 readings, spanning 0.240–0.290 % w/v0.220–0.320 % w/vLong Ashton, Somerset, EnglandLong Ashton analyses, 1903–1985Historic analysisNational Fruit and Cider Institute / University of Bristol
0.240 % w/vWSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA2002–2017Modern analysisWashington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
0.290 % w/vLong Ashton Research Station, near Bristol, Somerset, England1905–1975Historic analysisAndrew Lea
pH2 readings, spanning 4.41–4.70 pH4.41 pHWSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA2002–2017Modern analysisWashington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
4.70 pHFrance — orchards supplying the IFPC cider-apple juice characterisation2018Modern analysisInstitut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
Specific gravity2 readings, spanning 1.055–1.060 SG1.055 SGWSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA2002–2017Modern analysisWashington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
1.060 SGFrance — orchards supplying the IFPC cider-apple juice characterisation2018Modern analysisInstitut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
Brix13.5 °BxWSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA2002–2017Modern analysisWashington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
Malic acid3.5 g/LFrance — orchards supplying the IFPC cider-apple juice characterisation2018Modern analysisInstitut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
Total phenolics550.9 mg/LFrance — orchards supplying the IFPC cider-apple juice characterisation2018Modern analysisInstitut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)

Measured on the finished drink

Measured on the finished drink, after fermentation. Not comparable with the juice figures above: fermentation, fining and time move all of these, and phenolics in particular fall substantially.

Reported analyses of Dabinett, by property and source — measured on the finished drink
PropertyReadingWhereWhenSource
pH (finished cider)4.33 pHNew York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, USAlate 1970sHistoric analysisAVI / Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1989, edited by Donald L. Downing (ISBN 0-442-22117-7)
Total acid (finished cider)0.200 % w/vNew York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, USAlate 1970sHistoric analysisAVI / Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1989, edited by Donald L. Downing (ISBN 0-442-22117-7)
Total tannin (finished cider)0.112 % w/vNew York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, USAlate 1970sHistoric analysisAVI / Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1989, edited by Donald L. Downing (ISBN 0-442-22117-7)

4 properties here have been measured more than once. The readings are shown as they were taken and are deliberately not averaged — climate, season, ripeness at picking, the age of the tree and the analytical method all move these numbers, and a single figure would hide every one of them. Where a spread is given below a property, it is the distance between separate studies, not the variation within any one of them.

How these were measured
  • Titration of pressed juice, reported as malic acid
  • Permanganate titration against indigo carmine, reported as tannic acid equivalent
  • Titration, reported as malic acid equivalent
  • Published as 2.49 inches; converted at 25.4 mm to the inch
  • Juice pressed from 25 fruit, 2015–2017 only. Published as 242 mL/lb; converted at 2.204623 lb to the kilogram
  • Titration with alkali, reported as malic acid. Composite figure across many seasons; the source states neither the sample count nor the year of any individual analysis.
  • Löwenthal permanganate titration, reported as tannic acid equivalent. Composite figure across many seasons; the source states neither the sample count nor the year of any individual analysis.
  • Mean fruit weight as published. The compiler notes that a typical New York dessert apple weighs about 140 g, so most of these are small fruit — which is normal for cider cultivars and is itself the point of the column.
  • Titration, reported as malic acid. Analysis of finished cider.
  • Meter on finished cider.
  • Method not stated by the source, which is a real limitation: different tannin methods give wildly different figures on the same sample.
  • Reported as malic acid. Single-season characterisation of twelve varieties chosen as recent or commonly planted.
  • 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.
  • Meter on pressed juice.
  • Total polyphenols; the presentation does not name the assay, though the magnitudes are consistent with Folin–Ciocalteu.
  • A historic figure from fruit grown at one Somerset site. Acid falls as fruit ripens further and varies with season and crop load, so the same tree elsewhere routinely reads differently.
  • Recorded as a range because the per-cultivar tables behind it are not verified against the original station reports. Total tannin says nothing about the split between bitterness and astringency, and Dabinett’s reputation rests on that split rather than on the total.
  • A composite of Long Ashton analyses reaching CiderHQ through three hands: the station’s own work, a printed compilation (Bulmer’s Pomona, 1987, and Beech and Carr, 1977), and a transcription of that compilation. CiderHQ has seen only the transcription.
  • A composite of Long Ashton analyses reaching CiderHQ through three hands: the station’s own work, a printed compilation (Bulmer’s Pomona, 1987, and Beech and Carr, 1977), and a transcription of that compilation. CiderHQ has seen only the transcription. A permanganate figure. It is not comparable with a Folin–Ciocalteu total-phenolics figure for the same fruit, and the two can differ by a factor of two.
  • Reaches CiderHQ through a transcription of a 1989 food-technology chapter, which itself printed unpublished 1980 work from the station. Unlike the chemistry in this dataset it is a measurement of the fruit rather than of the finished cider, so it is comparable with other fruit weights.
  • Measured on finished cider after a spontaneous fermentation, not on juice. It is not comparable with a juice figure for the same cultivar, and the gap between the two is not a disagreement between laboratories — it is what fermentation did.
  • Measured on finished cider after a spontaneous fermentation, not on juice. It is not comparable with a juice figure for the same cultivar, and the gap between the two is not a disagreement between laboratories — it is what fermentation did. The compiler notes these tannin figures run at roughly half the Long Ashton juice figures for the same cultivars, and cannot say how much of that is fermentation, how much is Geneva, and how much is method.
  • The highest pH in this series and near the top of what apple juice reaches. It is consistent in direction with the 4.33 measured on Dabinett cider at Geneva and with the cultivar being a low-acid bittersweet, and it is still an outlier worth treating as one.
  • The assay is not named by the source. Compare with other French figures rather than with a permanganate tannin figure.

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.

WSU Mount Vernon cider cultivar trial

Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center, Mount Vernon, Skagit Valley, Washington · 2002–2017 · Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center

Maritime, with cool summers and mild wet winters — the closest North American analogue to the English West Country, and the reason the programme planted European cider fruit here rather than east of the Cascades.

Mean full bloom
19 May
Harvest
14 October
Bloom density
3.7 of 5
Productivity
3.7 of 5
Growth habit
Spreading
Bearing
Semi Spur
Alternate bearing
Semi alternate
Blind wood
1.5 of 5
Rootstocks
MM.106

Filed here as bittersweet.

Tasted at this site

Color amber, moderate bittersweet. Has body and astringency, tannins are harsh and tend to dominate flavor. Good alone for those who like a stout cider, otherwise blend to soften tannin; good nose. Apple, raisins.

Recorded by the programme from professional cidermakers in the region. One panel, one place, one set of seasons — a description of these ciders rather than of the cultivar everywhere.

Juice characteristics measured on 250 mL of pressed juice; juice yield from 25 fruit, 2015–2017 only. Bloom density, productivity and blind wood are the site’s own subjective 1–5 ratings. Figures are means across the seasons each cultivar was in the trial.

Long Ashton composite cider apple analyses

Long Ashton Research Station, near Bristol, North Somerset, England · 1905–1975 · Andrew Lea

Maritime and mild, with wet autumns and few hard frosts — the climate the English cider cultivars were selected in, and the reason their acid and tannin figures here are the ones the rest of the world has spent a century comparing its own fruit against.

Held as
Listed as “Dabinett”, late season

Filed here as bittersweet.

Tasted at this site

Marked in the source as one of the cultivars “generally regarded as having that elusive and hard-to-define character of vintage quality”. The compiler marks fourteen of the forty-two that way, and does not say who regards them so or on what evidence.

Recorded by the programme from professional cidermakers in the region. One panel, one place, one set of seasons — a description of these ciders rather than of the cultivar everywhere.

Freshly expressed juice, not finished cider. Acid by straight titration against alkali, reported as malic acid; tannin by Löwenthal permanganate titration, reported as tannic acid equivalent. Composite figures across seventy years of analyses: the source gives neither a sample count nor the year of any individual reading.

NYSAES Geneva cider cultivar analyses

New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, New York · late 1970s · AVI / Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1989, edited by Donald L. Downing (ISBN 0-442-22117-7)

Humid continental, with a hotter summer and a colder winter than any European cider region. The compiler suggests the growing conditions may be part of why the phenolic figures sit so far below the English ones, and is careful not to claim it.

Held as
Listed as “Dabinett”

Analysis of finished cider after a spontaneous fermentation. Acid by titration as malic; pH by meter; tannin by an unstated method; fruit weight as a mean. The data appear to come from a single season, and the original work was unpublished.

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 “Dabinett”
Published here, not republished by CiderHQ
  • 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
Late
Flowering
Pollination group 4
Vigour
Moderate
Cropping
Markedly biennial — heavy and light years alternate
Keeping
Good

Late October into November. The fruit hangs well and is usually gathered from the ground after it drops, which is part of why it suits a large mill.

Notoriously biennial. A heavy year is followed by a light one, and the pattern is difficult to break once established; thinning and consistent nutrition reduce but do not remove it.

Holds in store for several weeks, which lets a mill stagger pressing rather than take the whole crop at once.

Flowers late, which gives it useful frost avoidance in a West Country spring and makes it a poor pollination partner for early-flowering dessert fruit.

Disease and pest susceptibility

Recorded susceptibility. Pressure differs enormously by region and by season, so these are tendencies rather than predictions.
IssueSusceptibilityNote
ScabmoderateNot scab-free, but less troubled than many Somerset bittersweets.
CankermoderateCanker pressure rises sharply on heavy, wet sites regardless of cultivar; Dabinett is not exceptional either way.

Juice and pressing

How it is used

On its own

Sometimes bottled on its own

Made as a single varietal more often than any other bittersweet, and it works — but the result is soft and low in acid, and most producers who bottle it alone accept that it lacks the lift a small proportion of sharp fruit would give.

About Dabinett

Dabinett is the cultivar that answers the question of what a modern English cider orchard is for. It is small, dull-looking, red-flushed over green, and inedible raw; it crops well on a bush tree, drops its fruit obligingly, and ferments into something that tastes finished before anything has been done to it. That last quality is rarer than it sounds. Most bittersweets give a cider that needs a blending partner to be drinkable; Dabinett gives one that is merely incomplete.

What it contributes is tannin of a particular kind. The measured total is high, but the palate impression is weight and a faint dry finish rather than bitterness, which suggests the phenolic material sits towards the longer, softer end of the procyanidin range. In a blend this makes it forgiving: adding more Dabinett raises body and mouthfeel without pushing the cider towards the hard, astringent edge that Tremlett’s Bitter or Vilberie will reach quickly. It is the reason a great deal of commercial West Country cider is built on it and the reason small producers who want a soft, full base start there too.

The awkwardness is biennial cropping. Dabinett is among the worst offenders in a family of fruit that is generally bad at this, and an orchard of it can settle into an alternating rhythm that no amount of pruning fully corrects. Growers manage the problem by planting blocks that come into bearing in different years rather than by trying to make individual trees behave, which is a practical admission that the tendency is in the cultivar. Its late flowering is the compensating virtue: in a Somerset spring, blossom that opens in the second half of May misses frosts that take earlier fruit.

The history is thinner than the fruit’s importance suggests. It is universally attributed to a Mr Dabinett of Middle Lambrook, and the story is repeated with confidence in every account, but it is recollection rather than record — no nursery catalogue entry, no dated first propagation. Long Ashton’s promotion of it in the mid twentieth century, not its nineteenth-century discovery, is what made it ubiquitous, and that part of the history is documented.

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

The received story is that a man named Dabinett found the seedling in a hedge near Middle Lambrook. The account is consistent across sources but rests on local recollection rather than on a documented record, and no first date of propagation is fixed.

Parentage · not established

A chance seedling. Claims that it descends from Chisel Jersey circulate widely and have no published genetic support.

Other names this fruit is known by. Each is a name for the same cultivar, not a separate one — which is why none of them has a page of its own.
NameKindNote
Chisel Jersey seedlingDisputed identityOccasionally repeated as a parentage claim rather than a name. No verified parentage exists for Dabinett.

Why it matters

Related cultivars

Recorded relationships, including the ones this fruit is routinely confused with.

Parentage

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.

Styles it is characteristic of

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.

Where to go next

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.

Traditional record Evidence standard for this record. What that means.