Cider apple
Frequinette
A French cider apple of the Fréquin naming group, carrying over a gram per litre of polyphenols on a low-acid base.
Also written Fréquinette.
- Classification
- Not classified under any recorded system
- Harvest
- Mid (Late September to mid October)
- Single varietal
- Rarely bottled on its own
- Blend role
- Tannin and structure, Bittersweet base
- Origin
- Normandy, France
- Species
- Malus domestica
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Biennial bearing
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Moderate
How it is classified
CiderHQ holds no French family classification for Frequinette, 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 | Moderate | |
| Tannin | Heavy | |
| Sugar | Moderate | |
| Bitterness | Marked | |
| Astringency | Harsh | |
| Aroma | Present | |
| Body | Full |
A 2018 IFPC analysis: 5.1 g/L malic acid, pH 4.1, 1 174 mg/L total polyphenols, specific gravity 1.054.
A phenolic juice of modest sugar, contributing grip rather than weight.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Frequinette, 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 acid5.1 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.
pH4.10 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 phenolics1173.5 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 “Frequinette”
- 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
- 1 174 mg/L total polyphenols — among the higher figures in its dataset
- Low acid at 5.1 g/L malic
- pH 4.1
- Modest gravity at 1.054
How it is used
- Blended for phenolic structure.
On its own
Rarely bottled on its own
Phenolic without much sugar or acid behind it.
About Frequinette
Frequinette is a French cider apple whose 2018 analysis gives 1 174 milligrams per litre of total polyphenols on 5.1 grams per litre of malic acid at pH 4.1 — a phenolic fruit on a low-acid base, which is the classic French amère shape, from a juice of only modest sugar at 1.054.
The name places it in the Fréquin cluster, alongside Fréquin Rouge, Fréquin Audièvre and Surpasse Fréquin. CiderHQ treats that as a naming group and not as a family. Cider apple nomenclature is full of clusters that look like families and are not: the West Country "Jersey" apples share a class rather than a parent, and the Longdon perry pears share a name across three genetically distinct trees. Nothing this site has seen establishes a genetic relationship among the Fréquins, and until a genotyping study does, the shared name is recorded as a shared name.
What the fruit is for is grip. At its phenolic level and its gravity it contributes structure to a blend rather than alcohol, and a must built around it needs sugar and acid from elsewhere.
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 name is a diminutive within the Fréquin group — Fréquin Rouge, Fréquin Audièvre, Surpasse Fréquin and others — which is a naming cluster rather than a demonstrated family. Nothing CiderHQ has seen establishes a genetic relationship between its members.
Why it matters
- A member by name of the Fréquin cluster, which CiderHQ treats as a naming group rather than as a family: no genetic study it has seen establishes a relationship between the cultivars carrying the name.
Related cultivars
Recorded relationships, including the ones this fruit is routinely confused with.
Often confused with
Fréquin Rouge
Shares the Fréquin name. Whether the two are related is not established by anything CiderHQ has seen, and a shared name in French cider fruit is not evidence of a shared parent.
Often confused with
Fréquin Audièvre
Another Fréquin-named cultivar, related to this one by nomenclature and not demonstrably by anything else.
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.
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.
Yarlington Mill
A vigorous Somerset bittersweet, conical and red-striped, giving a cider with more aromatic lift than most of its class and a reputation for fruitiness that the tannin figures do not explain.
Bisquet
A reliable, regular-cropping Norman bittersweet planted heavily in modern orchards precisely because it does not do the one thing most traditional French cider apples do, which is crop every other year.
Chisel Jersey
A hard, high-tannin Somerset bittersweet used in small proportion for structure, and one of the fruit most often reached for when a blend needs backbone rather than bulk.
Ellis Bitter
An early Devon bittersweet, large and conical and deep red, giving good early-season tannin from a tree that crops heavily and unevenly.
Harry Masters’ Jersey
A medium bittersweet from the Yarlington district, valued for tannin that is full without being harsh, and among the more reliable croppers in a class that is generally unreliable.
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 normandy cider
- What is tannin balancing
- What is frequin rouge
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.