Cider apple
Tardive Forestier
A late Norman bittersweet named for its season and for the family that grew it, planted where a mill needed fruit after the main crop was through.
Also written Tardive Forestier de Normandie.
- Classification
- Bittersweet — French cider apple families
- Harvest
- Very late (November onwards)
- Single varietal
- Rarely bottled on its own
- Blend role
- Late season, Bittersweet base, Sugar and body
- Origin
- Normandy
- Species
- Malus domestica
- Flowering
- Pollination group 5
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Biennial bearing
- Markedly biennial — heavy and light years alternate
- Keeping
- Good
- Evidence
- Analysed in 1 source, watched at 1 trial site
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 drink will be.
| Axis | Typical | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Acid | Low | |
| Tannin | Moderate | |
| Sugar | High | |
| Bitterness | Moderate | |
| Astringency | Noticeable | |
| Aroma | Present | |
| Body | Medium |
French bittersweet family placement; the descriptive record for this cultivar is limited. These bands were authored from description; published analyses of this fruit have since been transcribed onto the record from named trial programmes and are shown above. The bands are not derived from those figures, which is why this profile is marked as classified rather than measured.
A moderate bittersweet with the extra sugar that a long hang gives, and a soft rather than gripping tannin.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Tardive Forestier, 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.
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.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fruit diameter | 65 mm (56–74) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Fruit firmness | 58.7 N (50.0–67.4) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Fruit weight | 122 g (75–170) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Starch pattern index | 7.9 SPI (7.7–8.2) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
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.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brix | 11.4 °Bx (10.3–12.5) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Fructose | 74.3 g/L (69.7–78.9)Not used in comparisons: see note below | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Glucose | 14.2 g/L (10.2–18.2)Not used in comparisons: see note below | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| pH | 3.45 pH (3.43–3.47) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Sorbitol | 10.1 g/L (8.6–11.6)Not used in comparisons: see note below | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Sucrose | 34.4 g/L (23.9–44.9)Not used in comparisons: see note below | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Titratable acidity | 6.2 g/L (5.7–6.7) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Total phenolics | 840.0 mg/L (720.0–960.0) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
How these were measured
- Mean of the fruit sampled per accession; where a bracket is shown it is one standard deviation either side of the mean, not the observed range. Published to two decimal places and shown at the precision CiderHQ displays for the unit.
- Mean of the fruit sampled per accession; where a bracket is shown it is one standard deviation either side of the mean, not the observed range.
- Cornell generic starch–iodine chart, 1–8, where 1 is no hydrolysis and 8 is complete. Mean of replicate fruit; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of it.
- Penetrometer, mean of replicate fruit; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Refractometer on pressed juice. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Titration to pH 8.1 with sodium hydroxide, reported as malic acid equivalents. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- The starting pH recorded by the autotitrator before titration, on juice stored frozen at −80 °C and thawed; the source describes no separate pH measurement. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Folin–Ciocalteu assay against gallic acid standards, published in grams per litre of gallic acid equivalent and stored here as milligrams per litre by exact conversion. The source converts these figures to Löwenthal tannic acid equivalents, by a laboratory factor of 1.6, only to sort its accessions into classes; the figure here is the unconverted one.
- Enzymatic assay (Megazyme). Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- D-sorbitol/xylitol assay kit (Megazyme), sorbitol dehydrogenase method. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Glucose, fructose, sucrose and sorbitol: Not used in any distribution, ranking or comparison. This programme’s enzyme-assayed sugars do not reconcile with its own refractometer readings across the collection — for many varieties the sugars add up to more than the Brix reading allows. The figures were checked against the thesis’s own tables in October 2026 and are transcribed exactly: the disagreement is in the published source, which does not say which reading is wrong. Proportions between glucose, fructose and sucrose, which came from one assay, are still used in summary.
- A chart position, not a quantity. Almost every accession here scored at or near 8, which says the fruit was picked at or past full starch conversion rather than that the cultivars are alike.
- One harvest at one site. Soluble solids move several degrees between seasons and with crop load.
- A Folin–Ciocalteu figure counts everything that reduces the reagent, not tannin alone, and is not interchangeable with a Löwenthal permanganate figure for the same juice. Compare this reading with other Folin–Ciocalteu readings in gallic acid equivalents.
Where it sits among the varieties each programme measured
| Programme | Property | Tardive Forestier | Programme median | Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation | Titratable acidity as malic | 6.2 g/L | 4.1 g/L | Above 40 and below 6 of the other 46: highest quarter |
| The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation | pH | 3.45 | 3.64 | Above 8 and below 32 of the other 40: lowest quarter |
| The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation | Total phenolics | 840 mg/L | 980 mg/L | Above 12 and below 34 of the other 46: lower middle |
| The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation | Brix | 11.4 °Bx | 12.5 °Bx | Above 12, level with 1, below 33 of the other 46: lower middle |
| The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation | Fruit diameter | 65.0 mm | 65.0 mm | Above 22, level with 1, below 23 of the other 46: lower middle |
| The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation | Fruit weight | 122 g | 124 g | Above 21 and below 25 of the other 46: lower middle |
| The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation | Fruit firmness | 58.7 N | 58.9 N | Above 20 and below 24 of the other 44: lower middle |
| The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation | Starch pattern index | 7.9 SPI | 8.0 SPI | Above 17, level with 2, below 25 of the other 44: lower middle |
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.
USDA-PGRU Malus germplasm characterisation
USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, in the Finger Lakes region of western New York State · 2017 · Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
Humid continental, with cold winters and warm summers moderated by the Finger Lakes — a sharper seasonal swing than any of the European cider regions whose fruit the collection holds, and warm enough in late summer to bring acid down faster than a maritime autumn does.
- Held as
- PI 175548, held as “Tardive Forestier”
One harvest season. Fruit assessed for weight, diameter, starch pattern index on the Cornell 1–8 chart and flesh firmness by penetrometer; juice pressed and measured for soluble solids by refractometer, titratable acidity by titration to pH 8.1 as malic acid, pH as the autotitrator’s starting reading on juice that had been frozen, total phenolics by Folin–Ciocalteu assay as gallic acid equivalent, and glucose, fructose, sucrose and sorbitol by enzymatic assay.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Very late
- Flowering
- Pollination group 5
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Cropping
- Markedly biennial — heavy and light years alternate
- Keeping
- Good
43 other cultivars on this site with a recorded group could pollinate it — diploids flowering in group 5 or a group either side. See which, with their class and harvest window.
Juice and pressing
- Good sugar from a late harvest
- Moderate tannin
- Very low acid
How it is used
- Extending the Norman pressing season
- Blending fruit for cider held over winter
On its own
Rarely bottled on its own
Not a tradition, though its sugar would support one.
About Tardive Forestier
Tardive Forestier is one of a set of Norman cultivars whose identity is essentially a harvest date. It is late, it is a bittersweet, it accumulates good sugar through a long autumn hang, and it was kept because a farm needed fruit at that point in the season.
The value of a very late cultivar is easy to underestimate from a modern perspective. A grower with cold storage and a fast press can pick everything in three weeks and mill it at leisure; a grower with neither had to spread the work across the autumn, and the shape of the traditional orchard — a succession of cultivars ripening from September to December — was a response to that constraint rather than a stylistic choice.
It has become uncommon as the constraint disappeared. Its record is thin, its analysis unverified, and its main claim on a reader’s attention is as an example of how orchard logistics shaped which apples survived.
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
Tardive is a season and Forestier a surname, so the name reads as “Forestier’s late one”. That pattern usually means a local selection named by neighbours.
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.
Douce Moën
The workhorse of Breton cider orchards: a large, pale, very low-acid bittersweet that crops heavily, presses generously, and carries more Breton cider than any other single cultivar.
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.
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.
Rouget de Dol
A red-skinned bittersweet from the Dol country of eastern Brittany, sitting between the Breton and Norman traditions in both geography and character.
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
- When are cider apples harvested — In the northern hemisphere the cider harvest runs from about September to November, with late bittersweets such as Dabinett and Vilberie coming in last. Cider fruit is generally picked riper than dessert fruit, and often gathered from the ground.
- 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.
- How long can apples be kept before pressing
- What is normandy cider
- What does cidre fermier mean
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.
Research Evidence standard for this record. What that means.