Glossary · Law and labelling
Best before
Also written date of minimum durability. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
A quality date indicating how long a product remains at its best under stated storage conditions. It is not a safety date, and drinks above a certain strength are exempt from requiring one.
- Subject
- Law and labelling
- Also written
- date of minimum durability
In more detail
For cider the date is a producer’s judgement about when the drink will still show as intended, and it varies enormously with style: a light, filtered, low-tannin cider deteriorates within months, while a tannic bottle-conditioned cider can improve for years past any printed date.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Fermentation
Gyle
A single batch of fermenting liquid, and by extension the batch number identifying it. Borrowed from brewing, it is used in larger cider houses as the unit of traceability from tank to pack.
Fermentation
Pasteurisation
Heating cider to destroy yeast and bacteria, either by flash pasteurisation before filling or by tunnel pasteurisation in the sealed container. It stabilises a sweetened product against refermentation.
Faults
Light strike
Damage caused by light, particularly in the ultraviolet and near-blue range, generating sulphur compounds that give a cabbage or skunky aroma in ciders bottled in clear or green glass.
Faults
Oxidation
The chemical damage done by oxygen to a finished cider: loss of fresh fruit aroma, browning, and the arrival of acetaldehyde, nutty and sherry-like notes.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
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.
Food labelling and packaging guidance
Food Standards Agency / Department for Business and Trade · regulator · retrieved 2026-08-24
Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers
European Union · legislation · passage verified 2026-08-24
The instrument behind the "contains sulphites" declaration and the alcoholic-strength labelling rule. Read on 2026-08-24 in the assimilated text maintained on legislation.gov.uk, which is the version in force for Great Britain and keeps the EU numbering. Two provisions matter to cider and both are widely misquoted: the sulphite threshold is 10 mg/L rather than a percentage, and a labelled cider strength carries a tolerance of a full percentage point either way — twice what still grape wine is allowed.