Glossary · Cider
Blend
Definition
A cider or perry made by combining juices or finished batches, either by mixing fruit before milling or by assembling separately fermented lots to a target balance.
- Subject
- Cider
In more detail
Blending is the central compositional decision in traditional cider-making. A West Country blend is typically built on bittersweet fruit for body and tannin, corrected with sharp fruit for acid and a safer pH, with aromatic cultivars added in small proportion. Blending after fermentation gives more control, because the maker can taste each component; blending in the mill is faster and is what most farm cider was.
Blending across vintages is normal in commercial production and is how a house style is kept consistent. It is not a lesser practice — it is the same logic that governs non-vintage sparkling wine.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Production
Blending
Combining separate lots of cider or perry into one, which in cider is the historically normal way of making the drink rather than a remedy applied when single lots disappoint.
Production
Bench blending trials
Making small measured mixtures of candidate lots and tasting them before committing tanks, because how components behave together cannot be worked out from how they taste apart.
Style
Blended cider
Cider assembled from several cultivars, parcels or vintages so that the finished balance is a made decision rather than an inherited one.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Cider
Single varietal
A cider or perry made from one named cultivar, usually with a stated minimum proportion — commonly 90 or 100 per cent — rather than from a blend.
Fermentation
Bench blending
Making small measured trial blends of finished batches and tasting them before committing the tanks, so that proportions are chosen on evidence rather than arithmetic alone.
Fruit
Bittersweet
In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple low in acid — conventionally below about 0.45 per cent — and high in tannin, above about 0.2 per cent. Bittersweets form the structural base of West Country cider.
Fruit
Sharp
In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple high in acid and low in tannin. Sharps supply freshness and lower the pH of a blend into a range where spoilage organisms are less comfortable.
Cider
Vintage
A cider or perry made wholly from the fruit of one stated harvest year, as distinct from a blend across seasons.
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.
A Somerset Pomona: The Cider Apples of Somerset
Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001. ISBN 9781874336877 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25
Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against Open Library: Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001, ISBN 9781874336877. The author was Long Ashton’s cider pomologist, which is why this work is registered for Somerset cultivar identity at all — it is the nearest thing to a successor to the station’s own descriptions. No copy was opened. Not digitised in any open collection.
The New Cider Maker’s Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers
Claude Jolicoeur, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013. ISBN 9781603584739 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25
Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against the Open Library union catalogue: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013, ISBN 9781603584739, one edition recorded. That establishes the citation points at a real book in a stated edition, which is what a citation needs and is all it establishes. No copy was opened and nothing is quoted from it. The book itself is in print and not digitised in any open collection; where CiderHQ needs a figure from this territory it uses an accessible research source instead and says so.
Cider and perry production technical training material
Peter Mitchell / Cider and Perry Academy · reference work · registered as competent for this subject
Searched again on 2026-08-25 and it remains the one printed source here that a bibliographic check cannot fix, because it is not a published work with an edition. It is course material issued to participants of a training programme, so there is no catalogue record to verify, no ISBN, and no lawful public copy. Its state stays `registered` for that reason rather than through inattention.