Glossary · Fruit
Douce-amère
French. Kept in its own language here rather than translated into the nearest English word, because the nearest English word is usually cut on a different axis.
Also written douce amere, doux-amer. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
The bittersweet class in the French cider apple classification: low acid with substantial tannin, forming the core of a Normandy or Breton blend.
- Subject
- Fruit
- Language
- French
- Also written
- douce amere, doux-amer
In more detail
The French scheme runs douce, douce-amère, amère, acidulée and aigre, and differs from Long Ashton in separating an amère class of very tannic fruit used only in small proportion. The categories are drawn on the same axes — acid and tannin — but the thresholds and the number of classes are not interchangeable.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
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.
Fruit
Cider apple
An apple cultivar selected for fermentation rather than for eating or cooking, valued for juice yield, sugar, tannin and acid rather than for texture or appearance.
Cider
Blend
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.
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.
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.
Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité (INAO)
INAO · regulator · passage verified 2026-08-24
The Cidre Pays d’Auge cahier des charges was read in full on 2026-08-24, in the version homologated by arrêté of 17 January 2026 and published in the Journal officiel on 21 January. That qualification is not decoration. A revision adopted by the Comité national on 10 September 2025 is currently under the procédure nationale d’opposition, is clearly marked as not prejudging the final text, and specifies carbonation differently from the text in force — as grams of CO2 per litre rather than as a minimum pressure in bar. A summary citing the draft would have put a figure on the page that no producer is held to. CiderHQ records the operative text and says which one it is.