Glossary · Cider
Pétillant
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 petillant, lightly sparkling. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
Lightly sparkling — enough dissolved gas to prickle on the tongue but well below the pressure of a fully sparkling cider, typically the result of a slow, incomplete secondary fermentation.
- Subject
- Cider
- Language
- French
- Also written
- petillant, lightly sparkling
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Style
Pétillant cider
Lightly carbonated cider in which the gas is felt as a prickle rather than a stream of bubbles, the level most traditional bottle fermentation reaches on its own.
Production
Natural carbonation
Bottling before the primary fermentation has finished, so the sugar still in the cider produces the carbonation with nothing added and nothing restarted.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Cider
Sparkling
Carrying enough dissolved carbon dioxide to form a persistent bead and a distinct prickle, whether from bottle conditioning, tank conditioning or injected gas.
Cider
Still
Containing no perceptible dissolved carbon dioxide. Traditional farm cider and Spanish *sidra natural* are still in the glass, though the latter is aerated by the way it is poured.
Fermentation
Keeving
A pre-fermentation clarification in which pectin in the juice is gelled into a floating brown cap, taking nutrients and yeast with it, so that the clear juice drawn from beneath ferments slowly and stops with sugar remaining.
Fermentation
Bottle conditioning
Carbonating cider by fermentation inside the sealed bottle, either from primed sugar or from sugar left over from an incomplete ferment. The yeast deposit remains unless the bottle is disgorged.
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.
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.