Glossary · Cider
Pommeau
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.
Definition
A blend of unfermented apple juice and apple brandy, matured in oak, sold at around 16 to 18% ABV as an aperitif or dessert drink.
- Subject
- Cider
- Language
- French
In more detail
The spirit arrests fermentation before it starts, so the sugar of the fresh juice is retained; the character then comes from long cask ageing, which oxidises the blend towards dried fruit, nut and caramel notes. Normandy, Brittany and Maine each hold an appellation for it, requiring the brandy to be the region’s own Calvados or equivalent.
A pear version, poiré-based and made the same way, exists in smaller quantity.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Style
Pommeau
A blend of fresh apple juice and apple brandy, mixed before fermentation so that the spirit prevents it, then aged in oak.
Production
Fortification
Adding distilled spirit to juice or cider so that fermentation cannot proceed, the classic route to pommeau and a step that generally takes the product outside the legal category of cider.
Region
Normandy
The largest and most codified cider region in France, where fruit is grown in grazed orchard-meadows, juice is stripped of nutrient by keeving before fermentation, and the finished cider is expected to be sweet, aromatic and low in alcohol rather than dry.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Cider
Calvados
The protected apple — and in the Domfrontais, partly pear — brandy of Normandy, distilled from cider under appellation rules that govern the orchard, the fermentation, the still and the minimum cask age.
Cider
Cider brandy
A spirit distilled from cider, aged in wood or sold unaged. Calvados is the protected French form; England, the United States and Spain each have their own traditions.
Milling and pressing
Marc
French for pressed pomace, and by extension the spirit distilled from it. *Marc de cidre* and *marc de pomme* are pomace brandies distinct from Calvados, which is distilled from cider itself.
Sensory
Oxidative
Showing the character that oxygen exposure brings — bruised apple, nuts, dried fruit, sherry and toffee — with fresh fruit aromas diminished. It may be a fault or a deliberate style.
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 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.
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.