Protected geographical indication (PGI) · Cider
Cidre de Bretagne / Cidre breton
The protected geographical indication for Breton cider, covering the Brittany region and its historic margins and sitting above the tighter Cornouaille appellation.
Written on the label as Cidre de Bretagne.
This record was taken as at 2026-08-23 and describes an instrument administered in France.
CiderHQ records the structure of a specification: that it defines an area, that it restricts the fruit, that it sets a minimum strength or a sweetness band. Where a figure was not verified against the register itself, this page says a threshold exists and stops there rather than reproducing a number it cannot trace. Knowing that a limit is written down, and where it is written down, is worth more than a plausible figure.
Designation rules change. Specifications are amended, and the amendments do not announce themselves. Anyone relying on this commercially — labelling a product, drafting a claim, buying under the name — must read the current specification on the register itself rather than any summary of it, including this one.
Read the register: European Commission · INAO
What the specification requires
Each requirement is recorded as a claim with its jurisdiction, its as-of date and the source it rests on. Requirements that could not carry all three are not shown.
The specification in force is the cahier des charges on which the European Commission based its decision of 10 December 2018, published as Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/1978 in the Official Journal on 14 December 2018 and carried in the Bulletin officiel du Ministère de l’agriculture 2018-51. It annuls and replaces the version homologated by arrêté of 20 December 2016.
Primary authority France (indication géographique protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO, European Commission
The apples must be harvested and the cider made inside an area covering the four Breton departments in full together with parts of the Mayenne, Loire-Atlantique and Maine-et-Loire. Conditioning is the one operation that may take place outside it.
Primary authority France (indication géographique protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
Letting packaging happen elsewhere is the ordinary difference between an indication and an appellation of origin, and it is why a large producer can hold Breton cider in bulk and fill it near its market.
The specification defines a cider apple by measurement: an apple whose juice carries at least 0.6 grams per litre of total tannic acids, native or oxidised. Dessert apples are excluded.
Primary authority France (indication géographique protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
This is the only numeric definition of the term “cider apple” CiderHQ has found in any jurisdiction. Everywhere else the phrase is a horticultural convention; here it is a threshold a laboratory can test against, and a variety either clears it or does not.
The specification sets out the five French variety families with numeric boundaries on both axes. Sweet varieties carry under 2 g/L of tannin and under 3 g/L of acid; bittersweet 2 to 3 g/L of tannin and under 3 g/L of acid; bitter over 3 g/L of tannin and under 3 g/L of acid; acidulée under 2 g/L of tannin with 3 to 4.5 g/L of acid; and aigre under 2 g/L of tannin with over 4.5 g/L of acid. Acidity is expressed as sulphuric acid.
Primary authority France (indication géographique protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
The French families are usually described in words and almost never with their thresholds attached. Two things follow from having them. Acidity here is reported as H₂SO₄ rather than as malic acid, so these numbers cannot be compared with an English total-acid figure without conversion; and the boundaries are not the Long Ashton ones, which is why a cultivar can be bittersweet in one scheme and not in the other without either being wrong.
Concentrated must may make up to 40% of the total must volume, expressed as reconstituted must, and that ceiling includes any concentrate used to sweeten the finished cider. Adding cold potable water to the pressed marc to extract residual sugar — rémiage — is permitted, and the resulting juice may be concentrated, blended with pure juice or handled separately.
Primary authority France (indication géographique protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
This is the clause that separates the indication from the appellations more sharply than the boundary does. Pays d’Auge, Cornouaille, Cotentin and Perche each prohibit any operation that alters the natural sugar content; Cidre de Bretagne permits two-fifths concentrate and a second watered pressing. Both are lawful Breton cider and they are not the same product.
Pre-fermentation clarification happens spontaneously or by customary treatments. Pure juice, rémiage juice and reconstituted must may ferment separately or blended, at ambient temperature or cold. Decantation, centrifugation, filtration and fining are all permitted. Conditioning may be carried out in closed tank or in bottle, using the natural flora or selected yeasts, and gasification is also permitted. Caramel is the only colourant allowed.
Primary authority France (indication géographique protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
The cider must reach a minimum total alcoholic strength of 5.0% vol and a minimum acquired strength of 1.5% vol, with volatile acidity no greater than 1 gram per litre expressed as sulphuric acid. Volumes destined for industrial use or for compound products may be sold without meeting any effervescence condition.
Primary authority France (indication géographique protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
An acquired minimum of 1.5% is very low, and it is the mechanism by which a sweet cidre doux qualifies: the total strength counts the sugar still present as potential alcohol. The volatile acidity ceiling is the only analytical limit here that functions as a quality control rather than a definition.
The specification describes the cider as clear or cloudy with fine bubbles and a light mousse, and its aromas as rich, ranging from structured and rustic to fruity and floral, sometimes with spiced notes from maturation; it varies from acid-dominant and pale to bitter-dominant and mahogany brown, and is known for a balance between bitterness, acidity and sugar.
Primary authority France (indication géographique protégée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
About Cidre de Bretagne / Cidre breton
Breton cider is the other great French tradition, and it is not a variant of the Norman one. The fruit is different — Breton orchards are built on varieties such as Douce Moën, Kermerrien, Marie Ménard and Guillevic — and so is the register of flavour, which tends to be leaner, more bitter and less overtly sweet than the keeved ciders of the Pays d’Auge. The indication covers this whole territory, including parts of the Loire-Atlantique that are historically Breton but administratively no longer part of the region.
As a PGI, the specification asks for a link to the area through defined stages rather than for the full origin argument a designation of origin makes. Within Brittany the Cornouaille appellation does make that stronger argument for a small area of Finistère, and the two are frequently confused: a bottle can be Cidre de Bretagne without being anywhere near Cornouaille, and the difference in what has been promised is substantial.
The indication protects a name, not a standard of excellence. It says that a cider called Breton has been made in Brittany from Breton cider fruit under a lodged specification. It does not say that this cider is better than one made in Normandy, Asturias or Devon, and it does not stop anyone outside Brittany from working with the same varieties — several of them are grown experimentally in England and North America, and the results belong to their makers, not to the appellation.
Described in full
- Shape
- A table of seven rows and six columns. Rows are the appellations, columns are the clauses. Every cell carries a word or a number rather than a tick, so nothing is carried by a mark whose meaning has to be looked up.
- Pays d’Auge
- Must density 1.050; pectic settling compulsory; yeast may be added; bottle conditioning 6 weeks; minimum pressure 1.5 bar; acquired alcohol 3.5 per cent.
- Cornouaille
- Must sugar 108 grams per litre; défécation — keeving — compulsory and the only clarification allowed; yeast may be added; conditioning 6 weeks; 1.5 bar; 3.5 per cent.
- Cidre Cotentin
- Clarification compulsory; no yeast may be added to the first fermentation; conditioning 8 weeks, the longest of the seven; 1.0 bar, the lowest of the seven; 3.5 per cent. Also the only one with a second, drier product defined inside its own specification, the extra-brut.
- Cidre du Perche
- Must density 1.045; clarification compulsory; no yeast in the first fermentation; 8 weeks in tank before bottling; conditioning 6 weeks; 1.5 bar; 3.5 per cent.
- Domfront (perry)
- Must density 1.047; slow fermentation with nothing added to promote or retard it; conditioning 6 weeks; 1.4 bar; acquired alcohol 3.0 per cent, the lowest of the seven.
- Cidre de Bretagne IGP and Cidre de Normandie IGP
- Both are indications rather than appellations of origin and both sit apart from the five above: concentrate to 40 per cent of must volume, added water permitted, injected gas permitted, caramel permitted as a colourant, and a minimum acquired alcohol of 1.5 per cent against a total of 5.0.
- The reading
- The five appellations of origin forbid what the two indications permit. That is the whole of the difference between the two kinds of French label, and it is larger than the difference between any two of the appellations.
Styles this designation covers
Categories whose definition or characteristic practice this specification governs.
Where it applies
The areas named by the specification, each described in its own terms.
What people ask next
Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.
- Where is cider made in france — Principally in Normandy and Brittany, with smaller traditions in the Perche, Maine, Savoie and the French Basque Country. The Pays d’Auge and the Domfrontais both carry protected appellations.
- What is breton cider
Where to go next
- All protected designations — Every reserved name on CiderHQ, grouped by country, with what each kind of instrument does.
- Cider and perry in France — How cider is legally defined and taxed in the country administering this name.
- How CiderHQ handles evidence — Why a requirement here states a structure rather than a figure.
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.
eAmbrosia — the EU geographical indications register
European Commission · designation authority · registered as competent for this subject
The single authoritative register of EU PDO, PGI and TSG names, carrying each product specification. Cider and perry designations across France, Spain and elsewhere resolve here.
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.