Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) · Other product
Pommeau de Bretagne
The Breton appellation for pommeau, blending unfermented Breton apple must with Breton cider spirit and maturing the result in oak.
This record was taken as at 2026-08-23 and describes an instrument administered in France.
- Kind
- Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC)
- Product
- Other product
- Country
- France
- Regions covered
- Brittany
- Register
- EU register of geographical indications, file PGI-FR-01974, verified against the register on 2026-08-25. The date is the protection date of the original EU spirit drinks regulation rather than an individual registration: the 1989 instrument protected a schedule of existing national names at a stroke.
- Record taken as at
- 2026-08-23
- Registered on
- 1989-06-12
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: 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 homologated by arrêté of 22 March 2022, published in the Journal officiel on 29 March 2022 and in the Bulletin officiel 2022-16.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine contrôlée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO, European Commission
Pommeau de Bretagne is a wood-aged spirit drink made by muting cider-apple must with cider brandy holding the Eau-de-vie de cidre de Bretagne appellation, itself already aged in wood. Harvesting the apples, making and muting the must, ageing and bottling all take place inside the geographical area.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine contrôlée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
Each of the three pommeau appellations is tied to its own regional brandy. A Breton pommeau cannot be muted with Calvados, and a Norman one cannot be muted with Breton eau-de-vie, so the three are not interchangeable even where the apples would be.
At least 70% of the trees across the orchard must be phenolic varieties and no more than 15% acidulée varieties. Varieties rich in phenolic compounds are classed as phenolic for this purpose.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine contrôlée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
Muting is carried out in a single operation. At the moment of muting the musts must carry a minimum natural sugar content of 123 grams per litre. The Eau-de-vie de cidre de Bretagne used must have been held in oak for at least twelve months from the end of distillation, must be at least 65% vol at muting, and must have been made by the same producer who makes the must. The acquired strength after muting may not fall below 15% vol, and muting must be completed before 15 February of the year following the start of harvest.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine contrôlée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
A hundred and twenty-three grams per litre is fifteen grams above the Normandy requirement, and the specification explains where it comes from: orchards on the sunniest, most sheltered Breton sites and on shallow soils that hold back the vigour of the trees.
Ageing takes place after each muting operation in oak vessels of sessile or pedunculate species or their hybrid, of less than 110 hectolitres, in cellars whose humidity and temperature are regulated naturally, for at least fourteen months.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine contrôlée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
The cap on vessel size has no counterpart in the Normandy specification. A smaller cask gives more oak surface for the volume it holds, so this is a clause about how much wood the product is meant to take.
At sale the product must show an acquired alcoholic strength between 16% and 18% vol and an unfermented sugar content above 90 grams per litre.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine contrôlée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
Twenty-one grams per litre sweeter than Pommeau de Normandie, and that follows directly from the richer must: a sweeter juice muted to the same strength leaves more sugar behind.
The specification describes the product as clear and amber to mahogany in colour, balanced between sweetness, acidity and bitterness, with a rich aromatic palette varying with age — empyreumatic and subtly spiced notes, candied fruit, almond, citrus and prune.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine contrôlée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
About Pommeau de Bretagne
The Breton pommeau follows the same construction as the Norman one — fresh must arrested with an apple spirit, then aged in wood — but draws on Breton fruit and on Breton cider spirit rather than Calvados. That difference in the spirit component is a legal one as much as a sensory one: the Norman appellation names Calvados specifically, and only the Norman appellation may.
Because the fruit is Breton, the must brings the bitterness and the lower acid of the local bittersweet varieties, and the finished apéritif tends to carry more phenolic grip beneath the sweetness than the Norman style. It is a small category, made by a limited number of houses, and it is largely consumed within the region.
The appellation protects the name and the method rather than certifying quality, and it has no effect on anyone making a similar blend outside Brittany. What it prevents is a bottle of sweetened apple spirit from borrowing the region and the word.
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.
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.