Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) · Other product
Pommeau du Maine
The appellation for pommeau made in the Maine, the third of the French pommeau designations and the least widely distributed.
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
- Le Maine
- Register
- EU register of geographical indications, file PGI-FR-01975, 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 9 December 2025, published in the Journal officiel on 18 December 2025 and in the Bulletin officiel 52-2025.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine contrôlée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO, European Commission
Pommeau du Maine is a wood-aged spirit drink made by muting cider-apple must with cider brandy holding the Eau-de-vie de cidre du Maine appellation, itself already aged in wood, from apples harvested inside the geographical area of which at least 70% are phenolic varieties.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine contrôlée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
At least 70% of the trees across the orchard must be phenolic varieties and no more than 15% acidulée varieties, and at least 70% of the must volume in the finished blend must come from phenolic varieties.
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 du Maine 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
The specification attributes the richer must to shallow soils, which restrain the vigour of the trees and give fruit with more sugar in it — the same argument the Breton specification makes for the same figure.
Ageing takes place in oak vessels for at least twenty-one months after muting, with a further minimum thirty days’ rest in bottle for certain products.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine contrôlée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
Twenty-one months is half again as long as the fourteen the other two pommeau appellations require, and it is the clearest single difference between them. Longer in oak means more extraction and more oxidative development, and the specification’s sensory description — candied fruit, strawberry, cocoa — reads accordingly.
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
The specification states this comparatively, against 68 grams per litre for Pommeau de Normandie. The Normandy instrument itself says 69. The discrepancy is a rounding in a comparative paragraph rather than a conflict of law, but CiderHQ records each figure from its own instrument.
The specification describes the product as clear and amber to mahogany in colour, balanced between sweetness, acidity and a light bitterness, with a rich aromatic palette varying with age — subtle notes of candied fruit, strawberry and cocoa.
Primary authority France (appellation d’origine contrôlée) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · INAO
About Pommeau du Maine
The Maine — the country of the Mayenne and the Sarthe, south of Normandy and east of Brittany — has an orchard tradition that sits between its two better-known neighbours, and its pommeau appellation is the smallest of the three. The method is the familiar one: unfermented must arrested with apple spirit, then time in oak.
Its existence is a reminder that the French appellation map for apple drinks is denser than the Normandy-and-Brittany summary suggests, and that several districts with genuine orchard histories secured protection for products made in small volumes. Very little Pommeau du Maine is exported, and a reader is more likely to meet it in the region than on a shelf abroad.
The designation guarantees origin and method. It does not certify quality, does not rank the Maine against Normandy or Brittany, and does not prevent anyone anywhere from making an apple mistelle — only from calling it by this name.
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.
- Is cider made in the maine region of france — Historically it was the ordinary rural drink there, and the province gives its name to Pommeau du Maine. It sits south of Normandy and shares its fruit and methods without holding a cider appellation of its own.
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.