Sensory descriptor
Fruit store
The close, sweet, faintly fermenting smell of a loft of apples held before milling, met in ciders made from sweated fruit.
Also called Apple loft, Fruit loft.
- Aroma family
- Ripe apple
- Does it indicate a fault?
- No — a normal part of cider and perry aroma
What causes it
A closed store of ripening apples accumulates the ethylene the fruit produces, which accelerates ripening throughout the room, and with it a dense mixture of acetate and ethyl esters, α-farnesene from the skin wax, and traces of ethanol and ethyl acetate from skin yeast working on damaged fruit. The perception is heavier and less bright than the fruit itself smells in the open, because the volatile mixture is at high concentration and includes compounds — particularly the oxidation products of α-farnesene — that only accumulate at density.
The compounds responsible
Where the molecule is established. Some descriptors in this lexicon name a compound the compound register does not yet hold a record for; those are named in the cause above instead.
Hexyl acetate
The apple-skin and pear ester that is genuinely carried in from the fruit rather than made by the yeast, and one of the few fresh-fruit aromas that survives fermentation.
Ethyl acetate
The most abundant ester in cider, giving lift and pear-drop at low concentration and nail varnish at high, and the earliest audible warning that acetic bacteria are at work.
Terpenes
The floral and citrus aroma compounds that apples carry only in traces and that hops, spices and botanicals bring in quantity, which is why a hopped cider smells so different from an unhopped one.
Ethanol
The alcohol yeast makes from fruit sugar, which converts a perishable juice into a keepable drink and carries most of its aroma to the nose.
What raises it
Processes that increase this character, or preserve it where it would otherwise be lost.
Fruit storage before milling
Holding a gathered crop between harvest and the mill, and managing what respiration, water loss and spoilage do to it while it waits.
Sweating the fruit
Deliberately heaping or storing gathered fruit so that it softens, loses water and finishes converting starch before it goes to the mill.
Where it is usually met
Fruit and styles this character is recorded in. A record here is where the descriptor is commonly found, not a claim that every example shows it.
About Fruit store
This is a traditional-practice descriptor and a slightly specialist one, but it names something a panel tasting Norman or West Country cider meets regularly and often has no word for: an apple aroma that is unmistakably apple and unmistakably not fresh.
It differs from overripe apple in emphasis rather than in kind — overripe apple is about the individual fruit’s own metabolism, fruit store is about the accumulated atmosphere of many fruits together, and in practice the two arrive from the same production step.
Others in the ripe apple family
Full, sweet-smelling orchard apple.
Bittersweet apple
The soft, low-acid, faintly earthy ripe-fruit character of traditional West Country cider fruit, inseparable from its phenolic weight.
Ripe apple
Full orchard-apple aroma from the acetate esters an apple accumulates through ripening and carries into the finished drink.
Dessert apple
The bright, aromatic, low-tannin fruit character of eating apples, dominant in eastern counties and most modern mainstream cider.
Sweet apple
An impression of sweet fruit produced by aroma rather than by sugar, common in dry ciders with a high ester load and low acidity.
Overripe apple
Heavy, faintly alcoholic fruit aroma from apples past the climacteric, where the fruit has begun fermenting on its own account.
Quince
A dense, perfumed pome-fruit aroma sitting between apple and pear, driven by ethyl esters and terpene traces.
Windfall apple
Bruised, soil-touched ripe fruit character from apples collected off the orchard floor, sitting on the border between depth and taint.
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.
- How many calories are in cider — Roughly 40 to 60 kcal per 100 ml for most ciders, so a UK pint falls somewhere around 200 to 250 kcal. Alcohol contributes about 7 kcal per gram and residual sugar about 4, so both strength and sweetness matter.
- Why does my cider smell of nail varnish or solvent — Almost always ethyl acetate, the ester of acetic acid and ethanol. It is made by stressed yeast and by acetic acid bacteria, and it is perceptible at a small fraction of the concentration the acid itself needs, so it usually announces a problem before the vinegar does.
- How long can apples be kept before pressing
- What does sweating apples mean — Sweating is holding picked fruit in a heap or store for days or weeks before milling, so it softens, loses water and gains sugar concentration. Perry pears in particular are usually held until they yield to the thumb.
- What does the pays d auge aoc actually require — Pure cider apple juice from a closed variety list, a blend at least 70% phenolic varieties and at most 25% acidulée, compulsory maceration and pectic settling, capped orchard yields, and a sparkle that may only come from fermentation finishing in the bottle over at least six weeks. Pasteurisation, added water, added sugar and gasification are all prohibited.
- What is a traditional west country cider blend — Predominantly bittersweet fruit for body and tannin, with a proportion of sharp fruit for acidity and sometimes a smaller share of bittersharps for both. The exact composition varied by farm and by what was in the orchard.
Where to go next
- The sensory model — The thirteen structural dimensions and the twenty aroma families, in full.
- Compounds — The chemistry behind the words.
- Troubleshooting — When a perception turns out to be a problem, this is where it is diagnosed.
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.
A Somerset Pomona: The Cider Apples of Somerset
Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001. ISBN 9781874336877 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25
Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against Open Library: Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001, ISBN 9781874336877. The author was Long Ashton’s cider pomologist, which is why this work is registered for Somerset cultivar identity at all — it is the nearest thing to a successor to the station’s own descriptions. No copy was opened. Not digitised in any open collection.
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.
Somerset Rural Life Museum — cider collections
South West Heritage Trust · museum · retrieved 2026-08-24