Sensory descriptor
Maderised
Heat-and-air damage together: cooked, browned, flat character from cider stored warm in the presence of oxygen.
Also called Heat-damaged, Baked-oxidised.
- Aroma family
- Oxidative
- Does it indicate a fault?
- It depends on the style it is met in
What causes it
Maderisation is oxidation accelerated by heat, named for the deliberate heating of Madeira. In cider it is almost always accidental: a pallet left in the sun, a warm warehouse, a shipping container crossing the tropics. Elevated temperature multiplies the rate of every oxidative reaction — acetaldehyde formation, phenolic polymerisation, lipid oxidation — while simultaneously driving Maillard chemistry in whatever sugar is present, and the browning is visible as well as perceptible. Colour deepens, fruit disappears and a flat, cooked, faintly caramelised character replaces it.
This has no acceptable level in cider, and it is distinguished from deliberate oxidative maturation by the presence of the cooked component. Traditional oxidative styles are made in cool cellars; maderisation happens in warm ones.
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.
Acetaldehyde
The compound sitting one step short of ethanol, which smells of bruised apple and sherry, binds most of the sulphite added to a cider, and is the chemical signature of oxidation.
Dissolved oxygen
Essential to a healthy yeast population at the start of fermentation and the principal enemy of a cider from the moment fermentation ends.
Fructose
The dominant sugar of apple juice and the sweetest of the common sugars, which is why apple juice tastes sweeter than its total sugar figure implies and why a stuck ferment leaves sweetness behind.
Total phenolics
The single number used to summarise everything phenolic in a juice, useful for comparing fruit and misleading whenever it is used to predict how a cider will taste.
The organisms that make it
Where a specific organism is implicated rather than the fruit. Naming one answers a different question from naming a molecule: what is in the cellar, rather than what is in the glass.
What raises it
Processes that increase this character, or preserve it where it would otherwise be lost.
Cold chain
Keeping an unpasteurised, unfiltered or back-sweetened cider refrigerated from the packaging hall to the point of sale, because refrigeration is the only thing holding it stable.
Shelf-life management
Establishing how long a cider stays acceptable in its package and setting a durability date that reflects evidence rather than convention.
Cellar storage
Holding packaged cider in conditions that let it change slowly and predictably, where stability of temperature matters more than the temperature itself.
Bottling
Transferring finished cider into glass, where the dominant variable is how much oxygen the liquid picks up in the few seconds it takes to fill and close each bottle.
The fault it points at
Meeting this descriptor above a certain intensity is how the fault below is usually noticed first.
Fault
The cumulative effect of oxygen on finished cider: fruit aroma flattens, colour deepens towards amber, and a bruised-apple or sherry-like character replaces the fresh one.
About Maderised
Maderised character is a distribution and storage fault rather than a production one, and its practical value as a descriptor is that it exonerates the cidermaker. A batch that shows it in the market and not in the cellar was damaged after it left.
The visible colour change is a useful corroboration and is one of the few faults in cider that can be provisionally diagnosed by eye before the glass reaches the nose.
Others in the oxidative family
Sherry, walnut, bruised apple, cardboard.
Bruised apple
The brown, soft, faintly sweet note of enzymatic browning, met wherever apple tissue or juice has met air.
Sherry
A nutty, oxidised, faintly volatile character from acetaldehyde and sotolon in long-air-exposed cider.
Walnut
A dry, slightly bitter nut note from advanced phenolic oxidation, characteristic of long-matured tannic cider.
Wet cardboard
The flat, papery note of (E)-2-nonenal and related aldehydes, the sensory signature of oxidative staling.
Dried apple
Concentrated, leathery apple character from moderate oxidation, sitting between fresh fruit and full oxidative development.
Dried fruit
Raisin and sultana character from long oxidative ageing, most often met in concentrated and fortified styles.
Hazelnut
A lighter, sweeter nut note from early oxidative development and from lees contact.
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 long does cider last — An unopened commercial cider is usually at its finest within a year of packaging, and filtered, pasteurised products carry a stated date. Strong, tannic, bottle-conditioned ciders can improve for several years.
- Does cider need to be refrigerated — Unopened, no — cool and dark is enough for most cider. Unpasteurised, unfiltered cider keeps far better cold, and anything opened should go in the fridge.
- How should i store cider — Cool, dark and at a steady temperature. Light causes light-strike in clear glass, warmth accelerates oxidation, and temperature swings push cider past the closure of a bottle that is not tightly sealed.
- Which sugar is most of the sugar in apple juice — Fructose, by a long way. Apple juice carries roughly twice as much fructose as glucose, with a smaller amount of sucrose, and fructose is the sweetest of the three on the tongue.
- How is cider bottled
- Does cider contain antioxidants — Cider carries apple polyphenols, and tannic bittersweet ciders carry considerably more than pale ones made from dessert fruit. What that means for health is a clinical question this site does not adjudicate.
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.
Cider and perry production technical training material
Peter Mitchell / Cider and Perry Academy · reference work · registered as competent for this subject
Searched again on 2026-08-25 and it remains the one printed source here that a bibliographic check cannot fix, because it is not a published work with an edition. It is course material issued to participants of a training programme, so there is no catalogue record to verify, no ISBN, and no lawful public copy. Its state stays `registered` for that reason rather than through inattention.
The Science of Cidermaking and associated technical writing
Andrew Lea · reference work · passage verified 2026-08-24
Written by a food chemist who worked at Long Ashton on apple phenolics. Unusual among specialist cider writing in that it is primary-research-adjacent: the author is describing work he did, and cites the literature. This is why it is registered at tier 1 for chemistry while a general cider book is not.
National Association of Cider Makers
NACM · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
The UK trade association. Useful for industry-agreed definitions and for the voluntary labelling standards its members work to. A trade body has an interest in how its product is described, so CiderHQ cites it for what the industry says about itself rather than for neutral scientific claims.