Sensory descriptor
Windfall apple
Bruised, soil-touched ripe fruit character from apples collected off the orchard floor, sitting on the border between depth and taint.
Also called Ground fruit, Shaken fruit.
- Aroma family
- Ripe apple
- Does it indicate a fault?
- No — a normal part of cider and perry aroma
What causes it
Fruit that falls or is shaken to the ground bruises on impact, and every bruise is a site where cells rupture, polyphenol oxidase meets chlorogenic acid and browning begins. It also picks up soil organisms — Penicillium expansum above all, plus acetic acid bacteria and soil yeasts — which the skin of hanging fruit largely excludes. The aroma is therefore ripe apple with a browning layer over it and a damp, faintly earthy edge underneath. Whether that reads as depth or as spoilage depends on how long the fruit lay and how carefully it was sorted, and the difference between the two can be a matter of days.
Freshly shaken fruit collected within a day or two gives a mild browning note that is part of the traditional character of shaken-orchard cider. Fruit that lay long enough for visible rot carries Penicillium expansum and therefore a patulin risk, which is a food safety matter rather than a sensory one, and no amount of sorting after the fact removes the toxin from juice already pressed.
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.
Polyphenol oxidase
The copper enzyme that turns cut apple brown within seconds, and the reason a cidermaker has to decide, at the press, whether to let the juice oxidise or to stop it.
Chlorogenic acid
The most abundant single phenolic in apple juice, the preferred substrate of the enzyme that browns it, and the precursor of one of the volatile phenols behind farmyard character.
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.
Patulin
A mycotoxin produced by the blue mould that rots stored apples, regulated in apple juice worldwide, and the clearest food-safety reason not to press rotten fruit.
What raises it
Processes that increase this character, or preserve it where it would otherwise be lost.
Windfall management
Deciding which fruit that has reached the orchard floor can be used, and getting the rest out of the crop before it becomes a patulin problem.
Shaking and collecting
Bringing fruit down with a pole or letting it fall, then gathering it from the orchard floor — the traditional way most cider and perry fruit has always been harvested.
Fruit sorting
Taking rotten, mouldy and damaged fruit and foreign material out of the crop before it reaches the mill, which is the primary control on patulin in cider.
Fruit washing
Removing soil, grass, stones and surface contamination from gathered fruit, usually in a water flume, before it reaches the mill.
The fault it points at
Meeting this descriptor above a certain intensity is how the fault below is usually noticed first.
Fault
Contamination of juice or cider with patulin, a mycotoxin produced by Penicillium expansum in rotting apples — a genuine food-safety question rather than a flavour one.
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 Windfall apple
Shaking trees and collecting from the ground is the normal harvest method for standard cider orchards, so windfall character is intrinsic to a large part of traditional production rather than a sign of carelessness. The controlled version of it is one of the things that separates the taste of standard-orchard cider from bush-orchard cider picked to the tree.
The line that matters is rot. Sound bruised fruit is a sensory question; visibly rotten fruit is a patulin question, and patulin is odourless and tasteless, so it cannot be detected by the descriptor that flagged the fruit in the first place. Sorting before milling is the only control that works.
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.
Fruit store
The close, sweet, faintly fermenting smell of a loft of apples held before milling, met in ciders made from sweated fruit.
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.
- What is scrumpy — Scrumpy is an informal West Country word for strong, still, usually cloudy farmhouse cider. It has no legal definition, so it describes a style expectation rather than a guaranteed method.
- Can you use windfall apples for cider — Traditional cider making relies on fruit gathered from the ground, and there is nothing wrong with it if it is sound. Rotten fruit is a different matter: brown rot carries patulin into the juice and should be discarded, not pressed.
- Does cider contain patulin — Patulin comes from mouldy fruit and is regulated in apple juice. Fermentation reduces it substantially, so fermented cider carries far less risk than unfermented juice made from the same fruit.
- 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.
- What is acetaldehyde
- Are apples washed before making cider
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.
European Food Safety Authority scientific opinions
EFSA · regulator · retrieved 2026-08-24
Registered for the food-safety questions cider genuinely raises: patulin in juice from rotten fruit, sulphite sensitivity, and the toxicology behind additive limits.
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.
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.