Product Spotlight – Eclosion Cider
Eclosion is a series of minimal intervention, wild fermented, single variety, dry unblended ciders. Now, that’s quite a lot to take on board, so let me break it down for you.
“Eclosion”
in British English
(ɪˈkləʊʒən )
NOUN: the emergence of an insect larva from the egg or an adult from the pupal case.
Eclosion isn’t just the name of my favourite song by French post black-metal band Alcest, but it also represents a natural transformation.
Minimal Intervention, what does this mean?
Quite simply, it means leaving it to do its thing. The apples are simply pressed into the tank and left to ferment with wild orchard yeasts. When the fermentation is complete, we age the
cider on its lees until we believe it is right for packaging. No yeast added, no sugar added, no added acids or ph balancing. Just the fruit showcasing its terroir and that year’s seasonal effects on the apple and those influences on the cider it creates.
Wild fermentation is nothing new to us at Ascension, almost every cider we produce is fermented solely with the natural yeasts brought in to the tanks with the juice. Yeast is present all around us, and our Orchard base in the high weald of Sussex, situated around hundreds of acres of rolling farmland and forest is the perfect place for these wonderful bacteria to feast on the sugars in the juice and produce alcohol. Increased aging allows these wild strains of yeast to shine through, and that’s why we age the cider on its lees for an extended period of time. The funky esters that you taste in our wild ferment ciders are there because nature put them there.
You may have noticed that the ciders are all named after varieties of apple, and that’s due to each cider only using one variety, thus “Single Variety”! We source apples from packhouses, local orchards and, of course, from our home at Ringden Fruit Farm. We are particularly interested in apples that are often overlooked in the cider-making process, along with some favourite classics. Every apple brings its own ratio of sugar and acid, meaning that there are subtle, and not so subtle, differences between each and every one. Rosette was an apple we had never heard of, but the cider it produced was out of this world! Russet is a huge favourite here, and the fruit we received from a local orchard has been used to make two single varieties this season. We will keep searching out new varieties and fermenting small batches to share their cider potential with you.
When packaging the Eclosion series, we simply draw from the tank and package the cider. Nothing added, nothing is taken away. The aim of this series is to deliver you the purest expression of this fruit in the simplest way. The flavour, aroma, and body of the cider is exactly what the apple gave us, and it is exactly what we will give you. The only ingredients of the Eclosion ciders are apple juice and time.
You can keep up to date with our latest Eclosion releases by following us on our social media and/ or keeping an eye on our website.
