Belle Brutale 2017

If there was a Grand Cru classification for cider, this would certainly be in there. From the same disastrous 2017 vintage, Jacques purchased one lot of acidic apples from a grandfather in Normandy who had old orchards planted haute-tige. Salty sea air with dryness and salinity. Bitter apple skin aromas and cocktail bitters. On the palate the cider is delicately balanced with lovely persistent bubbles, and is entirely clear with what it wants to communicate. Like an exercise in subtraction. This cider was produced as a pet-nat, with ancestrale fermentation in bottle and no SO2 added.