Fruit
Traditional cider and perry regions often preserve varieties selected for fermentation rather than eating.
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Cider Atlas
Orchards, fruit and the places that shaped cider.
Cider geography starts with the orchard, but it does not end there. Fruit varieties, climate, farming, fermentation and local serving culture can make two apple-based drinks feel worlds apart.
Orchards
Landscape, tree age, farming systems and harvest traditions influence what fruit is available and how producers work.
Method
Keeving, slow fermentation, bottle conditioning, blending and natural cider-house methods can become strongly regional.
Culture
A cider can be inseparable from how it is poured, what it is eaten with and where people gather to drink it.
Eight cider places worth knowing
Cider changes dramatically once you give the orchard an address.
EnglandBittersweet fruit · farmhouse traditions
Devon & Somerset
The West Country is strongly associated with tannic cider apples, orchard farming and a long culture of still and sparkling cider.
EnglandCider apples · perry pears
Herefordshire & the Three Counties
Herefordshire sits at the heart of a major orchard landscape, while nearby Gloucestershire and Worcestershire help make this one of Britain’s great cider-and-perry regions.
FranceCidre · keeving · food culture
Normandy
Apples, gentle sparkle and traditional methods such as keeving sit alongside a strong regional food-and-drink identity.
FranceCidre · crêpes · regional tradition
Brittany
Cider is woven into Breton eating culture, with styles ranging across sweetness and sparkle.
SpainSidra natural
Asturias
Tart, dry cider, cider houses and the high pour — escanciar — make service part of the regional identity.
SpainSagardoa
Basque Country
Dry cider, seasonal cider-house culture and food traditions create a very different experience from mainstream sweet cider.
CanadaIce cider
Quebec
Winter cold can be used to concentrate apple juice before fermentation, creating a rich, sweet style. Quebec became especially associated with modern ice cider and protects the name Québec Ice Cider through a geographical indication.
Western England & WalesPerry
Perry country
Specialist pear varieties and old orchard landscapes create a parallel tradition that deserves to be understood on its own terms.
Follow the orchard, not just the border
Fruit, method and place keep bumping into each other.
Ask why cider from here behaves like this and the map becomes useful. One orchard variety can lead you into a production method, a local style and, quite possibly, somewhere worth going to drink it.
Sip the World
Orchards are experiences as well as ingredients.
Cider farms, harvest days, presses, cider houses, tastings and perry orchards are where all that geography stops being theoretical.
Sip the WorldTaste the map
Compare regions, not just sweetness levels.
A tannic West Country cider, keeved French cidre and tart Asturian sidra can make the idea of “cider” suddenly feel much bigger.