My Totally Different Winners To The 2020 NZ Cider Awards

NELSON, New Zealand, 8 November 2020 – My favorite day of the year rolled around on Saturday with the NZ Cider Festival at Founders Park. Nelson's weather clearly acknowledged the important work of tasting fermented apples by holding off the rain just long enough for the six-hour event. Twenty-one brands traveled in, from Warkworth to Christchurch although the numbers weighted toward our locals. With 103 ciders on tap, I trialed twenty ciders and five reviews were gathered from other ciderees (cider connoisseurs). I also already knew thirty-one of the ciders on offer, skipping the perries and ice ciders. My independent congratulations go out to a very different selection to both the popular vote and the NZ Cider Award winners.

As before, Left Branch's intense Ginger and the concentrated flavor of Mussel Inn's Freckled Frog (feijoa) kept their top two places for the bright yellow/green fruits, although Bohemian's refreshing Acid Drop (lemon & lime) will go down well after a hot day working in the sun. It slides into replacing Rochdale's discontinued Lemon & Honey for clearing the tongue and enhancing that self-satisfied feeling of a job well done.

The brand that stole the show was, however, a brewery. Fortune Favors out of Leeds St Wellington arrived with two ciders, The Brightsider and The Sunchaser, a small selection equivalent to the "Orphans Stand" of Elemental, Hairy Horse and Tepee. Fortune Favors' Brightsider was hands down the best medium cider being crisp, clear and just a little sweet. With a bit of tang, this sparkling cider poured out small bubbles within a warm straw colouring. The heady scent of a freshly mown hay field was balanced by a hint of pineapple. Their Sunchaser took second in the red/blue fruit ciders. Their blueberry was a relief in its simplicity when so many berry ciders mimic the taste of fizzy drinks inbieded with grain alcohol. My congratulations go out to Fortune Favors Beers, even though it makes me ever-so-slightly cringe as a cideree.

Taking first for the red/blue fruits was Paynter's Qyte Plummy 2020. As well balanced as, but a little sweeter than, their medium Huntress the flavor of the fruit bloomed with a backing hint of pear awakening the taste buds before a sip was taken. Yet the flavour remained calm and soothing. Taking second for medium ciders was the wild-yeast Original Cyn from Bohemian. As an openly fermented cider it held a savoury and weighty scent and a deep, lingering flavour. It poured with medium bubbles in a yellow amber shade.

Again almost sacrilegious, the ruling high-proof (above 7% ABV) was Mussel Inn's Cyser, a combined cider and mead. Similar to Fortune Favors' Brightside in appearance as crisp, clear and straw-coloured, the addition of fermented honey developed the depth of the apples' carriage. Coming in right behind as number two, Peckhman's Cayenne was sharp, tangy and wouldn't let you forget what you're drinking. Finally, taking the class of dry ciders without competitors, was Temperance's Falling Fields. The ground-collected apples carry over their depth of ripeness into the flavour of the autumn orchard. The fulsome scent could not be more reminiscent of finding an ancient apple tree left over from a long gone farmyard.

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