Brännland Cider releases its 6th vintage of the award winning Brännland Iscider Barrique in October. The 2018 vintage was a banner year for apple growers in Sweden, the ice cider produced from it in natural balance all through the harvest and in bottle.
Andreas Sundgren, founder and principal cider maker at Brännland Cider, “The 2018 is curious in that an usually large part of it was shaped more by its ageing than we are otherwise used to. When we barrelled it in 2019 it was fairly low in alcohol and had a higher degree of residual sugar. Then, in the spring of 2020, a fair amount of it started fermenting slowly again and we decided to roll with it rather than try and stop anything. What came out the other end was higher in alcohol than expected but also with a closer balance between acidity and residual sugar than we had first envisioned. It seems the ice cider “wanted” to move to that point on its own and we are happy it did. In the bottle this spells a tighter final wine. It will be interesting to see how it handles further ageing in bottle”.
The tasting notes for this years vintage was compiled by two of Brännland Cider’s longest standing ambassadors, Per and Lars Åkerlund of Umeå-based fine food purveyors DUÅ. The 2018 is the last vintage to be aged for 12 months, Brännland Cider having having decided that they will prolong the ageing of Brännland Cider Barrique to 24 months from the 2019 vintage onwards.
Brännland Cider produces ice cider using 100% Swedish apples for a national and international market. The company’s first vintage, an ice cider produced in the Swedish county of Västerbotten, not far from the arctic circle, using Swedish apples in adherence to the denomination set in the country of origin of ice cider, Canada, was released in 2012.
