Check our events page for the weekly selections
North Berkeley Imports
The Cider
What an oddity! A hard cider grown in the Champagne region???
How did we discover this? Winemaker Francis Egly (of the Champagne house, Domaine Egly-Ouriet) introduced Victor to his importer. Not only has Francis been teaching Victor all he knows about the art of fermentation, he’s also became his father-in-law when Victor married Francis Egly’s daughter, Clemence!
This dry, refreshing cider is the product of eight different apple varieties, grown on the limestone- and clay-rich soils in the heart of Champagne. Fermentation happens on indigenous yeasts in bottle and the cider is never pasteurized; flavors range delightfully from yellow apple to marigolds to crushed stones and sweet spice. Long, precise and dry, with fine bubbles.
Sustainability is of utmost importance to the family, and all their lands have been farmed organically since 2015. Bouvy Cidre combines eight different apple varieties, is pressed naturally and is never pasteurized.
The Producer
Victor Bouvy is the fourth generation to run his family’s farm in Mont-Sur-Corville in the Vallée de l’Ardre in the heart of Champagne, tucked between the Montagne de Reims and the Marne Valley.
In the early 2000s, Victor’s father began successfully cultivating a vast array of new fruit varieties for simple table consumption, as the region’s calcareous, silty-clay soils proved to be a perfect match for apples (and not just Pinot Meunier in the production of fine Champagne!)
Victor wanted to take the family’s commitment to apples a step further. With a degree in agricultural engineering and a passion for traditional dry cider, Victor traveled to Normandy to better learn the intricacies of cider production. When he returned in 2019 he planted a new and complimentary mixture of apple varieties, ideal for cider production, with the goal of creating a harmonious cider that would express an ideal balance of sweet, bitter and tart.
