Sidewood Cider

Sidewood Cider is a South Australian Cider made at the Sidewood Winery. It has won international awards and is pretty easy to find, But should this be on your shopping list?

I had a chat with Daryl the Cider Maker at Sidewood about what goes on behind the scenes at the Ciderhouse. However the cider house is under construction at the moment and will be opening to the public later in the year. In the meantime, the cider is being made on the winery equipment. This helps bring the cost down. The gear is expensive and is only used for a few weeks of the year, if you can run the apples through it as well, the equipment gets used for a couple more weeks of the year which helps spread the investment cost.

Gluten Free and Vegan Friendly Cider.

The fruit they run through that equipment is all grown locally in the Adelaide Hills, Sidewood Cider now has a direct relationship with the orchards so they can get the apples they want. Sidewood are growing their own orchard loaded with classic cider apples. The aim is to create cider from tree to pint all on site. Today the bought in apples are a mix of roughly 80% red apple 20% green apples depending on the season for the sake of consistency. They are crushed, pressed, fermented and bottled on site. The cider is fermented to nearly dry, sometimes back sweetened with fresh juice to make a final product with around 20grams of sugar per litre, which is at the dryer end of the spectrum.

The Nose

The Sidewood Apple Cider has a very interesting nose. This starts of by tricking you into thinking it is a dry Chardonnay but as it warms more apples appear. It comes in the form of overripe apples and elements of an old fashion Herefordshire cider.

The Taste

What we are dealing with is a very lightly sparkling pail golden cider. There is plenty of fruit coming in with a soft creamy texture. Apples with elements of honey dew and rock melon.
The finish is crisp with no lingering sweetness

Final Thoughts on the Sidewood Cider

Sidewood Cider should be a name to look out for in the future. Today you can see a clear winemaker’s influence with a clear taste and bright appearance. Easy to drink with a few layers of flavours for you to unpack. Another big plus is it’s easy to find at that big chain bottle shop with an Irish name who hasn’t thought about sponsoring RealCiderReviews.com yet.
Next season we will see Sidewood’s new crop of classic cider apples being used in some experiments that may make it to limited releases. They would have a few more but some bugger stole the seedlings from the post office. They are also experimenting with barrel aging and playing with beer yeasts. With a dedicated cider house coming soon that limits the risk of cross containment the winery with proper funk. This Cider show me that Daryl can handle apples, can’t wait to see what’s next.

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