Brännland Iscider Barrel Aged Barrique 2018

Comments on Brännland Iscider Barrique 2018 by cider maker Andreas Sundgren:

Every year Brännland Cider sets apart some of its ice cider for barrel ageing. 12 months on a barrel softens and integrates the high acidity and fresh apples notes with the natural residual sugar to create a deeper, more complex ice cider, darker both in colour as well as on the palate.

“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 year’s 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 decided that they will prolong the ageing of Brännland Cider Barrique to 24 months from the 2019 vintage onwards.