213: The Sleeping Giant has Awoken

Who is the Sleeping Giant? France, of course!

The cider regions in Normandy and Brittany are steeped in tradition and rich with select apples and pears that showcase a very specific terroir from each of the appellations.  While the rest of the world's cider regions have been ramping up their world stage visibility, the French have been continuing on doing what they do (making great cider) with minimal social media or online presence.

Perhaps the French producers and cidermakers were waiting for the rest of the world to catch up or maybe the symmetry of a number like 2020 is more fitting for them to present their wares on the international stage....it is likely the latter as the French are all about pleasing proportions much like their cider, poire and Calvados.

I began visiting Normandy in 2016 and found out that not only did the French not engage with online banter, but also that they do not have cider fests (where an assortment of producers pour their product to the public during a one day festival).

The Story of Cidrexpo coming into being as told to me by Ètienne Dupont.

Jérôme Dupont of Domaine Dupont in Pays d'Auge was one of the rare cidermakers who did travel the world teaching others about Calvados and produced innovative ciders that swayed away from the well known farmhouse ciders of Normandy. It was Jérôme who had the vision for what would become Cidrexpo today, but sadly he left this earthly plain in August of 2018.

In September of 2018, I visit Domaine Dupont with a group of cider travelers on my Totally Cider Tour to France. We were originally going to meet Jérôme, but alas he had unexpectedly passed away. When that news broke, I wrote a sympathy card to his father Ètienne. That simple card inspired him to then meet the group and myself almost a month later after Jèrome passed and do the tour with our group.

After the tour about the Domaine, we all raised a glass in the tasting room of Domaine Dupont and I made a toast to Jérôme. What I conveyed in the note and to his father and the group during the toast is that Jérôme's words and his legacy would not be forgotten. His reach was so broad and his mark so wide that his greatness had all ready left an undeniable mark on the world of cider.

Unexpectedly, his father then announced while we were in the Tasting Room that Cidrexpo would still take place. Not only was he moving forward with the expo, but it was because of me! I didn't quite believe what I had just heard, but with the group as my witness I found out it was exactly what this grieving father was inspired to do. It was as if our visit and that simple card was enough to help him see out of the blur of sadness at his son's death and that he would move forward with Jérôme vision of Cidrexpo.

I was able to attend Cidrexpo on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of February 2020, as Ètienne's guest at he and his wife Catherine's home in Caen where the festival took place.

It was in Caen on my first night while out for dinner with he and his wife that I told him of how I saw France as The Sleeping Giant that just has Awoken onto the world stage with Cidrexpo. My fondest memory of that 3-day fest is seeing him smile deeply each time I mentioned the Sleeping Giant. There is no denying that with this first very successful event that the Giant is awake and Cidrexpo will become an annual event.

On this episode, I spoke about Cidrexpo and also share a recording with Raitis Zalāns of the Latvian cidery Mūrbūdu sidrs from Cidrexpo. 

Raitis Zalāns