Le Caveau Wine Merchants - Cockagee Cider (33Cl), Mark Jenkinson (Slane, Co. Meath)

'The Champagne of Irish Ciders' - This unique cider has pure, clean apple flavours, superbly balanced by the hand selected fruit natural acidity and sweetness. A masterclass - delicious, smile-inducing and invigorating.

-- “Mark Jenkinson has been producing his wonderful unique Cockagee for over 10 years, using traditional varieties grown in Meath. This keeved cider is naturally carbonated, unfiltered with a natural sweetness”. John Wilson, The Irish Times.

-- Cockagee Pure Irish Keeved Cider – Named after an old Irish apple tree variety, which was thought to be extinct but Mark believes he’s found it again – which the Seed Savers people agree with – and he’s planted 40 or 50 of them in his chemical-free orchard. A forgotten name, Mark is now bringing it back and celebrating its heritage. It’s actually the Anglicised version of an Irish phrase ‘cacagheidh‘, which in ‘old’ Irish means ‘goose turd’, which is an actual shade of green.

-- Keeved explained by Mark Jenkinson:
'An ancient cider making technique by which only the very finest and highest quality ciders are made. Sometimes referred to as the French style or method, as all quality French Ciders are Keeved. However, Keeving was always practiced in Ireland in the past and we are the first to produce an Irish Keeved Cider in over 100 years.

The Keeving process is not the easiest thing in the world to explain as it is more intuitive than an exact science and has taken me almost 10 seasons of cidermaking to master. Many ciderist’s regard it as an Art form and the pinnacle of the cidermakers skill, however I would personally put it down to perseverance and attention to detail.

It is a technique whereby the fresh pressed cloudy apple juice is clarified by a natural pectin gel which traps any particles and impurities, this gel then rises to the surface of the juice by the action of yeasts, leaving a crystal clear and clean apple juice to be syphoned off from underneath the gel into another tank ready for fermentation. The fermentation then commences at an imperceptibly slow rate over a period of 6 to 8 months or more. It is then hand bottled and further matured for a minimum of 6 months before release. The whole concept of this technique is to produce a cider with naturally retained fruit sugars along with the intense apple flavours and aromas from the original apple must. This results in a naturally sparkling and ‘live’ cider that has not been filtered, pasteurised, sweetened or force carbonated at the bottling stage.'