Take it home: farm-made cider from Normandy and a Malbec from Spain

Sidre Brut Eric Bordelet

6.5% €12.75 for a 75cl bottle

For Christmas every year, my sister buys me a subscription to The Art of Eating, a quarterly magazine devoted to food, wine and other drinks. A few years ago, it had a fascinating article on the revival of interest in farm-made cider from Normandy. Included amongst the producers was Eric Bordelet, former sommelier at L’Arpège, the three-star restaurant run by Alain Passard in Paris. In 1992, he had been persuaded by wine-producer Dider Dageneau to up sticks and return to his ancestral family orchards in Normandy. Here Bordelet runs a biodynamic farm with 22 varieties of apple, grown on various soil types. He also has some 300-year-old pear trees that produce a perry.

The dry cider is fermented in the bottle for six months, and apparently will age for five years or more. It is an amazing cider, a world away from the standard commercial brands. Unique and brilliant, it has a rich and complex intensity of funky deep appleyness, almost baked apples, with an autumnal edge and a dry finish. You won’t be able to knock back ten pints of this; it is a cider to sip and savour. I was entranced by it. The nearest thing I have tasted before is the excellent Cockagee cider, made by Mark Wilkinson in Slane, Co Meath. By happy coincidence, both are available in my new local creperie, Pierre Grise in Greystones.

Stockists include Baggot St Wines; Bradleys, Cork; The Corkscrew, Chatham St.; Donnybrook Fair; World Wide Wines, Waterford;

Oveja Tinta Malbec 2013

13.5% €13.99

Malbec usually comes from either Argentina or Cahors in France; Cahors, where they call it Cot or Auxerrois, is its original home. Argentina adopted Malbec over a century ago and has brought it fame the world over. But Spain? This was a first for me, and a very pleasant surprise. Wineries everywhere love to show off by releasing wines made from unusual grape varieties. Most of the time they don’t work. However, this is more than a silly experiment. Very Malbec with its lovely perfume, juicy ripe dark fruits and rounded finish. And a steal at this price. The label would suggest you pair it with lamb.

Stockists include Red Island, Skerries; Drinks Store, D7; Martin's, Fairview; Mitchell's CHQ, Glasthule and Avoca Kilmacanogue; Probus, Fenian Street; Blackrock Cellar.