CIDRERIE

Les Travaux et les Jours

[Works and Days cidery]

Sometimes, this is a gang of guys, talking about Jimmy Hunt's music, a glass of cider in hand, red ink of the cidery logo stamp staining the ends of their fingers, who, at this moment, require dexterity to stick labels containing poetic cider names on bottles. At other times, this is a gang of parents and friends who gather their brood together to go apple-picking in the fields, behind the traditional homes in the meandering village of Les Éboulements… Not to fill their own stores, but to do the collective work of rescuing forgotten fruit, sharing a moment outdoors, occupying themselves with what Hesiod would call "useful labours." A virtue referred to by the 8th century BC Greek poet; that is, the agricultural virtue of taking care of living things, of one's land, dealing with practical matters, with the seasons, for the good of the community. A Charlevoix community made up of philosopher intellectuals, pressing a natural, dry farmhouse cider, similar to the terroir of this crater, where age-old orchards and cultivars simply waited for their fruit were reaped with pleasure!

Simplicity, humility, honesty: Here, human beings, the soil, and even the product centre around a simple, but genuine, vocabulary. In any case, Jonathan, Raphaël, and their many volunteer friends don't take themselves too seriously in their approach. Unpicked apples are harvested, local yeasts are left to their work… An ever-present nature is trusted, a nature in which one becomes an instrument: one who boxes, one who ships, one who presses, one who bottles, and one who labels what will, through the oldest chemical processes in the world, become limited batches, produced artisanally, and on a small scale. They're not aiming high, selling in the village, at a friend's farm stand, bottles adorned with drawings created by a neighbour a few doors down… It's the best of a small community; the juice of an inhabited crater! This is what makes you want to pour some sparkling cider into a clay cup and raise a glass to this model of slowing down, of slow everything… In short, it's the essence of utopia!  
 

Video to come soon...