Inside New Zealand’s bold bid to breed the perfect cider apple

Each has been made from a different apple variety and carefully labelled for assessment.

Some show promise, others are failures.

Each bottle represents a question.

Could this apple produce more aroma? More texture? More complexity? Could it become part of a cider unlike anything currently available?

There are tasting notes, sample numbers and reminders scattered throughout the workspace.

Nearby, dozens of brown paper bags filled with apples wait their turn to be crushed, pressed, fermented and scrutinised.

Cider Apples New Zealand co-founder John Powell with some of the 432 experimental cider samples the company will assess this year. Photo / Tom Eley

The problem with cider apples

Five years ago, Powell approached Allan White, one of New Zealand’s most accomplished apple breeders, with a question.

Why did New Zealand not have a dedicated cider apple breeding programme?

White, who managed New Zealand’s apple breeding programme and helped develop internationally recognised varieties including Jazz and Envy, had a simple answer.

“No one ever asked us to develop one.”

Today, the Cider Apples New Zealand programme, which the pair established in Hawke’s Bay, contains about 12,000 genetically unique apple trees.

Somewhere among them, Powell believes, are varieties capable of helping create a new premium export industry.

Unlike traditional apples, Pure Blossom reveals pink-red flesh beneath its skin. The variety is among thousands being evaluated by Cider Apples New Zealand in the search for new premium cider apples.

Learning to make cider

After spending 15 years in sales and marketing at Tatua Dairy Company, Powell moved to a lifestyle block and planted apple trees.

The trees flourished, with some producing more than 100kg of fruit.

Like many home growers, Powell soon found himself with more apples than he knew what to do with.

A friend who brewed beer suggested making cider.

The first attempts were not particularly successful, Powell said, so he spent a lot of time reading, experimenting and learning.

It took about five years before his wife said the cider was good enough to drink.

For many people, that might have been enough, but for Powell, it became the beginning of something much larger.

From apple to glass. Fruit from Cider Apples New Zealand’s breeding programme is turned into experimental cider samples and evaluated for flavour, aroma, texture and commercial potential.

Sampling and curiosity

Powell’s curiosity evolved into something closer to an obsession.

He travelled overseas to study cider-making, completing courses in Oregon and Britain.

He judged cider competitions and became a certified pommelier, the cider equivalent of a wine sommelier.

Eventually, ciders made using apples from the Cider Apples New Zealand programme won awards at the Japan Cider Cup.

The success reinforced a belief that New Zealand could produce premium ciders capable of competing internationally.

The deeper Powell dived into the industry, the more convinced he became that New Zealand was missing an opportunity.

“The biggest problem holding back the cider industry is a lack of decent apples.”

That belief now drives the Cider Apples New Zealand breeding programme.

This year alone, the programme will produce and assess 432 individual cider samples, each made from a different apple variety.

Next year, Powell expects that figure to rise to 500.

Each sample is fermented separately before being assessed for aroma, flavour, texture, balance and overall potential.

Most never progress beyond that stage, he said.

Among the more unusual creations is a bright red cider made from red-fleshed apples.

Powell believes it has the potential to drink like a premium rosé while containing roughly half the alcohol of wine.

John Powell with awards from the Japan Cider Cup. The former dairy executive has spent years studying cider making around the world.

What Asia wants to drink

Cider Apples New Zealand is not trying to compete with mainstream cider brands sold alongside beer.

“If you want to develop new export industries in New Zealand, you can only really afford to develop premium opportunities,” Powell said.

This mirrors trends identified in the latest Westons Cider Report, an annual industry report produced by United Kingdom cider-maker Westons Cider.

In Britain, one of the world’s largest cider markets, consumers are increasingly choosing to drink less but drink better, with growth concentrated in premium products and experiences.

Large commercial brands will continue to dominate much of the market, he said, but a growing number of consumers are willing to pay more for products with character, quality and a story behind them.

“It’s that whole provenance, that authenticity, traceability.”

Powell said cider still had room to follow the path craft beer had taken.

Research into international drinking habits has also shaped his programme’s direction.

Traditional cider apples from England and northern France often produce highly tannic ciders that appeal to established cider drinkers.

But Powell said distributors in Japan had told him those styles struggled to generate repeat purchases there.

Consumers in China and Japan increasingly favoured something different.

“It’s got to be light, it’s got to be aromatic, it’s got to be fresh and crisp.”

Consumers in China and Japan increasingly favoured something different to established cider styles.

The one in 12,000

From the programme’s 12,000 trees, Powell hopes to identify at least a dozen exceptional varieties that can help New Zealand cider-makers create products unlike anything else in the world.

He said one of the advantages of developing a cider apple industry was that much of the infrastructure already existed, especially in Hawke’s Bay.

The programme’s goal is to create new opportunities from this horticultural base.

One of the new opportunities could be to help establish a new premium export category built on New Zealand apples, innovation and provenance.

“We’re not interested in capturing 10% of the current market,” Powell said.

“We want to go out and grow cider internationally, get people excited about cider again.”

Among thousands of young apple trees in Hawke’s Bay, Cider Apples New Zealand co-founder John Powell believes the future of New Zealand cider could already be growing.

Knowing the odds

The vision has begun attracting wider support, with investment starting to flow into the breeding work and commercial cider production.

Powell said the company also received funding from the Ministry for Primary Industries to develop a cider industry roadmap and support its breeding programme.

For Powell, those developments are signs the industry is beginning to gain momentum, though developing a new horticultural industry takes time.

“It requires a lot of patience.

“That is why there are 12,000 apple trees,” he said.

Tom Eley is a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. Before he joined the Hamilton-based team, he worked for the Weekend Sun and Sunlive. He previously worked as a journalist at Black Press Media in Canada and won a fellowship with the Vancouver Sun.