The inaugural The Taste of Spain event, taking place in Edinburgh next week, is bringing a new Asturian Cider to Scotland for the first time when craft cider producers Trabanco and El Gaitero will be exhibiting natural, Nueva Expresión and their natural sparkling ciders.
The Asturias regions in northern Spain is synonymous with cider, accounting for eighty percent of all cider produced in the country and where traditional methods have remained unchanged for centuries.
The producers explain, “Sidra is part of Asturian gastronomic culture and natural (or traditional) cider is the most widely produced style, where the fermentation process is started by sugars and yeasts found naturally in the apples.
“This cider is unfiltered, straw yellow in appearance and needs to be escanciado before serving. The art of escanciar is an iconic spectacle in Asturias – where cider is poured from a height into a glass to ‘wake up’ or release the dissolved gas, immediately before drinking.
“The more recent innovation is Nueva Expresión (New Expression Cider), produced in the same method as natural cider, it is then filtered and stabilized before bottling. The creation of a new category, often with more contemporary labels, has enabled Asturian cider to be enjoyed outside of the region and in restaurant settings – escanciado not required!”
“Asturian cider is versatile and very food friendly. Its versatility with a wide range of foods means that cider lists are now commonplace on menus of the finest restaurants in the region and around Spain.”
You can find them at the Taste of Spain Edinburgh on Monday 20th May at The Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh.