Although apple cultivation has ancient roots in Normandy, it was around the 16th century that orchards began to expand within religious and noble estates, eventually covering much of the Perche countryside during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Cider apples were primarily grown, and cider became a popular drink produced on nearly every farm in the Perche.

In the 19th century, agriculture in the Perche gradually specialized in cattle and horse breeding, while still maintaining cider production. Fields planted with apple trees were a distinctive feature of the Perche. Apple trees and the Percheron horse thus became identity markers of this region.

During the first half of the 20th century, Perche cider was produced on every farm as well as in specialized cider houses throughout the province. The railway enabled the transport of apples and cider to Paris, contributing to the reputation of the Perche.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the Rotrou brothers, based in the hamlet of “Le Perrier” in Dorceau, established and developed a cider estate that exported all over the world — from Australia to Chile, and even to the table of the Russian tsars. True pioneers, without a doubt…

The cider economy flourished, and orchards covered the entire Perche territory. Up until the mid-20th century, a good apple year could pay two years of farm rent.

However, starting in the 1950s, the closure of industrial cider houses, agricultural mechanization, and the intensification of farming practices nearly wiped out apple trees from the meadows and fields of the Perche. A sharp decline in cider consumption and the end of state-run alcohol production also contributed to this downfall.

It wasn’t until the late 1980s that a few farm-based producers began to specialize in cider production, leading to a revival of the Perche cider industry.

These producers rely on traditional Perche cider-making know-how, such as harvesting fully ripe fruit, using late apple varieties, allowing slow and spontaneous fermentations, and achieving natural bottle fermentation.