Maison SASSY

Maison SASSY began with two friends, a crumbling reputation for cider, and an 18th century château in Normandy. Pierre-Emmanuel Racine-Jourden and Xavier d'Audiffret Pasquier met at primary school aged three. Xavier's family had been making cider and calvados at Château de Sassy since 1852, though only for private consumption. Every September, the pair would join the apple harvest. Decades later, in 2014, they left their finance careers to give Normandy cider the prestige they believed it deserved.

Their ambition was straightforward: rescue French cider from its dusty image as something you drink with crêpes and nothing else. Where most Norman producers use four apple varieties, SASSY works with twenty. They brought in a cellar master, invested in a pneumatic press borrowed from Champagne production, and ferment in gleaming stainless steel. The orchards span 800 hectares, with trees ranging from new saplings to 80-year-old veterans. Sheep graze beneath them to clear windfalls. Beehives dot the landscape to boost pollination.

The core range includes Brut, Rosé, Session, Small Batch, and Poiré ciders, plus Calvados aged in the château's cellars. For those avoiding alcohol, the organic 0.0% cider uses five bittersweet apple varieties and removes the alcohol through reverse osmosis. It keeps the semi-dry character and gentle tannins of the original, making it one of the more convincing alcohol-free ciders on the market.

SASSY has picked up recognition at international competitions and helped shift perceptions of what French cider can be. The brand now ships to fifteen countries, with Xavier based in London handling UK expansion. You'll find them in specialist retailers, Laithwaites, and various online AF stockists. Strongbow this is not.

The Collection

Alcohol Free Cider - 0.0%