AS CIDER sales soar, a Tasmanian apple tipple is to feature at an international salon event in Turin, Italy.
Cider sales will grow more strongly than those in any other alcohol category in the next five years, research firm IBIS World says.
In the next five years, cider sales should grow by about 21.5 per cent, compared with 1.5pc for beer and 3.4pc for spirits.
And Tasmanian producer Dr Clive Crossley is set to ride the wave with his Red Sails product.
"We have been invited to participate in an international cider workshop which is part of the slow food international Terra Madre and Salone del Gusto in Turin," he said.
As well as the Salone, Red Sails will be featured at the Terra Madre, being held around the same time.
"Countries from all around the world are taking part in it," he said. "It is an Australian stand but the main part will be Tasmania, with cider and leatherwood honey featured."
The events will take place in late October.
Dr Crossley said the switch to cider was a world-wide trend, which first started in the UK.
"We can't produce enough to meet the market and are limited by the amount of correct varieties," he said.
Heritage apples with names such as Yarlington Mill, Dabinet, Brown Snout and Fox Whelp are grown at the Middleton orchard.
"We have more than 40 varieties and more than 10 of pears," Dr Crossley said.
The orchard was first planted about 30 years ago "and we now have mature trees producing a balance of correct fruit to make really good cider".
Helping Dr Crossley and other island State cider-makers are researchers from the Fermentation Research Group at the Launceston campus of the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA).
"We don't have a large number of producers but more people are getting on board," researcher Dr Fiona Kerslake said.
"There is an upward trend in terms of cider production and consumption, whereas a lot of other sectors of the beverage market are plateauing or on a downturn."
The work on cider was a natural progression from that being done by TIA on wine, she said.
"Cider is a closer product to wine than it is to beer," she said.
"The industry came to us and were predominantly interested in using dessert apples – they wanted to know more about them and how they behaved when made into ciders."
Fellow researcher Dr Anna Carew said there was a "fantastic" stock of apples in Tasmania which were not widely grown elsewhere.
"We have orchards where cider apples are growing.
"They are cultivated, but there is a risk for orchardists in committing themselves to just planting cider apples because with dessert apples you have multiple markets.
"Cider is really an option for orchardists for their less pretty fruit – the fruit that is really not going to end up on the shelves in the supermarket."