There are a whole handful of different angles I could have taken to begin this short piece, but I want to start with the big one, which is: Perry Is Not Just For Summer.

Perry (and indeed cider) is a seasonal drink in terms of its making. As I write, I am casting an eye at my packing before heading off to Herefordshire for a week of getting in the way of the harvest. It’s the best time to be part of cider and perry social media – an endless stream of images of fully-fruited trees and apples and pears being brought in at their best for sorting, milling and pressing. We get videos of the first juice flowing, of bubbles popping up the early airlocks, of basket presses, belt presses, pneumatic presses and traditional old rack and cloth presses. It fills my soul and I recall the old Horrible Histories line: I love hard work, I could watch it for hours. Though this year, as I say, I have somehow tricked myself into toiling too.

Yes, the year long patter of cider and perry from bare tree to bud, to blossom, to fruit and finally to harvest is well documented. A pear tree’s work never stops, even though I like to joke that perrymakers themselves get a nine month holiday each year. Yet for the most part, the actual drinking of cider and perry on a national level is overwhelming crammed into a few short months of late spring and summer – and only then if the sun comes out, which this year it didn’t.

This presents an obvious problem to cider and perrymakers. Comparative boom times for a quarter of the year, then a long thankless struggle for the rest of it isn’t a business model that anyone wants to follow – especially those makers for whom cider and perry is the entirety of their business. It is incumbent on the cider and perry community as a whole to keep pushing the ‘not just for summer message’ right the way through the year. 

I am no better. I am just as guilty. We’ve historically taken January off as a ‘recharge month’ here on Cider Review, yet if there’s any time when people need an extra reminder that cider and perry exist, it’s the midwinter period after Christmas. It’s something we’ll have to reappraise perhaps at the start of 2024. What’s more, I can think of any number of instances where I have written in a tasting note that something is ‘a perfect summer perry’ or ‘a cider for sitting on the grass with in the sunshine’. I can’t think of too many I have described as wintertime companions.

This is the other problem with casting cider and perry as drinks for only the hot and heady days of June, July and August. It feeds the narrative that they are narrow in their breadth of style and flavour, and overlooks the enormous spectrum of ciders and perries that are ideally suited for longer nights and chillier months – ciders and perries, indeed, that are not necessarily all that summery at all. 

At the Ross-on-Wye festival this year, I drank and tasted as widely as I could, but my go-to drinks were the keg conditioned Winnal’s Longdon and the bottled Thorn, Flakey & Friends. Now those are summer perries. Packed with ripe, fresh, vibrant, fruit-forward flavour, they were exactly the thing for sitting in the orchards with in good company under the beating sun. As far as ciders went, Handsome Norman and Foxwhelp seemed to be the bottles that I saw on repeat over the weekend; drinks with the same vivd, bright, refreshing energy. And beautiful things too.

But as we creep into jumper weather, the bottles that seem most apposite would be some of the other releases. Raison d’Être, with its heft and oak. The autumnal, earthy tones of Flakey Bark. Perry is so often cast as a light, fragrant, fruity thing – and sometimes it is, and it performs that role beautifully. But there are so many more arrows to its quiver. From robust tannic bruisers to vinous, full-flavoured gems that marry perfectly with hearty food and spice. Perries made from pears like Oldfield, Butt, Rock – or De Fer in France, Grüne Pichelbirne or Dorschbirne in Austria. Perries matured in oak casks, perries that have been allowed to age for a few years to increase in depth and richness. Dry, full-bodied, stately perries which almost lose their point were they to be drunk vicariously outside in summer’s heat. And, of course, fortified perries; perries with a warming spicy core of pear spirit.

Which brings us to today’s bottling. Strictly speaking this isn’t a fortified perry, but a mistelle – a drink combining pear spirit with unfermented pear juice. The most famous mistelles in cider and perry are the apple-based Pommeaux of Normandy and Brittany, which we’ve talked about a fair bit in these pages, as I love them with all my heart. (This interview with Mathilde remains one of my favourites that we’ve ever published on Cider Review). And although ‘Pommeau’ is a term reserved for apple-centric mistelle, we learned back in January that the perrymakers of Domfront make sensational pear mistelles with their appellation’s favourite fruit.

Today’s mistelle however does not come from France, but from Gloucestershire in the Three Counties, and from no less vaunted a perry person than Charles Martell.

Charles is worth several articles in and of himself. I’ve not interviewed him for Cider Review to date – a glaring omission on my part – but his name has come up in several articles, most notably in our interview with Jim Chapman, steward of the National Perry Pear Collection, with whom Charles has done so much work. 

For years, Charles has been instrumental in documenting perry pears and going in search of lost varieties, rediscovering no small number of them in the process. In Ciderology, Gabe Cook talks about going on a pear hunt with Charles in a Dymock orchard where they successfully rediscovered Hampton Rough. And perhaps most famously, it was Charles who spotted the last six known mature specimens of Flakey Bark when he found himself going up the road beside which they grow in a slow moving horse and cart. 

Charles has dedicated himself to recording fruits in a series of modern Pomonas, my favourite (of course) being Pears of Gloucestershire and Perry Pears of the Three Counties, which you can buy a copy of here. He is, without question, one of the most important figures in Britain’s modern perry history.

On a national level though, Charles is probably most famous as a cheesemaker – and perhaps most of all for his Stinking Bishop, a cheese which gets its name through having been washed in Stinking Bishop perry, otherwise known as Moorcroft. Whilst he doesn’t sell any perry, he is also a distiller, and his website shows a handful of aged and unaged pear spirits as well as the subject of today’s review – his Poireau.

Poireau is described on Charles’ website as ‘pear spirit which is ‘cut’ with pressed perry pears … it contains only the product of vintage pears which grow on the farm here and absolutely nothing else.’ There’s no mention of whether or not it’s aged in oak casks at all. As we’ve seen, makers of pear-based mistelles in Domfront aren’t obliged to age in oak as their pommeaux-making counterparts are, and of course being based in Gloucestershire Charles isn’t bound by any appellation regulations either. A mystery then!

I came upon my 50ml bottle in the excellent Malvern Cellars where it cost me £6.30. A 500ml bottle directly from Charles is £35 – certainly on the pricier end of cider and perry products, but both distillation and rarity are worth bearing in mind. 

Charles Martell & Son Poireau – review

How I served: Room temperature

Appearance: Rich tawny gold. Still.

On the nose: That irresistible combination of rich, decadent, unctuous gluttony pierced by fresh, bright fruit that is the salute of great pear mistelle. Heather honey, golden syrup, freshly-made toffee, dried apricots and mangoes – but fresh, juicy tropical fruits as well, and sun-warmed summer flowers. (Summer, summer, summer – just can’t help myself). Pear compôte and fragrant polished wood, though that latter note could easily be the influence of spicy spirit rather than any actual oak. Wonderfully complex; magnificently fragrant. An aroma of light and shade.

In the mouth: There had to be a delivery to match – and there is. All gloss and luxury; super-juicy, honey-drizzled, dribble-down-your-chin mango. Body is ripe and round and full, but scored through with freshness and vibrancy. Full of spices but fresh, juicy fruits, pear syrups and honeys are always to the fore. Spirit and juice are integrated beautifully – there’s nothing ‘hot’ abut this whatsoever. So much fullness and richness and depth and sweetness, yet never once feels cloying or heavy. 

In a nutshell: An epic, remarkable, beautifully-crafted mistelle. Sensational stuff. Just what I wanted.

Conclusions

Some drinks are ‘summery’ in that their flavours and textures present perfectly for summer drinking. This drink, paradoxically, recalls all the ripe and heady flavours of summer whilst being the perfect, indulgent, contemplative drink to sip through autumn and winter. (Though I bet it’s also delicious over a large ice cube with a slice of orange in summer – just as Mathilde taught me to enjoy pommeau).

Either way, this is delicious, brilliantly-made stuff that absolutely merits its higher price tag and should be well on your radar when you’re next after a special occasion drink. What a versatile, flexible drink perry is. Truly a drink for all seasons.